PEN Canada envisions a world where
writers are free to write,
readers are free to read,
and freedom of expression prevails
Organizations which support human rights, press freedom and journalists are calling on United Nations mechanisms and member states to help save the lives of four Yemeni journalists who were sentenced to death in April 2020 in the capital Sana’a on charges of “spying” and “spreading false news.” Of the six other journalists in the same case whom […]
PEN International is highly concerned about the arrest and continued detention of reporter, lawyer and human rights defender Elchin Mammad. On 30 March 2020, a few days after Mammad published a critical report on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan, police arrested him at his home, claiming to have found stolen jewellery in his office. […]
PEN Malaysia is deeply concerned by the selective targeting of Malaysian journalist Tashny Sukumaran by the authorities for her report in the South China Morning Post on 1 May 2020 headlined Coronavirus: Hundreds arrested as Malaysia cracks down on migrants in COVID-19 red zones. On 2 May 2020, she received a telephone call from the Royal Malaysian […]
On World Press Freedom Day, PEN International published its 2019 Case List, documenting 212 cases of writers facing harassment, arrest, violence and even death. Read and download the Case List For nearly a century, PEN International has monitored and advocated for writers who have suffered repression of their right to write freely and to comment on […]
Fatih Demir, an exiled Turkish journalist, is PEN Canada’s current Writer-in-Residence at George Brown College. Demir was an economics reporter for Today’s Zaman, an English-language daily inTurkey and fled to Canada in 2016 while hundreds of journalists were being jailed in the wake of the failed 2015 coup. Demir was recently interviewed by PEN’s Communications […]
Humber School for Writers Creative Writing by Correspondence Program (Creative Writing-Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction, Poetry) The Humber School for Writers is seeking applications from PEN Canada’s Writers-in-Exile for its 28-week graduate certificate program commencing in September 2020. A full scholarship is available to writers who: are working on a book-length project – creative non-fiction, memoir, novel, book of short stories or […]
Re: Media Access to Federal Inmates and Prisons during the COVID-19 Crisis We are writing to express our concern regarding Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), and the restrictions it is placing on federal inmates’ access to news reporters. These restrictions are unduly limiting the media’s ability to provide the public with an accurate and timely […]
We are giving up our freedoms in the fight against COVID-19. The question is will we get them back? Does freedom – a true freedom of strong precepts rather than meaningless platitudes – interfere with what we must do to survive?
In the early hours of Tuesday, April 14 the Turkish Parliament passed a law that will lead to the release of up to 90,000 prisoners. However, it excludes scores of journalists, human rights defenders, politicians, lawyers and others arbitrarily detained pending trial or serving sentences following unfair trials under Turkey’s overly broad anti-terrorism laws that […]
London, March 31, 2020- The murder of journalist María Elena Ferral shows, once again, the lack of protection for journalists and confirms that Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries to be a journalist, said PEN International and PEN San Miguel de Allende today, and urgently call on the Mexican government to investigate the […]
Finding the Words: Writers on Inspiration, Desire, War, Celebrity, Exile, and Breaking the Rules