Nevertheless, OFF seems to be overcoming the initial suspicion of Norway's left-oriented government and human rights establishment. This year there were fewer newspaper articles wondering if the presence of Venezuelan opposition figures was proof of CIA sponsorship of the forum. Moreover, the country's best-known author, Asne Seierstad, introduced some of the speakers, and the City of Oslo, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Amnesty International Norway and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs all lent support to this year's event. 

Between sessions, the speakers and the audience had coffee on the terrace of the Grand Hotel, which Ibsen was said to visit twice a day. It overlooks the Norwegian parliament building and the square in front of it, which on most days hosts a small demonstration. Compared to London's Parliament Square, there is little traffic and no visible security. The absence of walls, armed police and X-ray machines is startling, as powerful a reminder of how much life has changed in the UK as the sight of the gleaming royal yacht in Oslo's harbour. 

Last year in front of the Parliament there were supporters of the Tamil Tigers, waving banners and shouting. This year, there were Iranian communists, though they were outnumbered by noisy gaggles of Norwegian students in bright red overalls taking part in "Russ", the country's traditional two-week celebration of high-school graduation. But all the activity in the square came to a halt when Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev arrived at the Grand Hotel in a flurry of sirens, police motorcycles and black limousines for a meeting with the Norwegian government.

The presence of Medvedev's security men during the Forum cannot have been pleasant for participants such as Kasparov, Vladimir Bukovsky and the Chechen lawyer Lidia Yusupova. One Russian critic at the conference felt sure that his room had been broken into and searched while Medvedev's FSB were in town. 

I wondered if coming to a conference like this may have made Yusupova — whose former colleague Natalya Estemirova was assassinated last year — and others less vulnerable at home. However, on the second morning of the event Diego Arria, the courtly former Venezuelan ambassador to the UN and key witness in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, discovered that Chávez had sent police to seize his farm. 

The grim past and uncertain future of so many of the delegates gave the final event of the conference all the more meaning. It was a speech by Lech Walesa. With characteristic simplicity and good cheer he assured his audience that the impossible really can be achieved, even by an ordinary electrician from Gdansk. As he spoke, I looked at Lubna Hussein, Yusupova and the others and they seemed to be growing in their seats.