Take Action: Eskinder Nega Verdict Due Next Week
[caption id="attachment_11203" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Eskinder Nega, photo by Lennart Kjörling"][/caption] Yesterday, Senator Patrick Leahy issued a strong statement in support of 2012 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award recipient Eskinder… More
Liu Xiaobo in Hong Kong
Liu Xiaobo was in Hong Kong on Saturday. He sat silent in a frame, on an empty chair, as hundreds of people bent down to him, a sign of… More
Russian PEN: Protesting Anti-Protest Legislation
[caption id="attachment_13392" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Russian protestors clash with riot police in Moscow"][/caption] News this week that Russian authorities had arrested more protestors and that teams of investigators raided the homes… More
PEN at the UN: Human Rights Council completes review of South Africa, Bahrain, Ecuador, and Tunisia
[caption id="attachment_13121" align="alignnone" width="384" caption="Photo by 12thplaya on CreativeCommons License"][/caption] Last week, PEN was excited to see free expression issues take center stage during reviews of South Africa, Bahrain, Ecuador, and… More
On Memorial Day Weekend, America Reckons with Torture
[caption id="attachment_12717" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Sketch of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin"][/caption] On this weekend's Moyers & Company (check local listings), PEN American Center's Larry Siems, author of… More
PEN Heading to Supreme Court
[caption id="attachment_12462" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="U.S. Supreme Court, photo by Matt H. Wade via WikiCommons"][/caption] The Supreme Court announced today that it will consider whether plaintiffs represented by the ACLU—a list… More
PEN, Co-Plaintiffs Ask Supreme Court to Let Surveillance Case Go to Trial
[caption id="attachment_11538" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="U.S. Supreme Court, photo by Matt H. Wade via WikiCommons"][/caption] Our legal challenge to the U.S. government’s secret, warrantless surveillance program is back in the news… More
PEN Presses for Visa for Palestinian Poet
Yesterday, we got word through our Translation Committee that Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan, whose collection Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me is being released by Yale University Press… More
PEN Goes to the UN
[caption id="attachment_10630" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Members of the UN Human Rights Committee"][/caption] For the past three weeks, I've been trudging up to the UN to engage with the Human Rights Committee.… More
Breaking Through Cybercensorship
[caption id="attachment_9784" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Photo by Olivier Delhoume"][/caption] A passionate panel of cyberactivists convened at the Cooper Union as part of the ThinkSwiss festival to discuss new tools and approaches to combating online censorship.… More