As we announced in our last newsletter to members, we have had a dedicated but diminishing committee running Irish PEN for some time. As Chair I’ve been in situ on committee for much longer than is healthy in any organisation and have been looking at ways to move Irish PEN forwards.
As a committee, we agreed that the events aspect of Irish PEN’s activities, which has been so valuable in the past, has been superseded by the vast numbers of festivals and other author events now running. Our feeling was, that in the current political climate, Irish PEN needed to become involved much more with PEN International’s activities, focusing on free speech and using our status as a PEN centre in a neutral country to PEN’s advantage.
We were not alone in this, and Freedom to Write, a subgroup of dedicated writers (whom you will all be familiar with) from the Word group at the Irish Writers Centre, also felt the need for action and began to do exactly this.
Many of the Freedom to Write group are PEN members. And Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and Catherine Dunne are past Award winners. So they all understand Irish PEN. We are delighted to announce that Freedom to Write have agreed to merge with Irish PEN to produce a new organisation with a new constitution in line with our shared goals.
Freedom to Write group have agreed to act as a steering committee while guiding the transition to a completely new Irish PEN. The new Irish PEN will be launched in November. An AGM will follow in the New Year when a new committee will be formed, as elected by Irish PEN members. In the meantime, the Freedom to Write Campaign will continue its support of the PEN charter through various actions, carried out in the name of Irish PEN/The Freedom to Write Campaign. Those who have paid their membership for 2020 will automatically move across to the re-energised organisation, although those on subscriptions may have to set up new ones to the new organisation in 2021.
We want to build PEN into a real voice for writers and will be asking you to sign up to a new mailing list (GDPR compliant) in order to keep you informed of actions and events.
On a personal note, I will be retiring as chair, and news of your new committee will be communicated in the autumn. Until then, Freedom to Write will become custodians of our vital tradition, ensuring the new organisation is built on firm ground.
Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin
Photo by Simon Robinson
Freedom to Write and Irish PEN by Lia Mills
Who we are: The Freedom to Write Campaign (Ireland) is an informal, independent group of writers that has emerged from WORD, a professional writers’ network associated with the Irish Writers Centre.
We work to promote Freedom of Expression by raising public awareness about writers who are at risk, or in prison, or who have been murdered because of their writing. During the last two years, our members have worked with, among others, Irish PEN, PEN International, the Irish Writers Centre, Poetry Ireland, Fighting Words and Front Line Defenders, on events and campaigns to promote the work of writers who are at risk or in prison.
We have taken part in various festivals, such as Listowel Writers’ Week, the Red Line Festival and the Belfast Book Festival. Some of us have contributed to the recent anthology of essays Yes, We Still Drink Coffee!, by and about women Human Rights Defenders at risk (published by Front line Defenders and Fighting Words).
We are:
June Considine
Catherine Dunne
Kate Ennals
Sophia Hillan
Liz McManus
Maria McManus
Lia Mills
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
When the current committee invited us to consider stepping up to devise and manage a reorganisation and revitalisation of Irish PEN, the idea made a lot of sense to us; the work we already do is based on the PEN charter and we have had consistent support and encouragement from PEN International from the start.
We are looking forward to this challenge and the adventure of changing our existing structure to conform to PEN conventions, while redesigning a constitution for a new and invigorated Irish PEN to move into the decade ahead. We’re excited to meet and work with both existing and new members.
There will be a period of transition this summer while we manage administrative changes, to be followed
by a complete relaunch in November and a subsequent AGM early in 2021 – the centenary year of PEN International.
Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann is deeply saddened by the passing of Eavan Boland. One of Ireland’s greatest poets, Eavan had been selected as the recipient of the 2019 Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature.
She was due to receive this award on the 22nd March of this year, surrounded by her peers and admirers. We should have had the opportunity to celebrate her in person, to acknowledge her achievements both as a poet and fearless champion of women writers. But Covid19 intervened and the Award event had to be postponed. We planned that our Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann celebration would instead take place to coincide with Eavan’s forthcoming publication, The Historians, scheduled for September 2020. (WW Norton and Carcanet Press) Her untimely death is a source of deep sadness to us all and we offer our sincere condolences to her family, friends and colleagues around the world.
Eavan Boland was the recipient of numerous accolades throughout her long career, among them a Lannan Foundation Award, the PEN Award for creative non-fiction for A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet, the Corrington Medal for Literary Excellence and the Bucknell Medal of Distinction. She held honorary degrees from, among others, University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, and Strathclyde University Scotland. In 2016, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2017, she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Those who knew Eavan Boland personally speak of a brilliant teacher, a rigorous one.
Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, playwright, short story writer and novelist, remembers the workshops that Eavan Boland facilitated in the mid-1980s. She remembers her as brave, outspoken, passionate. ‘She was also intelligent enough, confident enough, and articulate enough to promote the idea that women should write poetry and literature. In her own poetry, she was revolutionary: she wrote about her domestic and maternal life and confirmed that feeding a baby, putting out milk bottles, living ‘in the suburbs’ could be the stuff of poetry.’
Lia Mills – novelist, short story writer, essayist – remembers A Kind of Scar: The Woman Poet in a National Tradition. ‘One of the seminal LIP pamphlets published by Attic press in the 1980s [in which] Boland challenges some of the sacred cows of Irish poetry using her own experience as a lens. It was a daring, radical thing to write and it predates by a long shot the explosion of fine personal essay and memoir writing that Irish literature enjoys now.’ Lia Mills also recalls the way Eavan Boland ‘had a way of drilling deeper into the core of words and shifting our angle of perception. These shifts were not always comfortable, but they were effective. She had such a strong mind.’
Eavan Boland loved teaching. She believed that workshops ‘generated oxygen’ – literary oxygen. According to Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, Eavan loved to quote an anonymous workshop participant, a woman, who declared: ‘If they knew I wrote poetry people would think I didn’t wash my windows.’ In so many ways, Eavan Boland ‘was the champion of women in the home, of women who longed to be poets and writers, but were hemmed in by society. Locked down in domesticity.’
Trailblazing. Daring. Committed. Fearless. Eavan Boland was not afraid to excoriate the editors of Field Day in the late 1980s, those who ‘forgot’ to include so many Irish women in their Anthology of Irish writing. Eavan herself was included – but that did not stop her protesting angrily at the exclusion of her female peers.
Mary Robinson recently spoke of Eavan Boland, her close friend, as a very ‘practical’ poet, one who knew, even early on, how to use a computer. In contrast, Mary Robinson was, she said, the ‘dreamy lawyer’.
Liz McManus remembers, in particular, the poem Our Future Will Become the Past of Other Women, written by Eavan Boland to celebrate 100 years of women’s suffrage in Ireland. Eavan read her poem at a special event at the UN, organised by the Permanent Representative of Ireland to the UN, Geraldine Byrne Nason, MRIA. Liz McManus also recalls that ‘Eavan Boland’s workshops in the mid 1980s were the springboard for the formation of WEB, possibly the longest-lasting women’s writing group in Ireland.’
Maria McManus, a poet from the north of Ireland, expresses for all of us that which we have lost in Eavan Boland’s passing, and all that we have gained from her life among us and her work: ‘We will receive sustenance from the work of Eavan Boland for a long time yet to come. The ‘long tail’ of her work and the resultant gift to us, is that she shared the deep truths of ‘dailiness’ – an unflinching intelligence of the relational, an acute eye on the tyranny of the insular and the colonial, and the richness of the every-day. We see ourselves more clearly, we are better people and we are more daring because of her.’
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam dílís.
Catherine Dunne, on behalf of the Board of Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann
Принадлежность к ирландскому филиалу PEN / PEN Международный / Word
Кому:
Президенту Российской Федерации
Владимир Владимирович Путин
Ул. Ильинка, 23
103132 Москва
Российская Федерация
15 ноября 2018 года
Ирландская кампания «Свобода писать» и ирландский филиал PEN считают, что Олег Сенцов был заключен в тюрьму исключительно из-за его оппозиции к оккупации России и «аннексии» Крыма. Мы призываем российских властей немедленно освободить его и уважать человеческие права Олега Сценцова. Мы также призываем немедленное прекращение пыток и другого жестокого обращения, а также право на медицинскую помощь.
Мы также призываем российских власте освободить всех, кто заключен исключительно за то, хотят свободно выразить свое право на свободу слова, и вернуть всех украинских граждан, которые в настоящее время находятся в тюрме в России, на территории Украины, в соответствии с требованиями международного права.
Подписано в поддержку Международного дня PENa в поддержку заключенного писателя.
Священник Anthony J Gaughan, президент ирландского филиала PEN
June Considine, основатель слова / сопредседатель Свобода писать
Ванесса О’Локлин, президент Ирландского филиала PEN
Frank Geary, сопредседатель Свобода писать / ирландского филиала PEN
Lia Mills, секретарь Свобода писать
Timmy Conway, секретарь ирландского филиала PEN
Padraig Hanratty, секретарь членства ирландского филиала
The Irish Freedom to Write campaign and Irish PEN believe that Oleg Sentsov was imprisoned solely because of his opposition to Russia’s occupation and illegal ‘annexation’ of Crimea. We call on the Russian authorities to release him immediately and to respect Oleg Sentsov’s human rights, including the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment, and his right to medical attention.
We further call on the Russian Authorities to free all who are held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and to return all Ukrainian nationals who are currently held in Russia to Ukraine, as required by international law.
Signed in support of Pen International’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer
International Pen have designated the 15th of November as the Day of the Imprisoned Writer and are highlighting the plight of five writers currently imprisoned for their writings. I’m contacting you on behalf of the Irish Pen/WORD Freedom to Write Campaign.
We have decided to highlight the plight of Ukrainian writer and filmmaker, Oleg Sentsov. Oleg is serving a 20-year prison sentence on ‘terrorism’ charges after a trial by a Russian military court, marred by allegations of torture. He is currently being held in the ‘Polar Bear’ penal colony of Labytnangi, in Siberia, thousands of kilometres away from his home and family in Crimea. He recently spent 145 days on hunger strike, calling for the release of all Ukrainian prisoners imprisoned in Russia on politically motivated grounds. He ended his strike on 6 October 2018 as he feared being forced-fed.
Freedom to Write intend sending appeals to the Russian authorities urging them to:
Release Oleg Sentsov immediately;
Respect Oleg Sentsov’s human rights, including the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, and his right to medical attention;
Return all Ukrainian nationals arrested in Crimea and now held in Russia to Ukraine, as required by international law, and free all held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression.
We are anxious to include as many signatures as possible in our petition which reads:
The Irish Freedom to Write campaign and Irish Pen believe that Oleg Sentsov was imprisoned solely because of his opposition to Russia’s occupation and illegal ‘annexation’ of Crimea. We call on the Russian authorities to release him immediately and to respect Oleg Sentsov’s human rights, including the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment, and his right to medical attention.
We further call on the Russian Authorities to free all who are held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and to return all Ukrainian nationals who are currently held in Russia to Ukraine, as required by international law.
Signed :
June Considine Freedom to Write/WORD
Frank Geary Freedom to Write/Irish PEN
Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin Chair Irish PEN
Signatures will be needed by Tues 13th November 2018. Our appeal will be forwarded to:
President of the Russian Federation,
Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation
Human Rights Ombudsman of the Russian Federation
The Russian Embassy
Further information on the plight of Oleg Sentsov is available below in the PEN International appeal.
Day of the Imprisoned Writer 2018 TAKE ACTION FOR OLEG SENTSOV RUSSIA
Writer, filmmaker
Ukrainian writer and filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, is serving a 20-year prison sentence on spurious terrorism charges after a grossly unfair trial by a Russian military court, marred by allegations of torture. He is currently being held in the ‘Polar Bear’ penal colony of Labytnangi, in Siberia, thousands of kilometres away from his home and family in Crimea. He recently spent 145 days on hunger strike, calling for the release of all Ukrainian prisoners imprisoned in Russia on politically motivated grounds. He ended his strike on 6 October 2018 as he feared being forced-fed.
PEN International believes that Oleg Sentsov was imprisoned for his opposition to Russia’s occupation and illegal ‘annexation’ of Crimea and calls on the Russian authorities to release him immediately. The organisation further calls on the Russian authorities to respect Oleg Sentsov’s human rights, including the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment, and his right to medical attention.
Take Action – Share on Twitter, Facebook and other social media
Please send appeals to the Russian authorities urging them to:
Release Oleg Sentsov immediately;
Respect Oleg Sentsov’s human rights, including the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, and his right to medical attention;
Return all Ukrainian nationals arrested in Crimea and now held in Russia to Ukraine, as required by international law, and free all held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression.
We also encourage you to reach out to your Ministry of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic representatives in Russia, calling on them to raise Oleg Sentsov’s case in bilateral fora.
Send a message of support
The amount of support Oleg Sentsov received during his hunger strike was staggering. We are grateful to everyone who sent him messages of solidarity and would like to encourage you to keep writing to him. After this hunger strike, and the toll it has taken on his health, we are sure he needs our support now more than ever.
Please note that all messages need to be written in Russian. If you do not speak Russian, please find a sample message below:
Dear Oleg, I wish you good health and strength and hope that you will soon be released. We are all thinking of you and stand with you in solidarity and respect.
Дорогой Олег, желаю Вам крепкого здоровья и сил, и надеюсь, что Вы скоро будете освобождены. Мы все думаем о Вас и поддерживаем в знак солидарности и уважения.
629400 Ямало-Ненецкий автономный округ, город Лабытнанги, улица Северная 33, Сенцову Олегу Геннадьевичу, Россия
Publicity
Oleg Sentsov’s hunger strike brought considerable attention to his plight and we would like to thank everyone who took action on his case. In order to keep up the momentum, we encourage PEN members to continue to:
Publish articles and opinion pieces in your national or local press highlighting the case of Oleg Sentsov;
Share information about Oleg Sentsov and your campaigning activities via social media; please use #FreeSentsov;
Organise public events, press conferences and demonstrations;
Please let us know about your activities and send us reports about the actions you take. This is really important as it means we can monitor the impact that our campaigning has in relation to Oleg Sentsov’s case.
Social Media: Please use the hashtags #ImprisonedWriter and #FreeSentsov
Share information about Oleg Sentsov and your campaigning activities for him via social media.
Suggested tweets:
.@PutinRF_Eng, Oleg Sentsov should have never spent a single day behind bars. Release him immediately #FreeSentsov #ImprisonedWriter
On Day of the #ImprisonedWriter join PEN and take action for imprisoned writer & filmmaker Oleg Sentsov #FreeSentsov {insert RAN link}
Russian:
@ПутинRF_Eng, Олег Сенцов не должен был провести ни дня за решеткой. Немедленно освободите его #FreeSentsov #ImprisonedWriter
В День писателей-заключенных присоединитесь к ПЕН и приобщитесь к акции поддержки заключенного писателя и режиссера Олега Сенцова #ImprisonedWriter #FreeSentsov # {insert RAN link}
Ukrainian:
@ПутинRF_Eng, Олег Сенцов не повинен був провести за ґратами ані дня. Негайно звільніть його #FreeSentsov #ImprisonedWriter
У День письменників за ґратами приєднайтеся до ПЕН та долучіться до акції на підтримку ув’язненого письменника і режисера Олега Сенцова #ImprisonedWriter #FreeSentsov # {insert RAN link}
Background
Ukrainian writer and filmmaker Oleg Sentsov took part in the EuroMaidan demonstrations that toppled former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. He helped deliver food to Ukrainian soldiers following Russia’s occupation and ‘annexation’ of Crimea in March 2014. He said he was arrested by the Russian security services at his apartment in Crimea on 10 May 2014. He reported being subjected to a brutal three-hour ordeal involving beatings, suffocation and threats of sexual assault.
His arrest was officially recorded on 11 May 2014 on the grounds of ‘suspicion of plotting terrorist acts’ and membership of a terrorist group – the Ukrainian right-wing group Pravyi Sektor (Right Sector). He was taken to Russia on 23 May 2014 where he spent over a year in pre-trial detention. He was eventually charged with the establishment of a terrorist group, politically motivated arson and conspiring to blow up a statue of Lenin, all of which he denied.
Following a trial widely condemned outside of Russia, in which a key prosecution witness retracted his statement, saying it had been extracted under torture, Oleg Sentsov was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison by the military court of Rostov-on-Don on 20 August 2015. His sentence was upheld on appeal on 24 November 2015. In October 2016, the Russian authorities denied a request for extradition to Ukraine on the grounds that he had become a Russian citizen following Russia’s occupation and ‘annexation’ of Crimea.
Oleg Sentsov began a hunger strike on 14 May 2018 to urge the Russian authorities to release all Ukrainian nationals currently imprisoned in Russia on politically motivated grounds. He was taken to intensive care on 15 June 2018. His heart and kidney problems considerably worsened and he was put on a glucose drip. In August 2018, he told his family that he had been denied access to letters and had been kept in ‘an information vacuum’. The prison authorities subsequently granted him access to correspondence following an international outcry. On 5 October 2018, he wrote a letter stating that he felt compelled to end his hunger strike as he feared being forced-fed. He said he had lost 20 kilos and suffered irreparable damages to his health.
Freedom of expression in Russia and occupied Crimea
For more information about the state of freedom of expression in Russia, please see PEN International, PEN Moscow and St Petersburg PENs joint report entitled Russia’s Strident Stifling of Free Speech 2012-2018. The report, published in October 2018 in both English and Russian, shows how Russia’s array of repressive laws severely restricts the rights to freedom of expression, opinion and information. It describes the deterioration of media freedom through the Russian authorities’ control of the media landscape and the immense pressure faced by independent journalists to not contradict the official line or provide coverage of critical viewpoints. It analyses the prosecution and conviction of several people on politically motivated grounds. It further shows how artistic freedom and literature are under threat.
The following letter was published simultaneously in newspapers across the world on Monday 16th April 2018, six months after the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. This action was co-ordinated by International PEN, an organisation that celebrates literature and defends freedom of expression globally.
As part of the Freedom to Write Campaign, Irish PEN and WORD were in full support of this initiative and gathered the signatories below. The letter appeared in The Irish Independent on 16th April.
16 April 2018
The Shame of Valletta 2018, European Capital of Culture
Dear President Juncker,
Dear Commissioner Timmermans,
Dear Mr Magnier, Director of Creative Europe,
CC/ Commissioner Vella,
We write to you on the six-month anniversary of the brutal assassination of our colleague, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s foremost investigative journalist, to express our profound concern with developments in Malta in the context of the investigation into her assassination, and in particular regarding the behaviour of the management of Valletta 2018, the European Capital of Culture.
The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia was ordered in direct response to her journalistic work in exposing rampant government corruption at the heart of the EU. Since her death, we have witnessed with horror the repeated and aggressive destruction of the memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia in Valletta, which was created in response to this horrific event. The Maltese authorities have not attempted to protect this memorial. In particular, we are outraged by the comments of Jason Micallef, Chairman of the Valletta 2018 Foundation, and as such the Capital of Culture’s official representative in Malta. Since her assassination, Micallef has repeatedly and publicly attacked and ridiculed Daphne Caruana Galizia on social media, ordered the removal of banners calling for justice for her death and called for her temporary memorial to be cleared. This is far from appropriate behaviour for an official designated to represent the European Capital of Culture, and in fact serves to further the interests of those trying to prevent an effective and impartial investigation into Caruana Galizia’s death.
Creative Europe’s mandate is the support and promotion of culture and media in the region. European culture includes the freedom to criticise, satirise and investigate those in power. The role of the Chairman of the European Capital of Culture should be to safeguard this right, not to threaten it. We believe this behaviour completely demeans the role and has profound implications for the integrity of the programme as a whole. There can be no tolerance for the ridiculing of the assassination of a journalist in the heart of the EU, especially from the very authorities entrusted to promote the EU’s media and culture. We therefore urge you to immediately investigate these allegations against Jason Micallef. If found to be true, we urge you to call for his resignation and for the appointment of a qualified individual who demonstrates the requisite integrity for this role.
Further to these specific concerns relating to Valletta 2018, we wish to restate our broader fears relating to the ongoing investigation by the Maltese Authorities into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, which we believe does not meet the standards of independence, impartiality and effectiveness required under international human rights law. The very same individuals Caruana Galizia was investigating remain in charge of securing justice in her case, despite a judicial challenge in Malta’s constitutional court from her family, who has now been completely shut out of the assassination investigation. We therefore welcome the initiative of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe, which is taking the extraordinary step of sending a special rapporteur to scrutinise the investigation.
It is also of enormous concern to us that, even after her assassination, senior government officials, including the Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, are insisting on trying thirty-four libel cases against her, which have now been assumed by her family. In addition to these cases, the Prime Minister is taking a further libel case against Caruana Galizia’s son, Matthew, himself a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist. We have reason to believe that these proceedings are in direct reprisal for his mother’s work in investigating corruption within the current Maltese government. The Prime Minister is currently compelling Matthew to return to Malta to stand trial, despite independent security experts advising Matthew to remain outside Malta due to substantial threats to his life there.
Whistle-blower Maria Efimova, who was one of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s sources on corruption within the disgraced Malta-based Pilatus Bank is facing extradition to Malta from Greece after a European arrest warrant was issued. We believe the charges against Efimova to be purely political and are deeply concerned about both her safety and the independence of the legal process she would face should she be deported to Malta.
We urge you to take a stand in support of calls for justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia and for the protection of journalists in Malta.
We look forward to your response outlining the steps you will now take relating to our concerns.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Clement, President, PEN International
Per Wästburg, PEN President Emeritus, Chair of the Nobel Prize for Literature
(and representatives of PEN centres in more than 30 countries, see below)
IRISH SIGNATORIES:
Fr Tony Gaughan, Irish PEN President,
Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin, Irish PEN Chair,
Frank Geary, Irish PEN, Freedom to Write Campaign
June Considine, Irish PEN, WORD & Freedom to Write Campaign, Ireland
Lia Mills, Irish PEN, WORD & Freedom to Write Campaign, Ireland
Valerie Bistany, Director, Irish Writers Centre
Liz McManus, Chair, Irish Writers Centre Board
Mary O’Donnell, Irish PEN
Marita Conlon McKenna, Irish PEN
Jennifer Barrett, Ireland
Dermot Bolger, Ireland
Evelyn Conlon, Ireland
Mary Costello, Ireland
Darren Darker, Irish PEN
Celia De Fréine, WORD, Ireland
Anne Devlin, PEN International UK/Ireland
Martina Devlin, WORD, Ireland
Katie Donovan, WORD, Ireland
Theo Dorgan, Ireland
Catherine Dunne, WORD, Ireland
Kate Ennals, Word, Ireland
Anne Enright, Republic of Ireland
Mia Gallagher, WORD, Ireland
Carlo Gebler, Northern Ireland
Caroline Graham, WORD, Ireland
Padraig Hanratty, Irish PEN Membership Secretary
Sean Hardie, Ireland
Jack Harte, Ireland
Claire Kilroy, Ireland
Colum McCann, Ireland
Paula McGrath, Ireland
Frank McGuinness, Ireland
Henrietta McKervey, Ireland
Maria MacManus, Ireland
Declan Meade, Ireland
Paula Meehan, Ireland
Paul Muldoon, PEN America
E.R.Murray, Ireland
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Irish PEN, WORD and Freedom to Write Campaign, Ireland
Kerrie O’Brien, Ireland
Joseph O’Connor, Ireland
Louise Phillips, WORD, Ireland
DBC Pierre, UK/Ireland
Martin Roper, Republic of Ireland
Tom Sigafoos, WORD, Ireland
Grainne Tobin, Ireland
William Wall, Ireland
INTERNATIONAL SIGNATORIES:
Jennifer Clement, President, PEN International
Per Wästburg, PEN President Emeritus, Chair of the Nobel Prize for Literature
Homero Aridjis, PEN President Emeritus, Former Ambassador of Mexico to UNESCO
Georges Emmanuel Clancier, PEN International Vice-Président Emeritus
Eugene Schoulgin, PEN International Vice-President, PEN Norway
Regula Venske, Regula Venske, President PEN Germany, Member of the Board PEN
International
Burhan Sönmez, PEN Turkey, Member of the Board PEN International
Salil Tripathi, Chair, Writers in Prison Committee, PEN International
Eric Lax, PEN International
Emmanuel Pierrat, Président, French PEN
Elisabeth Åsbrink, President, Swedish PEN
Erik Vlaminck, President, PEN Belgium / Dutch speaking
Fr Tony Gaughan, Irish PEN President
Maureen Freely, Chair of Trustees, English PEN
Per Øhrgaard, President, Danish PEN
Venla Hiidensalo, President, Finnish PEN
Vonne van der Meer, President, PEN Netherlands
Mathias Ospelt, President, PEN Liechtenstein
Antonio Della Rocca, Presidente del PEN Trieste, Member of the Board of PEN International
Elena Chizhova, Director, Saint-Petersburg PEN
Dina Meza, President, PEN Honduras
Jorge Ragal, Presidente PEN Chile
Ciro Añez, President PEN Santa Cruz-Bolivia
Judyth Hill, President, San Miguel PEN Center
José A. Albertini y Luis de la Paz, Presidente, El PEN-Club de Escritores Cubanos en el Exilio
Hanan Awwad, President, Palestine PEN
Folu Agoi, President, PEN Nigeria
Dr Frankie Asare-Donkoh, President, Ghanaian PEN, Secretary-General, PEN Africa Network
Lisa Appignanesi, former President, English PEN
Anders Jerichow, former president, Danish PEN
Sylvestre Clancier, Président d’honneur du PEN français, ancien membre du Comité Exécutif du PEN International
Émile Martel, former President, Centre Québécois du P.E.N. International
Dr. Sascha Feuchert, Vice-President and Writers-in-Prison/Writers-at-Risk-Commissioner, PEN Germany
Andréas Becker, Président du Comité des Écrivains Persécutés, PEN-Club Français
Patrick Tudoret, writer and scholar, vice president French Pen
President Higgins is the Patron of the Irish Writers Centre and he has put the promotion of creativity, critical thought and the careful use of language at the heart of his Presidency.
Meeting members of Irish PEN, Word and the Irish Writers Centre at Áras an Uachtaráin on 27th March 2018, President Higgins marked the launch of WORD and Irish PEN’s initiative to support International PENs Freedom to Write Campaign.
Freedom of expression and solidarity among writers are at the heart of PEN. PEN started in the aftermath of World War One bringing writers together to express solidarity within and between recently warring nations. PEN quickly expressed this same solidarity by campaigning for freedom of expression for all writers and for individual writers who were silenced, harassed, imprisoned and murdered because they had the courage to write.
As a group we are planning to take one action for each season during the coming year. These will be linked to other events such as the Nollaig na MBan in January, the PEN Dinner Empty Chair, the Day of the Imprisoned Writer in November and PEN International global actions. We will follow up with actions and updates on cases, but for this quarter we are focussing on, in particular Zehra Dogan and Raif Badawi.
Pictured, Father Tony Gaughan, President Irish PEN, Liz McManus, President Higgins, June Considine and Valerie Bistany (Irish Writers Centre)
In the warm and welcoming surroundings of the Royal St George Yacht Club, on February 22nd 2018, Anne Enright received the Irish PEN Award 2017, delayed slightly from 2016 due to her work commitments at Laureate. Irish PEN were delighted to welcome Sheila Bailey of PEN International and particularly pleased to be joined by so many friends from WORD, with whom we are working on an initiative to support PEN International’s Freedom to Write Campaign.
In keeping with the tradition started in 1935, (when the WB Yeats dinner took place), the annual Irish PEN Award is presented in the company of other leading writers. Members of Irish PEN, as well as previous winners, nominate and vote for the candidate. Since 1999, the award recipients have included John B Keane, Brian Friel, Edna O’Brien, William Trevor, John McGahern, Neil Jordan, Seamus Heaney, Jennifer Johnston, Maeve Binchy, Thomas Kilroy, Roddy Doyle, Joseph O’Connor, John Banville, Frank McGuiness and Eilis Ni Dhuibhne.
After Irish PEN chair Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin gave a short speech outlining the background to the award, June Considine from WORD, gave a superb summary of work to date and how Irish writers were supporting International PEN’s initiatives.
The beautiful silver trophy was made by Eileen Moylan in Kerry, photo by Ger Holland Photography.
Irish PEN has been in abeyance for some time and we are currently reviewing our position, and developing a strategy to take PEN forward into the coming years. With the current political climate, PEN’s role – both in Ireland and internationally – has become vital, and we know that many writers want to act but aren’t sure how. Organisation and focus are key to moving forward, and we want your help.
We are currently reviewing our position, and developing a strategy to take Irish PEN forward into the coming years. With the current political climate, Irish PEN’s role – both in Ireland and internationally – has become vital, and we know that many writers want to act but aren’t sure how. Organisation and focus are essential to moving forward, and we want your help.
In order to gauge support and forge a clear direction, we are planning an open meeting in Dublin to get YOUR feedback – to find out what you want from us, and how we can best serve your interests and the interests of free speech, and crucially how you can help achieve that. We are working with WORD – an informal association of professional writers from the Irish Writers Centre – some of whom are also anxious to ensure Irish writers are able to use their voices in the current political climate, with a specific focus on writers in prisons and writers suffering oppression. International PEN has the mechanisms in place to facilitate this and we believe this is the direction Irish PEN should move in, becoming a more politically active organisation rather than purely social.
With that in mind, we are holding an open meeting, open to any interested writer, at the Irish Writers Centre on September 23rd 2017 at 1pm, Huge thanks to the Irish Writers Centre who are generously donating the space. We will be explaining Irish PEN’s current position, our hopes to develop a significantly more active voice in the future and asking how you can help. No matter how small – the sending of one email or one letter – your contribution could be vital to a writer whose voice is being quashed, and vital to keeping Irish PEN active.
The open meeting is a free event, but if you are able to come, please register your attendance here:
PEN’s mission is to promote and defend freedom of expression as part of a global writing community, enabling writers to actively engage with social issues in a diverse culture of respect, tolerance and supportive exchange.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne was presented with the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature 2015 at the Irish PEN Award Dinner on Friday 20th February 2015. The dinner is held each year at The Royal St George Yacht Club, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin and open to both members and non members of PEN, was a packed house.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne said, ‘It’s a great honour and a great delight to receive this award from Irish PEN and to find myself in such illustrious company as Edna O’Brien, Maeve Binchy, Jennifer Johnston & Frank McGuinness’
With the award presented by Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD, Minister of State for Equality, New Communities & Culture, the evening was a true celebration of Éilís’ contribution to Irish Literature.
The 2015 award trophy is sponsored by the national online writing magazine & resources website www.writing.ie founded by Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin of The Inkwell Group. Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin, current Chair of Irish PEN said, “Writing.ie is delighted to be sponsoring this prestigious trophy again this year. Éilís is an extremely popular recipient and it was lovely to see such huge support for her on the night.”
Irish PEN is the Centre in Ireland for PEN, an international association of writers which promotes literature and defends freedom of expression. Anyone can sign the PEN Charter on irishpen.com and associate membership is open to all. Full membership is open to all qualified writers who sign the charter. PEN, which stands for poets, playwrights, editors, essayists and novelists, is a non-political organization with special consultative status at UNESCO and the United Nations. Founded in 1921, it has from its earliest days in Ireland been associated with Lady Gregory, W.B. Yeats, and Lord Longford. The President of Irish PEN is the acclaimed playwright Brian Friel.
About the Award
In 1998 Irish PEN set up an award to honour an Irish writer who has made an outstanding contribution to Irish Literature. This Award is for a significant body of work, written and produced over a number of years, and is open to novelists, playwrights, poets, and scriptwriters. Full and associate members of Irish PEN, as well as previous winners, nominate and vote for the candidate. The writer is presented with the Award in the company of other writers at our annual dinner.
About Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne was born in Dublin in 1954 and is a graduate of UCD. She studied at UCD – studying Pure English for the BA, doing an M Phil in Middle English and Old Irish, and finishing in 1982 with a Ph D in Folklore. From 1978-9 she studied at the Folklore Institute in the University of Copenhagen as a research scholar, while researching her doctoral thesis.
She published her first story in the New Irish Writing Page in the Irish Press, in 1974. Her first book was published in 1988, Blood and Water, and since then she has written about 24 books, including novels, collections of short stories, several books for children, plays and non-fiction works. She writes in both Irish and English.
She has won several awards for her writing over the years including The Bisto Book of the Year Award, the Readers’ Association of Ireland Award, the Stewart Parker Award for Drama, the Butler Award for Prose from the Irish American Cultural Institute and several Oireachtas awards for novels and plays in Irish. The novel The Dancers Dancing was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her stories are widely anthologized and translated. Her latest novel for young people, Dordán, was published in autumn 2010, and the last collection of short stories, The Shelter of Neighbours, was published in 2012. She was elected to Aosdána in 2004.
Irish PEN implores the Saudi Arabian authorities and all international bodies with influence in Saudi Arabia to act immediately to prevent the whipping of blogger Raif Badawi, scheduled to take place again on Friday January 16th at Alislahia Jail, Jeddah. The imminent and potentially lethal flogging violates the absolute prohibition in international law against torture and maltreatment.
In November 2014, Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam” and “founding a liberal website.” According to sources close to the case, he will receive 50 lashes each Friday following morning prayers for 20 weeks; this unimaginably cruel and harsh punishment began on January 9th. The extended punishment is likely to push Badawi’s body to its outermost limits, causing severe long-term damage and possibly death.
Irish PEN calls on the Saudi Arabian authorities to release Raif Badawi and his lawyer Walid Abu al-Khair immediately and unconditionally as they are being held solely for their peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression. In the meantime, we call for both men to be granted all necessary medical treatment, as well as access to their families and lawyers of their choice.
Irish PEN urges the Irish Government to make respect for human rights and international law a requisite for the kind of close relationship it shares with Saudi Arabia and its leader, King Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz bin Saud. We call on our Representatives to publicly condemn this action, and call for the flogging to be halted immediately and for this profoundly unjust sentence to be rescinded, allowing Badawi to return to his family.
Irish PEN member and best selling author, journalist Martina Devlin highlighted the case in the Irish Independent:
Just days ago, Enda Kenny stood shoulder to shoulder with other leaders in Paris to champion freedom of expression. Among world representatives at the pro-democracy march was the Saudi ambassador to France, Muhammed Ismail Al-Sheikh.
Two days earlier, Saudia Arabia had flogged a blogger. Fifty blows in public. The first salvo in a barbaric sentence which condemns him to 1,000 lashes. His crime? Expressing ideas through free speech. He set up a website – now closed down – encouraging social debate about religious and political issues.
Even as the Saudi government condemned Islamic fundamentalist violence elsewhere, it was silencing a voice of peaceful dissent at home. And in the most inhumane fashion.
Tomorrow, blogger Raif Badawi is due to receive another 50 blows with a cane outside a mosque in Jeddah. The 31-year-old father-of-three will undergo this ritualised exercise in pain and humiliation for 20 consecutive Fridays. Corporal punishment is defined as torture according to international human rights law. Yet his only crime is to stimulate social debate.
After each flogging he is returned to prison, where he has been held since June 2012. His sentence also includes a 10-year jail term and a fine of €225,000. For good measure, his lawyer was given a lengthy jail term.
Irish PEN was formed in 1935. It is an association of Irish writers, associate members and friends concerned in the written word, in freedom of expression and in the love of literature.
Irish PEN is affiliated to PEN International, who also condemn this action outright.
CONTACT
Emer Liston, Writers in Prison Committee Secretary, Irish PEN c/o The United Arts Club, 3 Upper Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin 2
