November 2007 - Nr. 11
INTERNATIONAL PEN'S DAY OF THE IMPRISONED WRITER
The
"Day of the Imprisoned Writer" was inaugurated twenty years ago by pen's
Writers in Prison Committee as a day when special efforts would be made by
the literary community to ameliorate the plight of writers and journalists
penalized in the course of carrying out their profession. Over the years,
the day has been marked by campaigns aimed at putting pressure on the
responsible governments or other agencies. These have included media
stories, embassy visits, appeals to governments, petitions and public events
and readings. pen's Writers in Prison Committee selects up to six cases of
writers as a focus for the day's activities: these are men and women whose
fate has perhaps been hitherto neglected by the international community or
whose situation has become so serious that only a widespread, rapid action
of this kind offers hope of relief.
The day was first marked in 1981. At that time, in the context of the Cold War, many writers were serving long sentences in the prison and re-education camps in the former USSR and other Eastern European countries; many others in Latin America simply vanished without trace, never to the seen again at the hands of bloody military dictatorship. PEN at any one time had detailed files on around about four hundred cases of men and women who had thus disappeared or were condemned to ten and fifteen-year terms in the gulags. The then Writers in Prison Committee chair called the prisons of that time "welters of human cruelty". Mounting concern against these brutal forms of censorship led PEN members to institute mechanisms to concert their efforts to counter the attacks: one of the most successful ways found was the "Day of the Imprisoned Writer".
For information about International Pen’s Day visit:
http://www.pen.org/freedom/doiw_iran.htm http://www.pen-centre.com/eng/progr_wip-day.html http://www.englishpen.org/writersinprison/ http://www.pencanada.ca/
