Articles by PEN America
PEN America report details crackdown on creative voices in Turkey
The new report outlines the legal mechanisms that the Turkish government has used to silence writers, activists, artists, academics, and creative professionals over the past five years.
Dark patterns, web design, and free expression
PEN America – along with Consumer Reports, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, and others – launched the Dark Patterns Tip Line, a website where anyone can share examples of the websites that confuse and coerce us into making decisions or agreeing to terms that we wouldn’t otherwise.
Three ways social media companies can disarm abusive users
“To protect the victims and ensure their voices are not silenced, social media companies must actively discourage abuse and hold abusive users accountable – but in ways that do not themselves infringe on freedom of expression.”
PEN America launches its Freedom to Write Index 2020
During 2020, according to data collected for PEN America’s Freedom to Write Index, at least 273 writers, academics, and public intellectuals in 35 countries – in all geographic regions around the world – were in prison or unjustly held in detention in connection with their writing, their work, or related activism.
Writer and Belarusian PEN member Aliaksandr Fiaduta must be released
Fiaduta was detained in Russia, reportedly by the Belarusian KGB. Fiaduta is being detained without access to legal counsel or medical care and no charge against him is listed.
Online abuse and the threat it poses to free speech
Viktorya Vilk, PEN America’s program director of Digital Safety and Free Expression, discusses how online abuse directly affects freedom of speech as well as the different ways social media companies can stem online abuse and support their abused users.
Belarus: Well known literary translator Volha Kalackaja sentenced to two years’ house arrest
After spending two months in pre-trial detention, Kalackaja was convicted of “hooliganism”. She had allegedly slapped a state journalist who was harassing passersby and questioning civilians’ ability to grieve for artist Raman Bandarenka, who was beaten to death by security forces in November.
US must hold Mohammed bin Salman accountable for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, rights groups say
In response to the release of a U.S. congressional report identifying Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as having ordered the operation against journalist Jamal Khashoggi, rights groups call on the Biden administration to impose sanctions on the prince, and suspend arms sales.