To mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer on 15 November, PEN highlighted the case of the award-winning Bangladeshi photographer, writer and activist Shahidul Alam, who was arrested in Dhaka on 5 August 2018. Shortly before his detention, Alam had given an interview to the news agency Al Jazeera in which he criticised the government’s […]
While the world comes to terms with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, fears increase for the safety of other writers and journalists imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. The country’s appalling human rights record and suppression of free speech are well documented. Human rights defenders and writers are routinely arrested.
I’ve written in these pages many times about writers and journalists in Myanmar who, over the years, have been imprisoned or persecuted by the military junta. These have included various appeals for the release from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi. Since the Nobel Peace Prize laureate took office in 2016 as state counsellor […]
In the June 2017 issue of Literary Review, I wrote about the detention of Oleg Sentsov, a prominent Ukrainian writer and film-maker best known for his 2011 film, Gamer. Sentsov took part in the Euromaidan demonstrations that toppled former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. He was detained by the Russian security services at […]
I’ve written previously in these pages about the persecution of Uighur writers and journalists in northwest China. The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is predominantly Muslim and contains a significant number of Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group. It has been annexed to China on and off for the last three centuries and a low-level separatist […]
The situation regarding freedom of expression and opinion in Egypt has deteriorated markedly since President al-Sisi came to power in 2014. There has been a sharp rise in the number of writers and journalists detained or imprisoned solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression, association and assembly, and many writers and activists have […]
To mark World Press Freedom Day last month, PEN and other international organisations sought to focus their attention once more on the brutal murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. A prominent investigative journalist and blogger, Caruana Galizia was assassinated on 16 October last year after leaving her home in Bidnija, Malta, in a targeted car bomb […]
For me the future is a closed window where night has no end and nightmares can’t be lifted. I want to be in light. So wrote Liu Xia in 2011 in her poem ‘Fragment No 8’. Liu, a poet, artist and founding member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, has been held under extra-judicial house […]
In February 2017, I wrote here about Ahmet Şık, a Turkish investigative journalist who had recently been arrested at his home in Istanbul. Şık is well known for his courageous reporting in the opposition daily newspaper Cumhuriyet. He was accused of producing terrorist propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party and FETO, the government’s name […]
To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, PEN International is launching its Women’s Manifesto, a set of principles aimed at combating the silencing of women worldwide, whether through censorship, harassment or violence. Drawn up by a group of leading literary figures, including Ellah Allfrey, Nina George, Caroline Criado Perez, Kamila Shamsie, Gillian Slovo and […]
It has been months since I wrote a letter and more than a year since I’ve written an article. I have nothing to say: no hopes, no dreams, no fears, no warnings, no insights; nothing, absolutely nothing … I try to remember what it was like when tomorrow seemed so full of possibility and my […]
I’ve previously written in these pages about Thailand’s restrictive lese-majesty laws, which have remained unchanged since 1908. Most recently, I highlighted the case of the Thai student activists Patiwat Saraiyaem and Pornthip Munkong (LR, December 2015), who were each sentenced to two and a half years in prison for having staged and performed in a […]
I’ve written in these pages many times about human rights violations in Uzbekistan. Free expression is severely restricted, thousands of people are imprisoned on politically motivated charges, human rights defenders and independent journalists are frequently subjected to harassment and intimidation, including beatings and smear campaigns, and torture is endemic. Uzbekistan’s authoritarian ruler Islam Karimov died […]
Since coming to power in 2015, Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) has effectively been attempting to silence dissent and muzzle the media. According to a damning report by independent watchdog Freedom House, ‘Pluralism Under Attack: The Assault on Press Freedom in Poland’, PiS’s decision to replace the heads of the public broadcaster in […]
Restrictions on freedom of expression in Turkey continue unabated. Since the failed coup of 15 July 2016, the state of emergency imposed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has permitted the arbitrary use of extraordinary powers to detain dissidents. Journalists, writers and academics are routinely intimidated into silence, harassed or imprisoned on spurious charges. In the […]
Most of us tend to think of fake news as an irritant: deliberately misleading information with attention-grabbing headlines, which, hopefully, we recognise as bogus once we start reading. President Trump frequently labels negative or critical media as false and rails against fake news in his tweets. Far more alarming, however, is the fact that repressive […]
On 12 June, Russia’s National Day, anti-corruption protests took place across many of its cities. Crowds of people chanted, ‘Putin out!’ and ‘Russia without thieves!’ Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested and others were beaten by police. Amnesty International claims that the authorities tried to intimidate protesters into avoiding these demonstrations and then punished those who […]
Since the occupation and annexation of Crimea in March 2014, the Russian authorities have systematically silenced critical voices and restricted media freedom in the region. Article 280.1 of the Russian Criminal Code penalises anyone making public statements that ‘harm the territorial integrity of Russia’ with up to five years in prison. One prominent critic of […]
In March, the ninth Emirates Airline Festival of Literature took place in Dubai and featured an impressive array of writers and journalists from the UK. How many, though, are aware that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government, which sponsors the festival, regularly imprisons writers and bloggers for advocating human rights and democratic reform? According to […]
President Ilham Aliyev is notorious for his hardline approach towards free expression in Azerbaijan and I have written here before about attacks on dissident voices and the media. Members of the opposition and critical journalists face immense obstacles and hardship when trying to carry out their work. Many suffer death threats, surveillance, judicial harassment and […]
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A review of my biography of Wittgenstein, and of his newly published last love letters, in the Literary Review: via @Lit_Review
Jane O'Grady - It’s a Wonderful Life
Jane O'Grady: It’s a Wonderful Life - Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy in the Age of Airplanes by Anthony Gottlieb;...
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It was my pleasure to review Stephanie Wambugu’s enjoyably Ferrante-esque debut Lonely Crowds for @Lit_Review’s April issue, out now
Joseph Williams - Friends Disunited
Joseph Williams: Friends Disunited - Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu
literaryreview.co.uk