International PEN Day to Protect Freedom of Expression

November 15, 2008

Today, November 15, is the Day of the Imprisoned Writer. The situation of writers and journalists persecuted in the world has seriously deteriorated during the past twelve months. International PEN’s Committee to defend persecuted writers (WIPC/CODEP)* has identified more than a thousand attacks against writers and journalists in 90 countries because of their writings. Two hundreds victims were sentenced to heavy prison terms; hundreds of others harassed, arrested, tortured, imprisoned or isolated in a psychiatric hospital. Worse yet, this ultimate form of criminal censorship: to kill the author whose words disturb. More than thirty killings were recorded: Somalia 2, Nigeria 1, Mexico 8, Guatemala 2, Ecuador 1, Venezuela 1, Pakistan 6, Philippines 2, Nepal 1, India 1, Cambodia 1, Thailand 3, Sri Lanka 1, Russia 3, Bulgaria 1, Croatia 1, Iraq 5…(Attached list).

This year, International PEN will focus on cases of Eynullah Fatullayev, Azerbaijan journalist (8 years’ imprisonment); Tsering Woeser, Tibetan women writer and poet (forbidden to stay in Tibet, harassed and threatened in China); Kabudvand Mohammad Sadiq, Kurdish journalist in Iran (11 years’ imprisonment); Melissa Rocio Patino Hinostroza, Peruvian student and poet (accused of having alleged links to a terrorist organization) and the fate of authors, members of the distribution and the technical team of the satirical piece ’’The Crocodile Zambezi’’ prohibited in Zimbabwe, including the director of production Lionel Nkosi, tortured and threatened with death, the actor Aleck Zulu, beaten, the playwrights Raisedon Baya and Christopher Mlalazi, threatened. It will be a day of solidarity and support to writers and journalists who have become targets of intolerance and dictatorship. The murdered authors should be commemorated by thousands of members of International PEN, to which belongs Switzerland with its German, Romand and Italian and Reto-Romansch Centres. The impunity of the killers should be denounced.

Moreover, the International PEN Congress in Bogota, Colombia, last September, had already denounced and condemned the repression and threats against writers, journalists and human rights defenders in Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Cuba, Iran, Mexico, Russia, Zimbabwe and Viêt Nam. In the latter, to be a poet or a woman writer, a journalist or a woman lawyer is always a dangerous career. Reporters Without Borders has published its 7th World Press Freedom Index (2008). Out of 173 States assessed, Viêt Nam occupies the 168th position, before Cuba , Burma , Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea (173rd), but behind China, Iran, Sri Lanka and Laos (164th).

In fact, independent press of opinion and private publishing houses never have existed under the Socialist Republic of Viêt Nam. Several people of letters and cyberdissidents were imprisoned in forced labour camps after the trial that Reporters Without Borders describes as ’’Stalinist’’, for having exercised their right to freedom of opinion and expression. Their only crimes: to write and publish on line about corruption, abuse of power and human rights violations. The conditions of detention are inhumane. The disastrous status of their health is worrying. Undernourished, deprived of medical care and hygiene, prisoners of opinion and conscience have been attacked and humiliated by common law detainees or tortured by jailers and security police. Among the victim-witnesses: writer Trân Khai Thanh Thuy (age 48) who spent 9 months in prison whilst suffering from advanced tuberculosis and diabetes. Now released, she still bears very noticeable scars on her face and leg. They have become increasingly numerous, women defenders of human rights, such as Lê Thi Công Nhân (age 29), a barrister from Hanoi and member of the International Association of Lawyers UIA**, human rights lawyer and cyberdissident, sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment. From December 27, 2007 to January 3, 2008, she went on a hunger strike to protest the unbearable detention conditions in the Hoa Lo Moi camp (New Furnace) near Hanoi . Or else, Bui Kim Thanh (age 49) interned in a psychiatric hospital from November 2006 to July 2007 and from March to July 2008. A volunteer legal adviser for women farmers dispossessed of their land, she published online criticism of social injustice. During these two incarcerations, she was violently beaten and forcibly injected with unknown medication. Each time, she was released without charge, thanks to international pressure. After her last release, she was forced into exile to avoid a new arrest and in order not to relive the hell of a psychiatric hospital. Among other courageous women: Hô Thi Bich Khuong (age 41), cyberdissident and human rights defender, arrested on 25 April 2007 and secretly sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment on 24 April 2008, tortured in detention; Lê Thi Kim Thu (age 40), independent reporter and photographer, arrested on 14 August 2008 and sentenced to 1 year and 6 months’ imprisonment on 7 November 2008; Pham Thanh Nghiên (age 31), independent journalist, arrested on 17 September 2008….

Among the most well known prisoners of opinion and conscience: since 2003, Dang Phuc Tuê (Ven. Thich Quang Dô), (age 80), Buddhist monk and intellectual, held under house arrest; since 2007, Nguyên Van Ly, priest and editor of the clandestine review Tu Do Ngon Luan (Freedom of Opinion), sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment; Nguyên Phong and Nguyên Binh Thành, co-editors, 6 and 5 years; Nguyên Van Dài, barrister from Hanoi, human rights lawyer, cyberdissident and founder member of the Committee for Human Rights in Viêt Nam (prohibited), 4 years’ imprisonment; Trân Quôc Hiên, human rights lawyer and spokeperson of the Independent Union of the Workers and Farmers (prohibited), 5 years’ imprisonment; Lê Nguyên Sang, physician and cyberdissident, 4 years’ imprisonment; Nguyên Bac Truyên, human rights lawyer and cyberdissident, 3 years’ imprisonment; Huynh Nguyên Dao, journalist and cyberdissident, 2 years’ imprisonment; Truong Quôc Huy, Pham Ba Hai and Nguyên Ngoc Quang, cyberdissidents, respectively 6, 5 and 3 years’ imprisonment; Truong Minh Duc, independent journalist, 5 years’ imprisonment, in very poor health; Nguyên Van Hai, independent journalist (blogger Diêu Cày), founder member of the Free Journalists Club focusing on two main subjects ‘’Corruption and Human Rights’’ (under threats and arrests), 2 years and 6 months’ imprisonment; Nguyên Viêt Chiên, journalist of investigation, 2 years’ imprisonment.

Furthermore, all former prisoners released in recent years continue to be placed under administrative detention for a period of 1 to 5 years (renewable): house arrest, denial of the right to freedom of expression, association and movement, arbitrary and unlawful interference with his privacy, home and correspondence, restriction on the right to work or to free choice of employment. They have been subjected to relentless harassment; some, physical attacks. New violent assaults, arbitrary arrests, unfair trials and unjust prison sentences have been recorded, with the flagrant disregard for the rights of defense and the independence of judges.

Among the persons recently arrested following a wave of repression against dissenting voices, since September 2008, are Nguyên Xuân Nghia, writer and poet; Pham Van Trôi, writer; Nguyên Van Tuc, farmer, poet et human rights defender; Ngô Quynh, student and writer; Trân Duc Thach, poet; Vu Hung, teacher and human rights defender, tortured in detention; Lê Thanh Tung, veteran and independent journalist…

The list of prisoners of opinion and conscience proves inexhaustible, in Viêt Nam and in other dark skies of the planet. Let’s all think and have a thought at this moment of the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, for these poets, writers, journalists, among many other victims, who have been persecuted, tortured, imprisoned, murdered or missing. Let’s recall their stifled voices, their broken pen, their works confiscated and burned, talking about their lives, their families threatened or destroyed. So that their painful tragedy never falls into oblivion, let’s light a candle beside the window of our house, every night, all seasons, all our life. Born discreetly in our heart, this fragile glimmer will become, with other lighted candles, an eternal flame of Friendship and Solidarity, through the long night of Repression, before the dawn of Humanity.

* WIPC/CODEP: Writers in Prison Committee/Comité pour la Défense des Écrivains Persécutés .

International PEN Brownlow House, 50/51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER, U.K.

* * UIA: Union Internationale des Avocats 25, rue du Jour 75001 Paris France .

Nguyên Hoàng Bao Viêt
Member of Suisse Romand PEN Centre, Vietnamese Writers in Exile Centre CEVEX and Vietnamese PEN Club in Europe.

List of Writers and Journalists killed from November 2007 to November 2008 * according to International PEN’s Writers in prison Committee ( Pleased find attached the list)