Dedicated to the work of Freemuse, the festival featured artists from Africa, Europe and USA and received supportive greetings from Nobel laureates, Shirin Ebadi and JM Coetzee.

The festival presented music by Ray Lema, Mehdi Haddab, Herborg Kråkevik and Los Tigres Del Norte, an art exhibition by Congo’s most famous satirical painter Cheri-Cherin and a roundtable which included several artists and Freemuse representative Ole Reitov.

That censorship is also hitting painters became obvious at the exhibition by the Congolese artist Chiri Chirin. Several of his paintings were missing because the painter had been forced to leave them at home. Local authorities in Congo considered them “too controversial to bring out of the country”. His paintings are considered controversial in Congo because of their very direct way of commenting on corruption, aid-dependency and social life.

The festival poster was designed by Finnish cartoonist Ville Ranta, who created controversy in Finland for his cartoons during the crisis over the Danish 'Muhammed cartoons'.

Organised by the Basque concert organiser Serrano, and funded by local foundations and the city council of Guernica, the festival also presented Simon Broughton’s film 'Breaking the Silence' – a documentary film showing how music came back to Afghanistan after the Taliban were forced out of Kabul.