As Threats Escalate Against Narges Mohammadi, PEN America Calls For Her Immediate Release from Iranian Prison
“Mohammadi’s life was already at serious risk in Qarchak prison, due to the prison authorities’ dismissive, even malicious treatment of her fragile health,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of… More
PEN America 2021 Freedom to Write Index: Myanmar Joins China and Saudi Arabia as World’s Top Jailers of Writers
During 2021, Myanmar accounted for the single-largest increase of writers and public intellectuals newly jailed for exercising free expression, due to the military junta’s crackdown on influential voices. More
Freedom to Write Index 2021
During 2021, at least 277 writers and public intellectuals in 36 countries were unjustly imprisoned or detained in connection with their writing, their work, or related activism. 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
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
Nasrin Sotoudeh, Imprisoned in Iran
Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer and public intellectual who has faced harassment and intimidation for years and spent time in and out of prison. More
Ahmet Altan, Imprisoned in Turkey
Ahmet Altan is the founder of Taraf, who was arrested for allegedly spreading subliminal messages on television before an attempted coup against Erdoğan. More
Galal El-Behairy, Imprisoned in Egypt
Galal El-Behairy is an Egyptian poet and songwriter. He was arrested and sentenced to prison for his criticism of the government expressed in his lyrics. More
Ilham Tohti, Imprisoned in China
Ilham Tohti is a writer and professor from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Tohti’s defense of human rights has made him a target of the Chinese state. More
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Entertainment Weekly (@EW) asked LGBTQ authors to pick books by other queer authors that bring them joy. https://ew.com/books/lgbtq-books-queer-joy-celebrating-art/
What are the 25 most influential New York novels published between 1921 and 2021? @nytimes judges share their top picks, including PEN America president @ayadakhtar’s HOMELAND ELEGIES! https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/22/t-magazine/new-york-city-novels-books.html
Is it true that since K-12 teachers don’t have free speech rights in the classroom, educational gag orders don’t raise any Constitutional concerns? Here are 5 popular myths about educational gag orders debunked by PEN America: https://bit.ly/3n9QviZ.
