(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a WiPC press release: International PEN Writers in Prison Committee At The 66th International PEN Congress, Warsaw 15-20 June 1999 In his presentation to the 66th International PEN Congress, held in Warsaw from 15-20 June, the Chair of PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee, Moris Farhi, told the gathered delegates of […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a WiPC press release:
International PEN Writers in Prison Committee At The 66th International PEN
Congress, Warsaw 15-20 June 1999
In his presentation to the 66th International PEN Congress, held in Warsaw
from 15-20 June, the Chair of PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee, Moris
Farhi, told the gathered delegates of the courage shown by so many writers
around the world. In facing up to their oppressors and speaking out, despite
extraordinary dangers to themselves, these writers have used courage as “a
tool for survival . an attribute that distinguishes us, like love and
compassion, as a good, moral person fit to belong to the caring humanity we
labour to create.”
Such courage has been shown again and again during the past nine months
since the last PEN congress, held in Helsinki in September 1998. A
remarkable manifestation of this was that of fifty Iranian writers who, in
the wake of the brutal murder in the closing weeks of 1998 of five of their
colleagues, wrote open letters calling on the authorities to investigate the
killings and bring the perpetrators to justice. A resolution was passed on
these killings.
In late October, the editor of several independent journals in Serbia,
Slavko Curuvija, received the first of a series of warnings against his
criticism of the authorities in the form of heavy fines. Yet he continued to
speak out and in March he received a five-month prison term. Just two weeks
later, he too was murdered by unidentified gunmen. At this Congress, a
resolution was passed on the arrest of Albanian poet, Flora Brovina, who was
taken by Serb police from her home in Pristina in April and is now held
within Serbia.
During 1998, 17 writers and journalists were killed for their writings and
around 260 were in prison. China is the country holding the most writers in
prison with some 25 reported to be detained. Most are serving long terms,
and suffer ill health and poor conditions. While some have been held since
the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, others were arrested more
recently. These include Xu Wenli who received a massive 13-year sentence in
December for his opposition to the government.
In Turkey, a plethora of laws are used to indict writers. We are monitoring
a hundred writers and journalists who are either in prison or on trial. One
of the most outstanding perversions of justice is the detention of Esber
Yagmurdereli, who is serving a total of 16 years for his comments on the
situation of the Kurds. Another writer, Ismail Besikci is serving over 40
years worth of sentences, and faces an additional 30 years imprisonment if
convicted of other charges which are still on trial.
One of the longest prison terms served in recent years was that against
General Gallardo in Mexico who is serving a total of 28 years in prison for
his writings criticising the military. While in Warsaw, a delegation of
writers met with the Mexican ambassador there to lobby on his behalf.
The PEN Congress in Warsaw welcomed the Vietnamese writer Doan Viet Hoat,
for whom Polish PEN has campaigned for many years until his release in
September 1998. All but two writers in prison were released with him under
an amnesty, but any delight in the releases has been tempered by the
continuing repression of writers in the country. Ogaga Ifowodo a Nigerian
poet who spent several months in prison from 1997-8, also spoke movingly of
the support that contact with International PEN had brought him while in
prison.
The Assembly passed a number of resolutions on situations which reflect
PEN’s concerns that free expression remains under threat as we approach the
millennium. They serve as a sign of its commitment to the struggle towards
the end of any form of suppression of freedom of expression wherever it may
occur.
The resolutions concerned:
· Detentions in Turkey and Uzbekistan;
· Killings in Iran;
· Imprisonment of writers and repression of the media in Mexico, Cuba, Peru,
Vietnam, Syria and China
· Trial proceedings against writers on the environment in Russia alongside
concerns for the state of a free press in the country
· Calling for retrospective justice for the Nigerian writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa,
executed in 1995
· The arrest of a poet in Kosovo
· Death threats in Colombia
· The closure of a Kurdish language TV station based in the UK.
