PEN International

(WiPC/IFEX) – International PEN is watching with growing concern the proliferation of judicial hearings being brought against writers and publishers under a penal code that had been amended earlier this year with the aim of bringing it into harmony with European Union human rights standards. Hopes that the amendments would lead to a reduction in […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – WiPC welcomes the release of writer and medical doctor Abdul Aziz Al-Khayer on 3 November 2005 under a Presidential Amnesty to mark the Muslim Eid holiday. Medical doctor and dissident writer Abdul Aziz Al-Khayer was arrested in Damascus on 1 February 1992 and sentenced to 22 years’ imprisonment for his membership of the […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee is gravely concerned at reports that leading dissident journalist and writer Akbar Ganji has been tortured by security officers in Milad hospital, Tehran, and is being ill-treated in prison. International PEN calls on the Iranian authorities to launch an immediate investigation into these allegations, and demands that […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee is seriously concerned about the detention of leading Shi’a religious leader and scholar Grand Ayatollah Yasub al-Din Rastgari, who is believed to have been held since 27 April 2004 for publishing a book on Islamic religious history. PEN first learned of this case in June 2005, and […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – International PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee welcomes the release on bail on 5 October 2005 of writer and women’s rights activist Dr. Roya Toloui, who was among several prominent Kurdish human rights defenders and journalists to be detained on 2 August 2005 following protests in the city of Sanandaj, capital of Kurdistan. International […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN is seriously concerned for the well-being of writer Zhang Lin, who has been on hunger strike since 4 September 2005 to protest his sentence and harsh treatment in prison. He has reportedly been hospitalised and believed to be very weak. Zhang was sentenced to five years in prison […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – Members of International PEN, the world association of writers, are protesting the decision to take to court one of Turkey’s most well-known writers, Orhan Pamuk, for comments seen to be “insulting” to the Turkish state. His trial is due to open in mid-December (see IFEX alerts of 2 September and 6 April 2005). […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN welcomes the release of pastor, lawyer and dissident Internet writer Nguyen Hong Quang, who was amnestied on 2 September 2005. He was arrested on 8 June 2004 and sentenced to three years in prison for his dissident activities.