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Theme: #4 2012

Fiction

Turkey's freedom of speech is crumbling

The writer and publisher Ragip Zarkolu is an honorary member of Swedish PEN. He has over the years published numerous books on subjects that are sensitive in the modern Turkey. Until last week, he was...

Text: Raqip Zarakolu April 17 2012
Article

How’s Your Slavery Goin’?

Secularism and the role of religion have always been charged subjects in Turkey—perhaps more today than ever before. Tarik Günersel, playwright and President of Turkish PEN gives us his views on...

Text: Tarik Günersel April 17 2012
Article

Free Speech in Burma: How long will it last?

“The basis of democratic freedom is freedom of speech”, said Aung San Suu Kyi in 2010, right after she was released from nearly 20 years of house arrest. In Burma neither freedom of speech or the...

Text: Aung Zaw April 17 2012
Fiction

The sunset exile

Exile and deportation are not fixed concepts. They have always shifted over time, and been filled with different content. But the idea of returning home is at the center of all hope for freedom. The...

Text: Bertrand Teyou April 17 2012
Fiction

Nirvana

Reza Najafi is an Iranian writer, literary critic and editor, who lives in exile in Germany. He has so far published more than 350 short stories and literary essays. In Nirvana, he is presenting a...

Text: Reza Najafi April 17 2012
Article

Self-censorship—the main danger

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. The main reason is the drug wars between criminal organisations. “Some people say that being a journalist in this country is...

Text: Gabriella Isabel April 17 2012
Fiction

A brief report on a country at war

Attempted assassinations, forced disappearances and death threats are a part of everyday life in Colombia. The country is known for its political trials. At the moment there are 7,000 political...

Text: Angye Gaona April 17 2012
Article

Secrecy and Torture

The fundamental human rights are not open for negotiation. But what do we do when a democracy starts to legalize torture? Larry Siems, writer and the Director of Freedom to Write and International...

Text: Larry Siems April 17 2012

Theme: #3 2011

Editorial

Editorial

How could we understand what is actually “taking place?”

Text: Ola Larsmo December 14 2011
Poetry

The ICORN-relay—Sepideh Jodeyri

The ICORN-relay has now left Scandinavia and landed in Italy, where the Iranian poet, translator and journalist Sepideh Jodeyri currently lives. Jodeyri has written three collections of poetry; two...

Text: Sepideh Jodeyri December 14 2011
Article

Children to dissidents in Russia

What happens to the children of dissidents? To tell an unwelcome truth or to protest against oppression takes a lot of personal courage. But only too often the authorities tries to silence dissidents...

Text: Oksana Chelysheva December 14 2011
Fiction

Forbidden poetry in Vietnam

“Vietnamese poetry is created through the left cerebral hemisphere; it knows what it is doing”, writes the author and literary critic Kristoffer Leandoer about the state of Vietnamese poetry today...

Text: Kristoffer Leandoer Translation from Swedish: Caroline Åberg December 14 2011
Article

Statelessness in Kuwait

Being stateless means that you do not have any civil rights such as personal documents, education, employment, or access to medical care. In Kuwait there are currently around 100 000 stateless people...

Text: Mona Kareem December 14 2011
Fiction

Citizens in need of a homeland

Far away from media attention there are people stuck in oppression, who never will be known or mentioned. This text is written by a Saudi writer under pseudonym and tells about ethnic and bureaucratic...

Text: Waleed Hamadani December 14 2011
Article

Requiem for pigs

The Egyptian revolution showed us how people with very different backgrounds could work together for one cause: to fight a totalitarian regime. But who were they? And how can the conflict between the...

Text: Fawzia Assaad December 14 2011
Fiction

IN MEMORIAM TATÁRSZENTGYÖRGY, 2009

On 23 February 2009 a Roma man and his 5-year-old son were shot and their house burnt down, seriously injuring the other two of the children and their mother, in Tatárszentgyörgy, some sixty...

Text: Péter Kántor December 14 2011
Article

Hungarian Democracy in Tatters

The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his party Fidesz controls over two-thirds of the parliamentary seats. Now they are putting the country through a thorough makeover. The Canadian-Hungarian...

Text: Éva S. Balogh December 13 2011
Article

Fear and Self-Censorship

In 2010, the Hungarian parliament voted for a new media law that gives great powers to a new Media Authority to impose fines and revoke licences, with no possibility of appeal. There have also been...

Text: Eszter Babarczy December 13 2011

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