Truth-Telling And Its Dire Consequences: PEN America Hosts Conversation with Writers Targeted by Authoritarians Around the Globe
By Suzanne Trimel (NEW YORK)—The difficult plight of writers living under authoritarian rule has been well-documented over decades, with some enduring impossibly harsh treatment for their truth-telling and resistance to… More
Uladzimir Matskevich
Uladzimir Matskevich is a prominent philosopher who writes about public consciousness in politics. He was arrested on August 4, 2021 in a home raid and has been detained in… More
Valeria Kostyugova
Political analyst and writer Valeria Kostyugova is an editor of the online expert community Our Opinion and its annual publication Belarusian Yearbook. She has written about Belarusian-Russian politics for… More
Ales Bialacki
Ales Bialacki is a writer, literary critic, and head of the prominent human rights organization Viasna. On July 14, 2021, Bialacki was arrested on feigned “tax evasion” charges, targeting… More
Alexander Feduta
Literary intellectual, writer, and PEN Belarus member Alexander Feduta was arrested on April 13, 2021 on “suspicion of committing a crime”—authorities alleged without evidence that Feduta was plotting a… More
Andrzej Poczobut
Belarusian-Polish political writer and minority rights activist Poczobut comments on politics in his blog and columns, for Polish newspapers, and has published a book on President Alexander Lukashenka’s political… More
Eduard Palchys Jhon Silver
Writing under the pen name Jhon Silver, Palchys ran a website called 1863x where he published articles criticizing Belarusian and Russian authorities. He was jailed in 2016 for his… More
PEN America Condemns Ihar Losik’s Politically Motivated Sentencing
“Ihar Losik is guilty of nothing more than exercising his fundamental right to freedom of expression,” said PEN America’s Eurasia Director Polina Sadovskaya. More
PEN America Welcomes PEN Belarus Report Detailing Persecution of Cultural Workers
PEN Belarus’s report documents the persecution of writers, artists, poets, and other cultural figures between January and September 2021. More
PEN America Welcomes Congressional Resolution Condemning Repression in Belarus
Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) introduced a resolution in the U.S. House decrying the Belarusian regime and its brutal suppression of the pro-democracy movement over the… More
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This week, PEN America and a delegation of Ukrainian writers and human rights defenders met with members of Congress. Thank you @SenWhitehouse, @RepMcGovern, and @RepCohen!
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