PEN America Condemns “Alarming Spread” of Violence and Harassment Against Drag Story Hours
"These violent responses to drag performers and members of the LGBTQ+ community strike at the heart of the freedom to gather, read, perform, and share community safely, all bedrocks… More
RIGHTS GROUPS APPEAL TO UN FOR RELEASE OF JAILED IRANIAN WRITERS
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) and PEN America filed a complaint with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to hold Iran accountable for a pattern… More
Galal El-Behairy | Status: Imprisoned | Egypt
Galal El-Behairy is an Egyptian poet, lyricist, and activist who has been in detention in Tora Prison in Cairo since March 2018. More
Shahidul Alam | Status: On Trial | Bangladesh
Shahidul Alam, photographer, journalist, and activist, is currently being detained for commenting about the student protests in Dhaka, Bangladesh. More
The PEN Pod: Keeping Hope Alive with Jewher Ilham
“Only standing up, speaking up, on my father’s behalf, on Uyghurs’ behalf, to work on something, then we can at least try to make a small change.” More
The PEN Pod: Defending the Freedom to Write with Karin Deutsch Karlekar
“[It’s] important to not just look at numbers and to give trends a human face, and to really look at the individual cases of writers and intellectuals behind bars.” More
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo | Status: Released | Myanmar
Prosecutors have charged the journalists with obtaining important and secret state documents relating to the crisis in Rakhine State, from which some 680,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled since August… More
Israel: End judicial proceedings and ensure Dareen Tatour’s immediate release
Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian poet and citizen of Israel, was convicted by the Nazareth Magistrate's Court on May 3, 2018 on charges of incitement to violence and support for terror organizations. Tatour… More
Çayan Demirel and Ertuğrul Mavioğlu | Status: On Trial | Turkey
Award-winning filmmaker Çayan Demirel and veteran journalist Ertuğrul Mavioğlu, directors of the documentary Bakur (which means north in Kurdish), were charged in 2017 under Article 7/2-1 of Law no. 3713 on… More
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