Venezuelan PEN Challenges Country’s Human Rights Record at UN
[caption id="attachment_4223" align="alignnone" width="350" caption="Popular Venezuelan newspapers. Photo by Cristobal Alvarado Minic."][/caption] Last Friday in Geneva, it was Venezuela’s turn to be examined by the Universal Periodic Review of the… More
Fighting Ideological Exclusion in South Africa
South African PEN is protesting the South African government’s failure to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama to attend fellow Nobel Peace Prize recipient Desmond Tutu’s private 80th birthday… More
U.S. State Department to Issue Visa to Kurdish Human Rights Advocate
[caption id="attachment_603" align="alignnone" width="300" caption=" "][/caption] We have just learned that Kerim Yildiz, executive director of the London-based Kurdish Human Rights Projects and a leading speaker and advisor on Kurdish rights issues,… More
Zhou Qing: Punished to Save Them
Zhou Qing is a writer and board member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center who has written several groundbreaking books of investigative nonfiction. Imprisoned for almost three years after taking… More
U.N. Calls on China to Release Liu Xiaobo
Last week, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a panel comprised of independent legal experts, ruled that 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo, currently serving an 11-year… More
Success and Silence in Today’s China
Last week, a small group of representatives from PEN American Center and PEN International visited Beijing and Hong Kong, hoping to learn more about the situation for writers and… More
Now it is up to us: Remembering Natalia Estemirova
[caption id="attachment_921" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Natalia Estemirova © 2007 Victoria Ivleva-Yorke"][/caption] Two years ago on this day, the award-winning human rights activist and journalist Natalia Estemirova was found murdered after her… More
Actions Work: Tran Khai Thanh Thuy Released from Prison
[caption id="attachment_676" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Tran Khai Thanh Thuy"][/caption] Last week, PEN centers around the world celebrated the news that Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, a Vietnamese writer and PEN American Center… More
Torture and Our House of Mirrors
I went to Washington last week with China on my mind, but came back preoccupied once again with torture. [caption id="attachment_603" align="alignleft" width="269" caption="House of Mirrors"][/caption] That’s because twice in one… More
Ai Weiwei’s Release Gives Reason for Hope
[caption id="attachment_392" align="alignnone" width="392" caption="Ai Weiwei"] [/caption] We were much relieved to learn that Ai Weiwei was released this week on bail, though we know from the experiences of others in… More
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