International PEN. Fighting for writers' rights

By Angus Watson

On January 19th 2007, Turkish writer Hrant Dink was shot dead for something he didn’t say. 17 year-old Ogun Samast confessed to the murder: “I read on the internet that he said: “I am from Turkey, but Turkish blood is dirty,” and I decided to kill him. I have no regrets.” Dink had said nothing of the sort. However Dink had been charged repeatedly under Article 301, which makes it a crime to insult ‘Turkishness’, and so was on the hate list for nationalistic Turks.

“There is increasing international awareness that Article 301 lead directly to Dink’s death.”, says Caroline McCormick, Executive Director of International PEN, a charity that champions freedom of speech, or, as PEN member Tom Stoppard points out: “not free speech – one cannot should ‘Fire!’ in a crowded cinema - but free comment on the way that society operates.”

In Turkey, International PEN is swinging its weight as literature representative for UNESCO and adviser to the EU on Turkey’s membership: “We are trying to have 301 abolished,” explains McCormick. “I think we have a realistic chance.”

Turkish writer Elif Shafak was arrested last year under 301 for the views of a fictional character in her novel The Bastard of Istanbul: “International PEN was very active before and during my trial.” She says. Despite her acquittal, however, she has “become more anxious when writing. Laws such as Article 301 breed self-censure and that is their biggest danger. Self censure is worse than any legal fine.”

Defending writers’ freedom is just one role of International PEN. According to McCormick, “PEN has three goals: First to promote literature. This goal is often overlooked, when actually it’s the frame of reference for everything we do. The seconds is freedom of expression, the third to develop a world community of writers and readers.”

The charity was founded in London in 1921 for Poets, Playwrights, Essayists and Novelists (PPEN became PEN), with early members including Joseph Conrad and H.G. Wells. Membership is now open to all professional writers, and PEN has 15,000 members in 144 Centres in 101 countries. It is funded by membership, international bodies like UNESCO, national governments, plus corporate and private sponsorship.

International PEN is a ‘bottom-up’ construction, in that local PENs are created by writers forming a group then applying to the central body. Stoppard explains the inspiration to form a PEN: “I always felt that being a writer was somewhere between a stroke of luck and a privilege. Joining PEN helps offset that feeling of privilege.”

A PEN is currently forming in Iraq. McCormick is at pains to point out that this was instigated by Iraqi writers, and is not the dangerous imposition of Western ideals. As Shafak notes: “It is very important that International PEN's work is a collaboration. When a Western organization's move is interpreted as an "outside intervention" it serves only to create a backlash.”

So PEN is useful only to those under benighted dictatorial regimes, so far from libertarian Britain? Perhaps not. Just weeks ago the UK media lead the wildly disproportionate vilification of a simple girl for ignorant but innocuous comments on reality television. “PEN take Voltaire’s line – we support someone’s right to say something, even if we don’t agree.” Reports McCormick. “We support Jade Goody as much as David Irving’s right to deny the holocaust. Pushing these values underground makes them more powerful.”

“It would be complacent to think that we are an enlightened democracy” Opines Stoppard “When I joined PEN there was a rallying cry that we couldn’t do anything for anybody else’s freedom if we didn’t look after our own: like Archimedes you need a firm place to stand on to have leverage over somewhere else. Yet there’s been continuous encroachment on personal liberty here. Regulations which lay down markers for how we behave are proliferating. This erosion of freedom is actually more insidious than locking up a high profile writer. For someone who’d just had their seventh grandchild, I think life is pretty depressing, but I like to think that it would be worse without PEN. ”

Last year English PEN launched its Freedom of Expression Is No Offence campaign. Perhaps we should express ourselves by rallying behind it.

See www.internationalpen.org.uk, tel 0207 405 0338 Copyright The Financial Times Ltd