8 January 2010
 

Dear PEN Colleagues,

Very best wishes to everyone for 2010.

As many of you already know, 2010 is the 50th anniversary of the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN. What began, at a Congress in Rio de Janeiro in 1960, as a committee of three PEN members has become a committee of almost 75 centres. In 1960, the committee presented a case list of  56 individuals to the Congress; the current case list of the WiPC has almost 900 names of writers who are imprisoned or threatened or who have been killed because of what they wrote or said.

The WIPC will  mark its anniversary with a year-long campaign called Because Writers Speak Their Minds.  I warmly invite all PEN centres to celebrate the past fifty years of PEN’s work in defending freedom of expression.

Because Writers Speak Their Minds will be launched officially on the website of International PEN before the end of January.

While not all centres have their own Writers in Prison Committees, freedom of expression has of course been a linchpin of PEN’s work since its founding in 1921, and many events and actions in the preceding decades led to the forming of the committee in 1960. One of the exciting things about thinking about the past 50 years is the opening of archival material, reading old Congress minutes, and discovering the richness of our history.

We very much hope that this year many more PEN centres will consider joining the WiPC.

One of the key pieces in the campaign will be what we are calling informally the 50-50 Case List: a list of emblematic Writers in Prison cases, one for each of the last fifty years. This list will be presented on the website as a resource for centres who might want to use the material as part of their own celebrations. There will be photographs, case details, writing samples and links to other background materials.

We also hope that the List (which is representative, not comprehensive) will generate discussion, and that centres will contribute materials to the “50th Anniversary Album” pages of the website. These pages will not be available until later in the spring, when you will be able to post short notes and photographs, perhaps a list of your centre’s most important cases, perhaps contribute to a discussion about how the nature of the oppression of writers has evolved.

One of the goals of the campaign is to have more cases of individual imprisoned writers taken up as Honorary Members by more centres. This direct engagement, with individual writers and their families, is one of the hallmarks of the work of the WiPC, and because it often simply means taking the time to write a letter to someone in prison, it is the kind of work that does not require money or bureaucracy.

Finally, we ask you to consider holding a 50/50 fundraising event in celebration of the 50th anniversary: 50% of the proceeds to your own centre; 50% of the proceeds to the WIPC of International PEN. Here’s a really simple idea from Drew Campbell of Scottish PEN: put a bucket on the bar whenever you have an event, call it The Empty Chair Fund, and collect cash donations for WiPC work.  It would be greatly appreciated.

(The Empty Chair is a tradition of a number of PEN centres, whereby a chair is set out, at readings and festivals, for the writer who cannot attend because he or she is in prison or under threat; the empty chair holds the photograph of that writer, and the writer is the subject of a petition from the event.)

Please join us in what promises to be a really exciting year. Watch the website for the official launch. Consider creating a WiP Committee, and adopting an honorary member. Hold an event. Contact WiPC staff for more information.

Warm regards,

Marian Botsford Fraser

Chair
Writers in Prison Committee
International PEN