PEN Canada envisions a world where
writers are free to write,
readers are free to read,
and freedom of expression prevails
Myanmar: Zarganar’s arrest highlights junta’s efforts to silence critics
PEN Canada joins PEN International in welcoming the release of five journalists with the Unity weekly journal, on 17 April 2016 following a presidential pardon.
Karen Connelly reflects on the changing climate of freedom of expression in Myanmar and how people and the challenges that lay ahead for its new PEN centre.
Five journalists with the Unity weekly journal were each sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labour on July 10, 2014 over a report about an alleged secret chemical weapons factory carried by the publication in January.
Lana Willocks retraces the most recent developments in the case of two journalists in Thailand fancing criminal defamation charges and examines the bigger picture of how Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act is threatening press freedom.
In this piece, which originally appeared in the Summer 1996 newsletter, Karen Connelly visited Aung San Suu Kyi at her home to discuss the wellbeing of two Burmese writers.
PEN Canada welcomes the release of Maung Thura – the Burmese poet and comedian better known as ‘Zarganar’ – in an amnesty for several hundred prisoners in Myanmar. Zarganar is an Honorary Member of PEN Canada and the recipient of our 2008 One Humanity Award.
Finding the Words: Writers on Inspiration, Desire, War, Celebrity, Exile, and Breaking the Rules