INTERNATIONAL PEN
WRITERS IN PRISON COMMITTEE
DAY OF THE IMPRISONED WRITER

15 NOVEMBER 2007

Notice



In any given year, International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) monitors around 1,000 attacks against writers, journalists, poets, publishers and editors world wide. These range from persistent harassment and threats through to long prison sentences and even killings. The past year has been no different with hundreds of writers and journalists detained, and over 40 killed in the practice of their professions. Eighty six years after PEN was founded in 1921, and 47 since it formed its WiPC to tackle the suppression of the right to write in 1960, the need for monitoring, protest and action is as great as ever.

Each year, on 15 November, International PEN stages its Day of the Imprisoned Writer where its membership of writers raise public awareness of the plight of their colleagues world wide, write protest appeals, stage events and use their combined force as writers towards change. Five cases are selected to represent the global spread of the problems as well as to illustrate the types of attacks.

This day is also a moment to commemorate writers and journalists killed since the previous Day of the Imprisoned Writer. Between November 2006 and today, PEN has reported on 42 such murders in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Iraq, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela. Among them was Hrant Dink, a Turkish Armenian editor who was himself featured in the Day of the Imprisoned Writer 15 November 2006 when he was on trial on charges of insult to “Turkishness”. He was assassinated two months later. His killer and a number of others implicated in his murder are now on trial.

On 15 November 2007, the Day of the Imprisoned Writer will focus on:

· Burma (Myanmar) – Zargana – a well-known comedian and poet who was among the many arrested in the recent crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators that is still under way;
· Cuba - Normando Hernández González – a journalist imprisoned under crackdown on dissidents in 2003 and since held under dire conditions;
· Gambia – Fatou Jaw Manneh – a journalist on trial and facing a heavy sentence on charges of sedition for her articles criticising the Gambian president.
· Iran – Yaghoub Yadali – a novelist given a one year sentence for his fictional characterisation of the ethnic minority of which he is himself a member;
· Uzbekistan – Jamshid Karimov – a journalist who has covered human rights abuses, and wrote critical articles and who has been held in psychiatric detention for over a year.

Attached with this notice are:

- casesheets of each of the five focus cases
- recommended actions
- list of those killed since 15 November 2006

To Follow

- Press release: an International PEN press release announcing the Day of the Imprisoned Writer will be issued around 1 November 2007. (Centres may wish to use the material provided today if needed before that date.

- Updates: any new information about the focus cases and/or news about killings of writers and journalists will be provided on 13 November 2007.

If you have any questions, please contact me!