PEN Canada envisions a world where
writers are free to write,
readers are free to read,
and freedom of expression prevails
The following freedom of expression and media freedom organizations, strongly condemn the court’s interim decision on the Gezi Park trial to continue the detention of civil society leading figure Osman Kavala at the end of the third hearing of the case, on October 8, 2019.
The attack on writer, journalist and activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro on 21 July 2019 exposes once again the dangers of being a journalist in Mexico, as well as the urgent need to combat impunity.
PEN welcomes the release of Rashad Ramazanov, an Azerbaijani blogger and writer who was arrested on May 9, 2013 and sentenced to nine years in prison on fabricated charges of illegal possession and sale of drugs.
PEN International joins Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish PEN centres in expressing deep concern for the well-being of Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was handed over 38 years in prison and 148 lashes for national security-related offences.
Rashad Ramazanov and other Azeri dissidents are joining Mehman Huseynov in a hunger strike.
President Enrique Peña Nieto’s six years in office have been the most violent on record for Mexico’s journalists.
Released on the final day of PEN’s 84th annual congress, PEN’s report warns of “a rising tide of violence, impunity, extended pre-trial detentions, and surveillance” under the Modi government, of “punitive defamation laws [that] mute criticism”, nervous publishers who “have asked journalists to be less critical of authorities” and universities where a “climate of fear” has curbed student activism, rescinded invitations to controversial professors, andpurged textbooks that are deemed offensive.
The Turkish authorities should drop all charges against publisher and human rights activist Ragıp Zarakolu, PEN International said today.
Liu Xiaobo who is suddenly ‘free’ isn’t free at all; but let us celebrate this great man’s greater, more lasting freedom, so terribly earned: to be back in the arms of his beloved.
PEN Canada Advocates write to an imprisoned honorary member each month for one year.
Finding the Words: Writers on Inspiration, Desire, War, Celebrity, Exile, and Breaking the Rules