Tag: free expression matters

DOIW 2022 – Take Action for Tsitsi Dangarembga

Tsitsi Dangarembga is an award-winning Zimbabwean novelist, filmmaker, playwright, activist, and founding member of PEN Zimbabwe.

Campaigns

Resisting Iran’s Theocracy

On September 16, 2022, a young woman from the Kurdish town of Saqez in northwest Iran travelled to Tehran. Shortly after her arrival, she was arrested for wearing an “improper hijab” and later died while in the custody of the “Morality Police.” Her tragic and unjust death sparked a series of protests and her name Zhina (Mahsa) soon became a national symbol of resistance to an oppressive, theocratic and misogynist government.

Campaigns

DOIW 2022 – Take Action for Narges Mohammadi

Narges Mohammadi is an Iranian writer, journalist, human rights defender, and Honorary Member of the Danish, Belgian, Norwegian, and Swedish PEN centres. She is the former Vice-President and spokesperson of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), co-winner of the 2013 Oxfam Novib / PEN Award, and winner of the 2011 Per Anger Prize and the 2009 Alexander Langer Award.

Salman Rushdie at the 2017 PEN Canada Gala

News

An attack on one writer is an attack on us all

PEN Canada was shocked and horrified by the vicious attack on Salman Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York State last Friday. Now, a few days later, we are heartened by the positive news as to his condition – on the mend, says his agent — despite wounds that are life-changing and the prospect of a long road to recovery.