Author: PEN-Canada

Myanmar: PEN Centres around the world condemn the execution of writer Kyaw Min Yu

PEN Centres around the world are appalled by Monday’s news that writer Kyaw Min Yu (also known as Ko Jimmy) is among four pro-democracy activists who have been executed by the military junta, following a show trial that denied their ability to establish their innocence according to international fair trial norms. According to sources, Kyaw Min Yu’s family have yet to be informed of the specific date that his execution took place.

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RWCHR files complaint to UN on behalf of Dawit Isaak and his colleagues

The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR), in partnership with an international coalition of leading NGOs, including Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), PEN International, Defend Defenders, and Mr. Isaak’s Swedish legal counsel, filed a complaint to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention calling for accountability for the Eritrean government’s gross human rights violations against Dawit Isaak and his colleagues, the longest detained journalists in the world today, and their immediate and unconditional release.

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India: Detention of writer and human rights defender, Teesta Setalvad, is latest assault on civil society

PEN International is alarmed by reports that writer and human rights defender, Teesta Setalvad, has been detained by the Indian authorities.

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Fareh Malik wins 2022 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award

June 24, 2022 — Fareh Malik, a poet from Hamilton, Ontario has won the 2022 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices award. The jury described his collection, Streams that Lead Somewhere as an intense “portrait of what it’s like to feel othered and alienated by daily doses of hate.” The citation noted the poems’ “tenderness and throat-grabbing use of imagery” and Malik’s “wide range of voices and tones to convey a nuanced spectrum of emotions and a laser sharp critique of Canada’s blatant and covert systemic racism”