The first event for 2010 will be ‘Women Writers – Double Jeopardy’ also at the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas at the State Library of Victoria. It will be held between 2 and 3 pm on Sunday, 14 March 2010. Celebrating women writers who are living and working under threat. The event will only be an hour long and cannot run over time, so we ask everyone to arrive by 2pm sharp. Cost is a donation to Writers in Prison. More information will be posted on this event, but put it in your diary now. THIS WILL BE THE FIRST EVENT MARKING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PEN’S WRITERS IN PRISON COMMITTEE.
There are places in the world – all too many of them – where it is dangerous to be a writer – and there are places where it is dangerous to be a woman. Where these two ‘perils’ exist together, life can be almost impossible.
Nonetheless women in such places write about their lives and the injustices they face. From Russia to Guinea to Saudi Arabia, the lives of women writers are at times terrifying. Melbourne PEN Centre’s first event for 2010 will celebrate the lives of these brave women with readings and a discussion. 2pm Sunday, March 14, 2010 at the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas at the State Library of Victoria.

President Arnold Zable begins his final editorial of 2009 with this exciting news
‘To begin at the end, this afternoon I was shown around the new Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas at the State Library. The centre is still being renovated, but some of the key players have moved in. They include the directors and staff of the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Victorian Writers Centre.
Melbourne PEN is being provided with a desk, and we can begin to use it in February, next year. Finally we have a stable and central address, Melbourne International PEN, at the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas. The facilities include meeting rooms, the boardroom, which is ideal for committee meetings, an auditorium that will seat 200, and rooms for more informal gatherings.
There will be a coffee shop at street level near the entrance, with seating both inside and on the pavement, which is due to open in March.’
To read more, download our December 2009 newsletter

We, the undersigned, are extremely outraged at the news that Dr. Liu Xiaobo, the best-known dissident writer and one of the most renowned intellectuals in China,  is to be tried in Beijing in a few days solely for his writings.

We strongly condemn this most recent move of Chinese regime to signify its  increasing challenge to the universal values of freedom, democracy and human rights regardless of the widespread international and domestic criticisms of its ruthless violations of Chinese citizens¡¯ rights in general and continuous detention of Dr. Liu Xiaobo in particular.

Dr. Liu Xiaobo, an internationally-recognized literary critic and political commentator as well as the former and Honorary President of Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC), has been detained since 8 December 2008 and was indicted a year later on 11 December 2009 on ‘inciting subversion of state power’ for initiating and drafting Charter 08, a petition for constitutional  reform in China that has been so far cosigned by more than 10,000 Chinese citizens, as well as for criticizing Chinese Communist regime in six articles of his publications since 2005.

It is reported now that Dr. Liu is to be tried by the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court in a few days.

We believe that to try Dr. Liu Xiaobo is not only to unscrupulously abuse the rule of law, but also to try all of us who share with Dr. Liu the responsibility to exercise the freedom of expression anywhere in the world.

Therefore, we call on all the communities, institutions and individuals in solidarity to press the Chinese authorities for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Liu Xiaobo.

Co-signed by:
Independent Chinese PEN Center
PEN American Center
Swiss German PEN
PEN Center USA
Sydney PEN
Melbourne PEN

(13 November 2009 Stockholm) 63 PEN Centers and 11 organizations worldwide have issued today a joint statement calling on U.S. President Barack Obama while visiting China to demand the Chinese Government to release all prisoners of conscience, including PEN members Dr. Liu Xiaobo,Shi Tao,Yang Tongyan and other imprisoned writers and human rights defenders.

The statement are also co-signed by several leading officers of the Internatinal PEN, the former and current International Presidents Jirí Grusa and John Ralston Saul, Vice-president Gloria Guardia，International Secretary Eugene Schoulgin, former and current chairpersons of Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) Karin Clark and Marian Botsford Fraser, and WiPC member Edwood Kovac. With a list of several typical cases, its main content is given below.

Dr. Liu Xiaobo, prominent Beijing writer and honorary president of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, has been formally arrested for four months. He has been detained for eleven months and accused of “inciting subversion of state power” simply because in December last year he took part in drafting Charter 08, which demands that the Chinese government improve its political system and human rights situation, and because he penned several articles critical of government officials. He is one of many writers and human rights defenders to be imprisoned and prosecuted for this offence.

US President Obama received this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on 9 October. He will visit Beijing and Shanghai on 15-18 November to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao. The US House of Representatives had already passed resolutions to demand for the immediate release of Liu Xiaobo and Sichuan human rights defenders Tan Zuoran and Huang Qi who investigated the Sichuan earthquake last year. The House of Representatives also demanded that President Obama discuss the cases of Tan and Huang during his visit to China. Again, we call on President Obama to live up to the objective of the Nobel Peace Prize and the duties it entails. When he meets with Chinese leaders, he should ask the Chinese government to release all prisoners of conscience, including Liu Xiaobo, Tan Zuoren, Huang Qi, Guo Quan, Xie Changfa, Gao Zhisheng, Hu Jia, Shi Tao, Chen Guangcheng, Guo Feixiong, Jin Haike, Lu Gengsong, Yang Tongyan and Zheng Yichun.

We, therefore, demand that President Obama:

1) Realize the mission of the Nobel Peace Prize and demand the Chinese
Government release all imprisoned writers and prisoners of conscience

2) Respond to the resolutions passed by the US House of Representatives
demanding the immediate release of Liu Xiaobo, Tan Zuoren and Huang Qi

We also call on all other heads of state to use their influence to persuade
the Chinese government to release Liu Xiaobo and all imprisoned writers and
prisoners of conscience.

Co-signed by:

Independent Chinese PEN Centre
Jirí Grusa，former international president of the International PEN
John Ralston Saul, current international president of the International PEN

Gloria Guardia，vice-president of the International PEN
Eugene Schoulgin, international secretary of the International PEN

Karin Clark, former chairperson of Writers-in-Prison Committee of the International PEN
Marian Botsford Fraser, current chairperson of Writers-in-Prison Committee of the International PEN
Edwood Kovac, Committee member of Writers-in-Prison Committee of the International PEN
PEN American Center
Austrian PEN
PEN Canada
German PEN
French PEN

Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese
China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group
Scottish PEN
German Writers Abroad PEN
Pakistani PEN
Serbian PEN
Slovenian PEN
Russian PEN
Vietnamese Writers’ Abroad PEN
Uighur PEN
Tartar PEN
Hungarian PEN
Taipei Chinese PEN
Swiss Romand PEN
Tibetan Writers’ Abroad PEN
Zambian PEN
Basque PEN
Dutch PEN
Turkish PEN
Mongolian PEN
Swiss Italian PEN
Italian Trieste PEN
Swiss German PEN
Swedish PEN
Polish PEN
Portuguese PEN
Slovakian PEN
New Zealand PEN
Norwegian PEN
Kurdish PEN
Kazakh PEN
Egyptian PEN
Moroccan PEN
Japanese PEN
Korean PEN
Belarus PEN
Haitian PEN
Galician PEN
Italian PEN
Lithuanian PEN
Belgian PEN
Algerian PEN
Croatian PEN
Sierra Leone PEN
Danish PEN
Czech PEN
Nepal PEN
Sydney PEN
Melbourne PEN
Bulgarian PEN
Colombian PEN
Cuban PEN
English PEN
Iran PEN
Malawi PEN
Palestinian PEN
South African PEN
Finlish PEN
Icelandic PEN
Hong Kong Journalist Association
Hong Kong Christian Institute
Beijing Spring
Qi’s Cultural Foundation
Princeton China Initiative
Christians For Hong Kong Society
Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee
Laogai Research Foundation
Deng Liberty Foundation
Taipei Society
———————–

International PEN is the oldest human rights organization and international literary organization. The Independent Chinese PEN Center is among its 145 member centers and aims to protect Chinese writers’ freedom of expression and freedom to write worldwide and advocates for the rights of Chinese writers and journalists who are imprisoned, threatened, persecuted or harassed.

This is your opportunity to come and meet Melbourne PEN Committee members, reflect on the work Melbourne PEN has done over the past 12 months and write cards of solidarity and friendship to courageous writers globally who are persecuted and or imprisoned for daring to write their truth.
Tuesday 24th November, 7.00pm
North Fitzroy Star Hotel at 32 St Georges Road (between Nicholson and Brunswick Streets at the beginning of St George’s Road. )
Please RSVP to Elaine Lewis

On 21 October 2009, the International PEN Assembly of Delegates elected as International President, John Ralston Saul, to succeed Jirí Grušá  who has held the post for six years. Jirí Grušá  was one of the most important dissident Czech writers. Earlier presidents have included Alberto Moravia, Heinrich Böll, Arthur Miller, Pierre Emmanuel, Mario Vargas Llosa and György Konrád.

John Ralston Saul is a celebrated Canadian novelist and essayist and former President of Canadian PEN. He has been awarded, among others, Chile’s Pablo Neruda medal, Italy’s Premio Letterario Internazionale and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres de France.

‘International PEN is the world’s most important and oldest freedom of speech and literary organisation. Almost 1000 writers in prison or in danger around the world look to us for help. We have to invent new ways of turning back the rise of authoritarian controls. Threats to freedom of speech are expanding in new directions, especially with the rise of populism in the post 9/11 world.
In addition, hundreds of minority and indigenous languages and cultures are in danger of extinction. This is the ultimate denial of freedom of speech.’ says Saul.

7.30pm Tuesday, September 29  2009
Prahran Mechanics Institute,
140 High Street, Prahran

All welcome

International PEN is outraged by the 18 month sentence handed down to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the NLD, writer and Nobel Peace laureate, on 11 August 2009. She was returned to her home after the trial, and will serve the sentence under house arrest. Aung San Suu Kyi was taken from her home in Yangon, where she has spent much of the past nineteen years under house arrest, to the notorious Insein prison on 14 May 2009. She was charged under Section 22 of the State Protection Law for “subversion” for allegedly breaching the conditions of her house arrest.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma’s independence leader General Aung San, became leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in September 1988, and in 1991 led the NLD to a landslide election victory which has never been recognised by the military government. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent a large part of the past nineteen years in detention in Yangon, much of it in solitary confinement. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1991. She is the author of many books, including Freedom From Fear (1991), Letters from Burma (1997), The Voice of Hope (1997).
‘Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions, courage that could be described as ‘grace under pressure’ – grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.’  Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom From Fear, 1990.
Aung San Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of courageous and peaceful resistance in the face of oppression. The Burmese authorities cannot justify her continued detention, and that of many other prisoners of conscience currently detained in Burma. International PEN calls upon writers worldwide to call for the release of all Burmese prisoners of conscience.

On behalf of the Board of International PEN
Jiří Gruša – International President
Eugene Schoulgin – International Secretary
Karin Clark – Writers in Prison Committee Chair

Vice-Presidents of International PEN
Margaret Atwood
J. M. Coetzee
Moris Farhi
Nadine Gordimer
Gloria Guardia
Lucina Kathman
Kata Kulavkova
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
Mario Vargas Llosa
Per Wästberg

Firstly, the annual Melbourne PEN sponsored panel this year features author and human rights advocate Ian Buruma in conversation with Louise Adler in the BMW Edge theatre, at 2.30 on Saturday August 22. (Code 2214 in the festival program).

Ian Buruma is a professor of human rights, democracy and new media studies at Bard College in New York, and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Financial Times and The Guardian. He writes on a vast range of topics, including Freedom of Speech, contemporary democracy, and the challenges of multiculturalism.

Secondly, Melbourne PEN will have an information table as part of the Craft Hatch in the Atrium at Federation Square on both Sundays of the Writers’ Festival, August 23 and August 30, 10 – 4pm.

Thirdly, don’t forget to look out for the empty chair at each session in the Festival that represents writers who have been and continue to be persecuted, silenced, imprisoned and killed for daring to write their truth.

Following the massive wave of arrests targeting bloggers, journalists, publishers and writers, the International Publishers Association (IPA) publishes a list of some of those under arrest (see Note for Editors), and demands their immediate release. IPA also calls on the Iranian authorities to drop the investigation of Arash Hejazi, the publisher who provided the first aid to Neda Agha-Soltan, killed during the street protests on 20 June 2009.

Click here for the full IPA press release.