Committees
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Women Writers
The Women Writers’ Committee was set up in 1991 to promote certain issues faced by women writers around the world – challenges at family and national levels such as unequal education, unequal access to resources and actual prohibition from writing. The committee reaches out to both aspiring and practising women writers through PEN Centres and other organisations and networks, and works with the Writers in Prison Committee on behalf of incarcerated or endangered women writers. Representatives from the committee attend meetings of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The committee has held conferences in countries such as Nepal, Kyrgyzstan and Senegal, and has published special newsletters. It uses Facebook to connect the work of women writers to the world. For more information or to get involved with the Women Writers Committee please contact: Zoe Rodriguez, Chair of the WWC – zoerodriguezconsulting@gmail.com For a history of the Women Writers Committee click here: Women Writers Committee _________________________________________ Free Chimengul Awut: https://cpj.org/data/people/chimengul-awut/index.php http://www.azizisa.org/en/tag/chimengul-awut/ PEN International
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Writers in Prison
The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International works on behalf of persecuted writers worldwide. It was established in 1960 in response to increasing attempts to silence voices of dissent by imprisoning writers and journalists. Working on behalf of persecuted writers worldwide, the WiPC monitors between 700-900 cases across the globe each year. The WiPC mobilises the wider PEN community to take action through its Rapid Action Network alerts, targeted regional campaigns, and by utilising PEN’s consultative status with the UN to submit UPR country reports. The Committee’s Rapid Action Network Alerts provide details of cases of individuals whose lives and liberty are being threatened and makes specific suggestions for action. In addition to its work on behalf of individual writers, the Committee creates campaigns on issues affecting freedom of expression, such as Religious Defamation, Impunity and Criminal Defamation, and campaigns focused on specific regions or countries, such as the Americas, Iran, China and Turkey. The Writers in Prison Committee also works through the UN to bring attention to individual cases and to systemic human rights problems in specific countries. Salil Tripathi is the Chair of the Writers in Prison Committee of PEN International, elected at the 81st PEN International Congress in Quebec City, Canada. From 2009-2013 he was co-chair of the Writers at Risk Committee at English PEN. Salil is an award-winning journalist and writer. He was born in India and has been a foreign correspondent in Singapore and Hong Kong and now lives in London. He is contributing editor at Mint and Caravan in India. His articles have also appeared in major international newspapers and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, New Statesman, Guardian, Independent, Far Eastern Economic Review, and many others. His awards include the Citibank Pan Asia Economic Journalism Award in 1994, […]
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Writers for Peace
The Writers for Peace Committee was created in 1984, an era during which writers found it especially difficult to collaborate across the East–West divide of the Cold War. The committee’s founding members recognised the need to bring writers together to exchange ideas, especially when most other doors were closed. It became a haven throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s (during the Balkan wars and other political conflicts) for writers who wished to tell their stories with the knowledge that their voices would be heard. Every spring the committee meets in Bled, Slovenia, for its annual conference. PEN writers from around the world come together there to discuss issues of conflict, peace and freedom of expression, and to create a space for dialogue between writers from all parts of the world – especially from regions in conflict. The 2018 meeting is the 50th in Bled (though the commmitee was only formally formed 34 years ago) and the initial reasons for establishing it remain all too relevant. The current President of the Writers For Peace Committee is Emmanuel Pierrat and is based at the French PEN Centre. You can contact him at emmanuel.pierrat@pierratavocats.com. The Vice-Presidents are Simon Mundy, Frank Miksa, Veera Tyhtila and Tienchi Liao-Martin.PEN International
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Translation & Linguistic Rights
Founded in Stockholm in 1978, the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee believes that all languages and literatures have the right to be written, read and heard, whether spoken by millions of people across the world or by just a few. Through projects, events, publishing and campaigning, this committee encourages readers and writers to explore writing from cultures other than their own. It holds a conference every spring in Barcelona, which gives members of the PEN community the opportunity to share stories and exchange ideas with the goal of continuing to ensure that translation and linguistic rights are always at the heart of PEN International and its work. In 1996 the committee played a leading in the creation of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, which was eventually adopted by UNESCO. In 2011 the committee drafted the Girona Manifesto for Linguistic Rights, which encapsulates the goals of the Universal Declaration, and summarises the aims of the committee in PEN International’s work to strengthen linguistic rights and translation worldwide. In 2011 the Girona Manifesto for Linguistic Rights was passed by the General Assembly at the 77th PEN International Annual Congress. The current Chair is Simona Škrabec who is a member of Catalan PEN. PEN International
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