On 23 September Erol Ozkoray, a Turkish journalist, publisher and intellectual, received a suspended sentence of eleven months and twenty days in prison, after being accused of defaming the authoritarian president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in his book about the Gezi Park protests. In May 2013, a small group of environmental campaigners conducted a […]
The case of Mahvash Sabet, a 62-year-old Iranian teacher and poet, was among those highlighted by PEN on 15 November to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer. Sabet is one of a group of seven Bahá’í leaders known as Yaran-i-Iran (‘Friends of Iran’) who have been detained since 2008 for activities aimed at supporting […]
On 28 May, Saba Azarpeik, an independent journalist and correspondent for the weekly newspaper Tejarat-e Farda, was arrested during a raid on the paper’s office in Tehran. Her family were only informed of the arrest on 2 June, when a Ministry of Intelligence official phoned to say that she was ‘well’. Since then, she has […]
I have written in these pages previously about the case of Bahraini human rights defender Abdulhadi al-Khawaja (LR, October 2012), who in 2011 was among twenty-one peaceful dissidents convicted by a special security court of ‘plotting to overthrow the government’ and sentenced to life imprisonment after reporting on human rights abuses in the country and calling […]
When Hassan Rouhani became president of Iran in June 2013, he promised to improve restrictions on free expression and the violation of human rights. But according to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre (IHRDC), Rouhani has overseen the execution of 300 people since coming to power.
Channel 4’s harrowing film Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, broadcast on 14 June, raised serious questions about the Sri Lankan government’s violations of international law in the closing months of its long civil war. The authorities’ attitude towards the media was also heavily criticised by a UN Panel of Experts set up to advise the Secretary-General […]
Urunboy Usmonov, a reporter for the BBC Central Asian Service for the last ten years and an acclaimed Tajik writer, faces fifteen years in prison for having links to the banned Islamic organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir. At the request of the BBC, Usmonov had previously reported on the judicial trials and activities of the Hizbi Tahrir party […]
Last year I wrote about the case of Dr Abdul-Jalil Al-Singace (LR, Oct 2010), a respected Bahraini academic who, on his return from a conference at the House of Lords in London, was arrested for criticising Bahrain’s human rights record. His trial is ongoing and he is currently held under house arrest.
In recent months, the international spotlight shone on a number of Chinese writers and artists. In October 2010, Ai Weiwei’s stunning Sunflower Seeds installation opened at Tate Modern. The same month, jailed writer Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In March 2011, it was announced that Bi Feiyu had won the 2010 Man […]
Cameroon’s human rights record has deteriorated in recent years. Various NGOs and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture have highlighted extra-judicial executions, protracted detention without trial, torture of detainees and appalling prison conditions. Paul Biya first became President in 1982 and has remained in power ever since. In April 2008 Cameroon’s parliament passed a […]
On 8 March 2011, to mark the occasion of International Women’s Day, PEN centres around the world commemorated Susana Chávez Castillo. Two months earlier, Chávez’s mutilated body had been found in an abandoned house in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Her left hand had been cut off. A well-known poet and campaigner for women’s rights, Chávez had […]
Turkey often uses prison sentences to silence Kurds or those writing about Kurdish issues. At the beginning of this year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported the astonishing 138-year sentence given to Emine Demir, former editorial manager of Turkey’s only Kurdish daily, Azadiya Welat. Demir was prosecuted on charges of spreading propaganda for the […]
Eight years ago, in Belarus to observe the trial of two prominent journalists, I witnessed an elderly poet, white-haired and frail, being manhandled down the stairs by the Belarus State Security Agency (KGB). In a courtroom the two journalists waiting to be tried were held in a cage, barely larger than a dog kennel. So […]
Many in the West will have known little about the Uighur people until the riots that erupted in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi last year were widely reported. The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region borders Russia, Pakistan and Afghanistan among others. Although ethnically diverse, it is predominantly Muslim, and many inhabitants identify themselves as Uighurs. The region […]
After almost three decades of conflict with the rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lankan government declared military victory on 19 May last year. But the new peace in Sri Lanka has come at a high cost to freedom of expression and the human rights of its citizens. Sri Lanka is […]
Last month, the United States renewed economic and diplomatic sanctions against Damascus, claiming that Syria continues to support terrorists and pursue weapons of mass destruction. In the West, Syria is largely talked about in terms of its strategic importance or strained relations with the US, and what is often forgotten is the state’s repression of […]
Like others before him, Mehmet Güler is on trial in Turkey for the remarks of his fictional characters. He is charged under article 7/2 of Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law, accused of ‘spreading propaganda’ for the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). In his novel, More Difficult Decisions than Death, three characters, Siti, Sabri and Siyar, are engaged […]
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was serving a prison sentence of twenty-five years and six months when he starved himself to death on 23 February. He was originally sentenced to three years in prison, on charges of showing ‘contempt to the figure of Fidel Castro’, ‘public disorder’ and ‘resistance’, but this term was gradually increased during his […]
On 9 February 2010, an open letter from journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari (LR, Aug 2009) to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was published in the New York Times. In calling for the release of his fellow writers and journalists, Bahari is unflinching in his criticism and offers a chilling portrait of life under a totalitarian regime: […]
Those holidaying in the popular Mexican resort of Cancún over Christmas will probably have been unaware of the brutal murder of a local newspaper editor on 22 December 2009. José Alberto Velázquez López was the owner and editor of Expresiones de Tulum, based in Quintana Roo state. He was also a lawyer and a regular […]
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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;...
literaryreview.co.uk
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