PEN International

(WiPC/IFEX) – Erdal Tas, the publisher of Noam Chomsky’s “American Interventionism”, was acquitted on 13 February 2002 of “disseminating separatist propaganda”. Chomsky, who attended the trial in Istanbul and requested that he be tried alongside Tas, expressed his delight at the news adding, “I hope it will be a step towards establishing the freedom of […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – The numbers of writers and journalists currently on trial or facing court hearings in the near future has reached worrying levels in Turkey. At the same time, proposed constitutional amendments which, it was hoped, would improve the status of free expression in Turkey, appear instead to recommend the extension of the scope of […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a correction to the WiPC Cuba alert issued on 17 January 2002. WiPC regrets the error: Contrary to the information contained in a WiPC Cuba alert issued on the IFEX network on 17 January 2002, WiPC of International PEN regrets to report that Bernardo Arévalo Padron continues to serve his […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – WiPC welcomes the release of Bernardo Arévalo Padron. According to PEN’s sources, the journalist and director of independent press agency Linea Sur Press was released in the last few days (the exact date is yet to be confirmed). He had served over four years of a six-year sentence handed down in 1997 on […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN has welcomed the news of the release of Pedro Carranza Ugaz on 2 January 2002 after having served more than eight years of a twenty-year sentence for alleged collaboration with terrorists. Carranza Ugaz received a pardon after a review of his case was carried out by the Ministry […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – On 8 January 2002, International PEN learned that Uzbek poet Yusuf Dzhumaev, detained since October 2001, was released on 29 December. According to WiPC’s sources in Uzbekistan, Dzhumaev was brought before the Bukhara Regional Court on 29 December. At the open trial, attended by the local media, humanitarian groups, relatives and neighbours, he […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – The trial against Turkish journalist Burak Bekdil, charged for an article deemed to be “insulting to the state and its institutions” started on 21 December 2001, with a second hearing scheduled for 14 February 2002. International PEN believes that the charges against Bekdil represent a direct breach of his right to freedom of […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – On 25 December 2001, Grigory Pasko, the military journalist who has been on trial for his documentation of the dumping of nuclear waste by the Russian Navy, was forced to return to prison for a further two years and four months. International PEN is outraged at this decision and calls for his immediate […]