84rd PEN International Congress Pune, India ______
X. Minutes of the Assembly of Delegates of PEN International, Lviv, Ukraine, 18th – 22th September, 2017
Agenda 1. International President’s Welcome ...... 2 2. Introduction of Empty Chair #1 (Oleg Sentsov) ...... 2 3. Official Procedures ...... 2 4. Amending resolution to the PEN International Charter: ...... 3 5. Centre Updates and Comments I ...... 3 6. Amending Resolution to the PEN International Charter: Results ...... 5 7. International President Report ...... 6 8. International Secretary Report ...... 7 9. International Treasurer Report ...... 7 10. Executive Director Report ...... 10 11. International Board Report ...... 11 12. PEN Emergency Fund Report ...... 11 13. Committee Chair Reports ...... 11 14. Panel on Women and Journalism ...... 14 15. Centre Updates and Comments II ...... 15 16. Introduction Empty Chair #2 (Syria) ...... 17 17. Elections ...... 17 18. Key Note Speech ...... 23 19. Introduction of Empty Chair #3...... 23 20. Centre Dormancies and Closures ...... 23 21. Resolutions and In-session Resolutions ...... 27 22. Resolution on the Death Penalty ...... 33 23. Make Space Campaign for exiled writers and displaced communities – updates and progress .... 33 24. Making sense (and use) of ICORN ...... 35 25. Frontline Report: Crimean Writers in Exile ...... 35 26. Presentation of Questionnaire to evaluate the Congress...... 35 27. Hate Speech ad hoc Committee ...... 36 28. Report of last Congress ...... 36 29. Centenary ...... 36 30. Future Congress ...... 38
Session One Tuesday 19 September
1. International President’s Welcome
The 83rd International Congress 2017 [video]
Jennifer Clement (JC here after) (PEN International President): welcomes Mykola Riabchuk, president Ukrainian PEN
Mykola Riabchuk (MR here after) (Ukrainian PEN): introduces session
JC: announcements including: presence of filming; feedback opportunities on Thursday; sharing of delegate emails to facilitate communication between Centres; introduces VPs. Moves on to in memoriam: PEN is deeply saddened by the loss of a number of key figures, among those remembered with affection are: (list of names)
Carles Torner [hereafter CT] (PEN International): introduces four new proposed Centres and welcomes: Kavitha Muralidharan (South India PEN), Reinaldo Montero (Cuba PEN), Elena Chizhova (St Petersburg PEN), and unfortunately, Musa Sheriff is not able to attend (PEN Gambia).
JC: the vote for the proposed Centres will take place on Wednesday. Introduces guests among us: Ganesh Devy, Enoh Meyomesse, Larry Siems, Marian Botsford-Fraser and Russian guests Tatiana Bonch and Sergei Parkhomenko
2. Introduction of Empty Chair #1 (Oleg Sentsov)
MR (Ukrainian PEN): Ukrainian writer and film director; made a few short films and his first feature was the 2012 winner at Rotterdam International Film Festival. In 2014, Sentsov took part in Crimean protests and following the Russian occupation of Crimea, he was accused of crimes of terror, allegedly to blow up the Statue of Lenin. Sentsov was tortured and forced to confess. At the open court, Sentsov rejected this forced confession and as a result, he was awarded a draconian sentence. We are fighting for his freedom. A fragment of his play will be staged tonight.
3. Official Procedures
Confirm rules and regulations; introductory statement on procedures; confirm convening of meeting; confirm draft agenda.
JC: suggests to skip rules and regulations. 4. Amending resolution to the PEN International Charter:
Discussion and Vote
JC: Ballots on amending the Charter (for Centres who have paid dues) will take place today. It was realized that there was a need for an expansion of the Charter and, following conversations with the Centres, we propose a change that strives for the highest ideals. The Board feels this new version will lead us today and in years ahead.
Zoe Rodriguez (ZR here after)(Sydney PEN/PEN International Chair): explains procedures for voting.
---vote takes place---
5. Centre Updates and Comments I
Zeynep Oral (Turkey PEN): delivers a message from the Turkish writer Asli Erdogan, who expresses thanks for solidarity while in jail. Realizes one of hundreds of writers current regime is attempting to silence. Although, the case is still pending thankfully she is not currently behind bars. She owes her life to PEN. ‘no word can be killed without giving birth to countless others.’ After she left prison, her passport was confiscated but thanks to PEN’s efforts, she now has her passport.
PEN Eritrea: unfortunately, we have five empty chairs. Still have 70 writers in prison; but wants to express thanks for efforts. Will publish anthology in collaboration of PEN Austria and PEN Swiss- German.
PEN Mexico (Alicia Quiñones): in collaboration with PEN International and Centres: during July developed strategies to help writers and protection of freedom of speech. The projects planned depend on the needs of each country. Most importantly, we have established a network and plan projects depending on the needs of each country. Hold courses and training to improve the quality of activities. Czech PEN (Markéta Hejkalová): Intends to hold an event to mark the 100 anniversary of Austro- Hungarian Empire in October 2018.
French PEN (Sylvestre Clancier): Not been able to come to past two Congress’ but closely associated with PEN club, his father is over 100 years old and vice-president of PEN Int. He recently spoke in Berlin. Celebrating 90th anniversary of French PEN and at point of PEN Int conception, did not have different constitution to PEN Int at beginning, but established own Centre. Emmanuel Pierrat will replace me as President in July 2018.
French PEN (Emmanuel Pierrat): Atrocities against writers are increasing. Importance of linguistic diversity and the native language is of upmost importance and it is great that PEN celebrates this. Respect the choice of any writer to express their ideas in any language. Cultural-linguistic diversity is important to protect the languages of minorities and meetings such as today, help to protect languages. Poetry is not thought of greatly in the modern world but it is of great importance: poetry is fundamental and necessary. Happy to join the congress; There are seven people of our board; with a variety of backgrounds and expertise. We participate against hate speech and debates. Censorship is increasingly an issue in France.
Lebanon PEN (Iman Humaydan): Since last year, lots to do. Small and modest Centre but large ambitions and energy. All voluntary basis. Courageous to invite international writers in November 2016: a laboratory to see if it is a possibility each year. It was a success. Since January, writers have been visiting schools, Students excited to found own youth PEN club: on 7 October, the first youth PEN club (aged 16-19) will be launched through a poetry evening. More good news: the Institute of Research for Muslim and Middle East Studies in Paris will be organising a book fair in partnership with a twenty-year running book fair in Paris. Appreciate and claim back the value of the beautiful language of Arabic. Sad that there are no other Arabic Centres here today.
PEN Belgium Flanders (Natalie): Introduce a project; invited a number of Turkish writers with the help of Zeynep Oral (PEN Turkey) to write a short story ‘To Turkey, I Love’. Published on 14 July in Flemmish newspapers and translated to French and English. Invite to have conversations about these texts and publish in own newspapers.
South Korea PEN (Gil Won Lee): Published an anthology of literature from 40 countries. The second volume features 40 Centres – why only this number represented, when there are many more? Hopes all Centres will be represented in the third volume.
PEN Suiss-Romand (Alix Parodi): Very small association. In June 2018, hopes to host the meeting of the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee: how writers in exile are related to their native language and how migrants can support their own language and integrate this language to their new country. Hope delegates from so-called developing countries will share their ideas; this will be enabled by several partnerships with Swiss institution who will contribute to fund the participation of delegates.
Belgium Francophone PEN (Jean Jauniaux): In Galicia, the Centre was adopted in the General Assembly and happily will highlight events. As you know, the Centre is based in Brussels, the capital of Europe, and so has developed links with European Parliament; successful links with Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, with 500 people attending in plenary meeting of Parliament. Opportunity to listen to this from the Centre’s website.
PEN Romania (Magda Carneci): 95th anniversary of Romanian PEN, founded only one year after the creation of PEN in London. It is an honour to have celebrated this anniversary in Bucharest, with 16 PEN clubs and two roundtables ‘the histories of national PEN clubs’ and ‘displaced cultures in a globalized world’. Intend to organize an international debate annually in May, on a common theme of interesting. Together with Moldovian PEN, they published a statement in 2013 supporting the Euromaidan movement that took place in Ukraine. It was published in Romania and shared with other east-European Centres, demonstrating solidarity with PEN Ukraine and Ukrainian citizens.
PEN Macedonia (Ermis Lafazanovski): From 2017, Macedonian PEN is hosting Balkan PEN network. Macedonian PEN celebrating 55th Anniversary this year and organising a small conference, on the theme of ‘translation in the age of globalisation.’ They welcome Balkan PEN Centres. Discussed completed projects and issues for the future. One of out highlights, was assisting with the release of an imprisoned journalist.
Ethopia PEN (Marian Botsford Fraser on their behalf): In 2015, PEN delegates to congress in Québec declared not be able to return to Ethiopia after congress for fear of being detained, and are still in exile in Canada. Issues troubling Ethiopia. State of emergency imposed, extended and theoretically ended in Aug 2017, but the state stills lingers. TV networks were declared terrorist organisations. 75 journalists have been exiled since 2010. The country is the second worst jailer of journalists in southern Africa. More than 1,000 have died in protest this year. Plea to the Make Space Campaign: the issue of family reunification, writers fled because at risk and families then face persecution. Always a long process – if the individual is at risk, the family reunification process should be looked at. Ethiopia is debating whether it should become a Centre in Exile – would like to discuss future with African colleagues.
Slovenia PEN: (Ifigenia Simonovic) In Bled, annual conference will celebrate 50th anniversary next year. Bled meetings were an opportunity for Russian writers and others from the Eastern block to meet western writers in Bled, then part of Yugoslavia. Trying to work with Balkan PEN Centres to open channels of communication. First time that Palestinian and Jewish writers were able to meet.
Swedish PEN (Elisabeth Asbrink): she is newly elected president of PEN Sweden. Close monitoring of Turkey, especially as have two Swedish-Turkish citizens recently after extradition claims from Turkey channeled through Interpol. Tremendous help of PEN Catalan on the case of Hamsa Yalçin. Must keep in mind issue of Interpol; this does not just concern only Turkey or Spain. It is evident that several regimes are abusing Interpol and it is our obligation to put pressures on the EU and Interpol itself. In ten days’ time, Swedish PEN will publish its dissident blog; the subject of the new issue is Turkey.
PEN Wales (Caroline Stockford): focusing on Turkey, especially Kurdish language rights. Working with PEN International on civil society project; inviting two Kurdish writers to Wales – translating oldest Welsh folk stories finding communalities (not divides). Spoke at EU Parliament; advocated for more funding for translation and re-negotiation of Turkish Customs will take place soon, opportunity for lobbying here. Three levels of advocacy: postcard campaigns, observe trials (enough pressure to free two men who filmed a rally, no evidence but they were facing fifteen years in prison) and lobby community groups domestically, including through pressuring home governments to stop making arms deals with regimes.
Croatian Pen (Tomica Bajsic): 2016 financial difficulties largely due to the role of the Cultural Minister, who the Centre organized a petition against (he wanted to introduce a national identity policy and threatened to spread vicious propaganda). With a new Minister, this threat is less dominant and this year the Centre’s activities have been re-energized; for example through the publishing of an anthology, poetry workshops and educational programmes.
CT: reads letter from Iranian PEN. The development of the Iranian Writers Association has been suppressed, for example through obstructing activities. Members are imprisoned. Many writers are on hunger strike (some up to 50 days). The arena of art is no longer safe from the devastation of censorship in Iran. This sphere is particularly closed to women. 21 November is the day to fight censorship in Iran; we hope to have your support.
6. Amending Resolution to the PEN International Charter: Results
JC: received the ballot count. Amending of change to PEN International Charter – passed. For: 54 Against: 2 Abstentions: 4 The third point of the Charter will thus read: “Members of PEN should at all times use what influence they have in favour of good understanding and mutual respect between nations and people; they pledge themselves to do their utmost to dispel all hatreds and to champion the ideal of one humanity living in peace and equality in one world.”
[COFFEE BREAK]
PEN Hong Kong English Speaking (Maria Sala Ilaria): Last year we re-established PEN Hong Kong English Speaking. Due to the situation in Hong Kong, we have needed to think about how we define ourselves. There is a lot happening in Hong Kong –threat to freedom of expression and linguistic rights. Many threats to freedom of expression, many urgent, and because of this, we have decided not to be purely English speaking but to be multilingual. In the past year, we have been mainly tri- lingual (Cantonese, mandarin, English). Not asking for name change, just want PEN to be aware of situation in Hong Kong. PEN Hong Kong keeps English as working language but the Centre feels it is important to keep Cantonese too, because the authorities target it and the official space for it is decreasing. Even though it is recognized as official language. Mandarin is also needed to communicate with newcomers who arrive from China. The Centre published anthology of writing which is being translated into Chinese because it is the 20 anniversary of the Hong Kong sovereignty transfer from UK to China. Centre is doing lots of readings in public venues, such as universities, because in diminishing time of freedom of expression one of the best things to do is talk with students and young people to educate on importance and value of freedom of expression and human rights –that are still taken for granted in Hong Kong, but are diminishing day by day. If the Centre changes name will be decided in years to come
7. International President Report
JC: After the congress in Ourense, the board met and we went back in earnest to figure out how to make the Charter change better. Today we come together to vote on the changing of the Charter as we did at our last congress. There, in Spain, we discussed how the list of hatreds we, as PEN members, promised to fight against and the need for these to be expanded. Today, taking into consideration the well thought out arguments from various centres, PEN International presents a change that address all hatreds and also adds the concept of equality. There is always something very moving to me about documents that seek to make humanity strive for the highest ideals and our exceptional Charter is a document of this kind. The PEN International Board feels that this new version is the best solution for a document that needs to lead us today and in years ahead.
The PEN International Women’s Manifesto has been an intense part of our work this year, with several meetings to draft it and a large number of members participating in the process. We also worked hard to create the Women’s Manifesto, which we present at this congress.
Main activities in which I participated as president: - Trip to The Hague to present the Oxfam Novib/PEN International Free Expression Awards. - High level mission to Turkey - Solidarity letter of Mexican intellectuals and journalists in support of the USA press. - Trip to India. Participation to the Translastion and Linguistic Rights Committee meeting in Bangalore and visit to PEN Tibet in exile in Dharamsala. The hospitality of Tibetan writers was impressing and we were honored to visit the Dalai Lama.
We have also been working very actively to be able to make to you here in Lviv the proposal to celebrate the centenary congress in 2021 at St Hugh’s College, in Oxford.
Discussion:
Catalan PEN (Raffaella Salierno): we have members who would have liked to go to Turkey as part of the high-level mission, but we were not invited. So how are these missions formed?
CT: Missions cannot be open to the participation of all centres. We have invited only those centres who had attended trials in Turkey –or Basque PEN who has been very present in Kurdish areas of Turkey. Any centre is welcomed to participate in our solidarity campaigns with Turkey through our rapid action network and others. But, for a high level mission we need to limit ourselves to centres who know well the country because they have been involved in it in the past.
PEN Turkey (Zeinab Oral): Thanked everyone for the mission. Was unable to attend the meetings because I was abroad. Need to know well in advance when such a mission is organized as we want to participate in decision making about these missions. I read Asli Edrogan’s message of thanks before but as PEN Turkey we are so grateful for everything PEN International is doing, all the PEN Centres who are doing so much. I was taking notes on how many Centres are doing work on Turkey but there are so many so I thank everyone. It really helps a lot. Please when you inform us of what you are doing, please ask your governments to act to put pressure on Turkey.
Jennifer: our participation and presence was important. It was organized under the state of emergency. We responded quickly to a demand addressed to CT and me by publishers and writers in October, and we were able to organize a good mission for January.
Report approved.
8. International Secretary Report
Elected as International Secretary last year, she has spent last year trying to get know the Centres as well as staff of the secretariat. Thanked staff for all their work. Went to Turkey, and TLRC meeting in India. Went to celebrate anniversary of PEN Romania and learned more about the Centre. Went to mission to Russia after the crisis in Russian PEN, we visited St Petersburg and Moscow.
Report approved.
9. International Treasurer Report
Report by International Treasurer, Jarkko Tontti (JT here after)
Discussion:
Finnish PEN (Marianne Bargum): many Centres from Africa and Asia cannot pay their dues. PEN Intl should share fundraising techniques, which would be beneficial for them. Jarkko has difficult task to collect dues from all centres.
CT: at Civil society week in Oxford in July we did this training for 12 centres.
French PEN (Sylvestre Clancier): it would be helpful to know for what kind of project and how much money are receiving the 24 Centres who receive funding through the Civil Society projects.
JT: Romana Cacchioli, Director of International Programs, can inform you in detail about the projects. The information is also available on our website.
Irish PEN (Timmy Conway): Congrats on wanting increasing a reserve fund. How much do you have in reserve fund? If you are given money for projects, you can only use that for projects. So what is the situation of your reserve fund? Do you owe money to the bank or do you have money in the bank? Can you pay your wages next year? Can you get by next year?
JT: Timmy is right, restricted funds are not in the reserves. When I mentioned our reserves were built back up, it was mainly unrestricted. Charity Commission demands charities to have certain amount of cash in reserve, equivalent to 3 months of running costs. We are almost there. Regarding the bank, we have different accounts in different currencies. We do not owe bank money and we have money in the account. Our detailed account will show you at end of 31 December. We do need to build reserve. Charity Commission expects at least a third, we are at around 75%, so we are almost there. Board has had to make difficult decisions but we need to guarantee future of PEN.
English PEN (Antonia Byatt): What is your strategy for building reserves? Where will you put your effort?
JT: Difficult decisions of cutting expenditure. Carles mentioned some but there are others. There are not as many staff as there should be, there is tremendous pressure on staff members. Phase 2 is increasing the dues and we also want to increase Circles –we will launch Screen Circle next year. That is a new fundraising tool.
Canada PEN (President): Only have 6000 GBP from fundraising – most charitable organizations have higher proportion of total budget. A tiny fraction of what it would otherwise be. It is around 20%, which most organizations should have. So what is your strategy?
JT: We want to have a fundraising consultant, concentrating on donor care, existing donors and new funds. A decision has been made to recruit this person.
JC: We were in red when we started. But we are having interviews in the coming weeks for fundraising. Therefore, by next year hopefully it will be better. In the long run we’ll have someone who can do this work.
JT: Our donations are different than in Canada where it is more corporate funding, here it is more foundations in Europe.
French PEN (Malick Diarra): West Africa doesn’t participate to the Congress. I ask for the debt of centres to be erased. It’s not just the visa issue. We need to think about this issue.
CT: it was a visa issue. We were waiting for PEN Mauritania, PEN Gambia and PEN Mali, but they didn’t get visas. There was recently an advocacy mission to Niger with the participation of PEN Sierra Leone and PEN Mauritania. Also, it must be said that Francophone African Centres are not in debt, they have all paid their fees as far as I am aware – maybe with one exception.
French PEN: Senegal has a debt problem. Since 2007, they haven’t paid which is why they aren’t able to travel. French PEN and Senegal signed an agreement to help the two PEN Centres.
CT: Romana Cacchioli and I visited Senegal, Mali and Mauritania two years ago. PEN Senegal was cordially invited in 2015 to come to the Quebec congress to present both PEN Mauritania and PEN Mali. There was a problem in the past with some misunderstandings, and a problem with dues. But we solved this. PEN Senegal participated at the Johannesburg meeting of the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee last year, and very actively. They also were invited to this congress.
JC: Also no Latin America Centres here. Alicia Quiñones from Mexico is here. We are trying to strengthen the work in this region; it will be a priority next year.
Francophone Belgian PEN (Jean Jauniaux): can we have clarification of admin vs project costs. Also can the PEN Centres benefit from the fundraiser that PEN recruits? Perhaps this could be service that PEN can provide. Secondly, I suggest we use the centenary to raise visibility of PEN International.
JT: PEN has done this in some ways in terms of sharing information about fundraising, but that is a good suggestion.
Anne Muthee (Finance and Administrarion Director at PEN International): We have presented a broad breakdown of costs. Admin costs are 10% – IT, rent etc. Staff: 29%. 70% is project expenses, money sent to Centres.
ICORN (Helge Lunde): is ICORN contribution to the budget restricted or unrestricted?
JT: Restricted, for the protection work. In general, we may use small amounts of restricted funds for admin costs.
The Assembly approves the report?
- Majority approval.
The Assembly is asked to approve the continued appointment of the company of auditors HW Fisher
- Majority approval.
The issue of dues:
JT: There has been a loss of 20 % of dues due to inflation since 2010. No one in office can remember when we last increased the dues. This I why Board decided to propose an increase in dues.
There will be two votes: increase or not? Yes or no.
If yes, we present you two choices: 10 % or 15%.
Discussion:
French PEN (Sylvestre): We understand the difficulty. I want to be constructive, not negative. We’ve arrived at a crucial moment. We are making a mistake if we think that Centres in certain countries are able to pay --e.g. France is a developed nation (this is also similar for other countries). PEN Centres in very developed countries don’t have resources, they have the same issue as PEN International. Since 2007, French PEN doesn’t have the support of foreign office of minister of culture. That was our only support for many years, which allowed us to function. We now need to find money to allow French PEN to survive. We only have a small budget. I’ve spoken to other Centres and their situation is the same. So using this criteria isn’t helpful, we need to examine this criteria in relation to very developed countries. We can ask for donations from writers across the world but PEN Centres can’t go with an increase.
PEN Canada (Richard Stursberg): This is a modest increase. If you were to get this, you’d have overall budget increase between 1 and 1.5%. Let me make a suggestion. We are happy to support an increase in dues. But we need to do an overall review of finances of PEN International to see how we can increase the total of your budget.
Swiss Romande PEN (Alex Parodi): can a swiss poet pay this much each month when it hasn’t any support. We work out of my house, we are all volunteers. We have 39 members. 5 who can’t pay. Others who can only pay 50%. The crisis has hit everyone.
German PEN (Carlos Collado): We understand the issue. We have same problems. We don’t get money for Germans to travel. As member of Board, I would stress the great work that Jarkko and Carles have done in reducing costs and getting balanced budget. If we can make small contribution, we should do it, for those who can, others we will find a solution. In Europe, we have different fundraising culture – e.g. in Germanay it’s hard to organize a successful fundraising event.
English PEN (Antonia Byatt): We sympathise with other Centres, share the same position, but also sympathize with Board. Let’s work actively to make the PEN membership much bigger. Doesn’t give instant result. Also doesn’t give us massive financial headache. Let’s work together to get more active members.
Anders Heger (Board): it is only 1.5% but it makes this organization workable from day to day. If we vote to freeze the dues, you are in fact voting in yearly decrease in the money because of inflation. If you want to pay less to PEN, then vote for freeze. This will mean lower activity in London. Less efficient organization. That is unavoidable.
PEN Portugal (Teresa Cadete): Portugal is a poor country. We also support Portuguese speaking African centres. We do a lot of things pro-bono. I am divided though I also support what Anders said. We are Europeans, not Americans.
Eric Lax: Writers Circle is raising money from writers bringing in unrestricted incomes – 25 writers from around the world at a minimum of 1000 dollars. Last year it brought 34000. Add this to the dues; it makes big difference in what we can do. Funders around the world look at support from within the organization – they say if you aren’t supporting yourselves why should we? We need to show this support. It’s been 10 years since there has been not a raise in the dues. Understand it’s hard for PEN Centres to pay, but it’s critical to running of the organization. Need to work on behalf of writers who don’t have liberty to wake up and write what they want.
First Vote: Yes: majority No: 3 Abstain: 7
Vote passed that we increased the dues
Danish PEN: everyone that can do 15%, others 10%?
Jarkko: That doesn’t’ work, we need a single criteria
15%: 31 votes for
10%: 27 votes for
The result is yes to an increase of 15% of dues
10. Executive Director Report
Video #2
ED report.
Discussion:
Ukraine PEN (Andrei Kurkov): What happened to New Voices award?
CT: The cost of running it was very big. We are sorry about it, as some Centres participated very actively. It is hard to fundraise for this activity. We wanted to invite 3 shortlisted to every congress and give award to winner, but as our funding isn’t even there to bring delegates, the Board reviewed the whole process and on one side they evaluated as a very positive award, but also realized that it wasn’t realistic to continue from the financial point of view. This year there was no call for applications.
Marian Botsford Fraser: commend PEN International for report on Ukraine. Very deep research with strong recommendations that people here can work with and take forward. Thanked everyone who worked on it.
Report approved
---Lunch---
JC: Has several announcements. The in-session resolutions will be emailed instead of printed and sent to the participants. Contact Sarah Clarke in case they are not received. Additionally: for events, follow the volunteers.
11. International Board Report
Anders Heger (on behalf of the Board):
He will keep it brief, as there are two comprehensive reports from Treasurer and ED, which together cover the focus of the Board this past year. In some aspects, the Board was involved in every action described this morning. Thanks to staff on behalf of the Board.
Co-opted members have made the Board more effective, as they add expertise.
Focus has been on advising and working on solutions for troubled Centres and establishing new ones, work on the Women’s Manifesto and Charter, and fundraising. In addition, the Board worked on several campaigns and supported the Committees.
The Board’s role is mainly an advisory one, but also involved guidelines and drawing up the framework. Essentially, they serve as the members’ tool to supervise what goes on in the organization. In addition to advising, they also help with setting out the strategic and political line of the organization.
Questions: none
12. PEN Emergency Fund Report
Job Degenaar: A call for support. In the delegate pack, there is the annual report from Rudolf Geel and Jan Honault.
Previous year: Income and expenditure was about the same. 23 grants for support were handed out. Good news was only for a year, because of an extraordinary gift.
This year: 20 000 EURO shortfall to date.
The fund can work rapidly and decisively, sometimes disbursing the grant within 24 hours, and as such differing from nearly all other organizations involved with helping writers and journalists in need.
Grateful to PEN Centres such as San Miguel PEN, Dutch PEN, Finnish PEN, Flemish PEN and others, who contribute. However: many PEN Centres only focus on their own cases.
Call for contributions from richer Centres. Without it, the PEF will be over in a few years. The Fund saves lives, please support.
13. Committee Chair Reports
WOMEN WRITERS COMMITTEE
Elisabeth Nordgren (Chair of Women Writers Committee): presents summarized version of the report in the delegate pack.
WRITERS FOR PEACE COMMITTEE
Marjan Strojan (MS, Chair of Peace Committee): I took over the chairmanship of the committee when my predecessor became Minister of Culture of the Slovenian government, so it has been a process of learning for me. Nevertheless, we managed to put together a successful meeting in Bled in May, a lively festival in Ljubljana and a resolution on capital punishment, a proposal for work on China, and a proposal for a peace prize.
French PEN (Sylvestre Clancier): Thanks for the report, and asks about intentions of the Peace Committee. Next year there will be a huge anniversary event of the Committee, please elaborate on that?
MS: Peace Committee is the oldest ongoing committee in PEN International, celebrating its 50th anniversary next year. In order to celebrate, there will be a major event in Bled, with exciting guests. Although I know some of the names, not the right person to make the public announcement. The theme will be the influence of populism on daily life and the politics thereof. A warm invitation to everyone on behalf of Slovenian PEN, it’s a beautiful event
Finnish PEN (Mojibur Doftori): What will be the key criteria for the Peace Prize?
MS: the criteria have not yet been set out, we are still at the proposal stage and it’s very short for now. From what I gather, the gist of it: we will be seeking for a writer, person or book (tbd) that will give visibility to lesser-reported, ‘unknown’, conflicts in a literary form. However, there are already three PEN prizes, so for the criteria we should be careful and well delineated, so it’s precisely set out what we want. My explanation only covers the basics.
Vida Ognjenovic (Vice-president): In Bled was the first time that Russian writers could attend, from which grew the Peace Committee.
MS: the basic idea was to hold it in Yugoslavia, as a non-aligned country. It developed as a very effective meeting space for people from the two blocs during the Cold War.
WRITERS IN PRISON COMMITTEE
Salil Tripathi (ST, Chair of Writers in Prison Committee): highlights some key elements from the report and discussions from yesterday, including the decisions from the WiPC/ICORN Conference Lillehammer, i.e. the name of the international “Writers in Prison Committee” will remain the same - -but individual centres can change their name. However, the work remains the same. Furthermore, there was the decision to drop certain categories, including journalists, from the case list: there are already excellent reports by other organizations; and, given limited resources, it had become impossible for regional coordinators to verify all cases and seek consent for every case of journalist. Hence, there was a reprioritization, which however does not mean that journalists’ cases will not be picked up anymore, but there will be a re-evaluation. ST also presented a brief overview of the casework, per region.
Yesterday’s meeting was very useful, producing many resolutions, which will be sent around via email. A final point is a short letter to Liu Xia, which will be circulated for signature to the delegates.
Ethopia PEN (Marian Botsford Fraser on their behalf): It is good to see the shift to thematic resolutions from a slew of country resolutions; it focuses the discussion and as such is an excellent move. Is there a sense after two years in the position, what the shifts have been in terms of challenges to Freedom of Expression and the casework for the Committee?
ST: One of the concerns has been the work re: journalists, and about bringing in bloggers. Non- verbal, non-written forms of expression are likely to become part of our work over the next five years. To focus exclusively on writing can be artificial.
Another challenge is the growing threat from non-state actors. Bangladesh is an obvious example of that, in which religious leaders call for violence and the state does nothing about it.
Third is the legacy of colonial criminal libel law, and its continued use in South Asia, Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, … These laws are used to stifle dissent, and we see many repeat cases from the same countries.
Catalan PEN (Raffaella Salierno): Question about the case list: how about cases that other organizations do not take up.
ST: When there are ‘grey’ cases, they will not be dropped. For so long we are convinced it is in our mandate and no one else is working on them, we will continue to work on them.
Eugène Schoulgin (PEN International VP): What about cases of journalists-writers, who get in trouble for their journalism? We should keep a floating border to ensure people are not excluded because they are not known as writers.
ST: we will apply a sanity test and in case of doubt, rather take up than drop a case. The categories are useful, but not locked up boxes.
San Miguel PEN (Lucina Kathmann): I am concerned because in Mexico there is a problem of murdered journalists. PEN should not give it less attention. Murdered journalists are our no. 1 problem.
ST: We will continue to pay attention also to journalists.
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman (Vice-president): Before we take up photographers, let’s make sure we do not neglect journalists.
Independent Chinese PEN (Tienchi Martin): repeats Liu Xia letter idea.
Finnish PEN (Mojibur Doftori): Our committee worked a lot on the resolutions. Lillehammer was a very relevant conference and gave a lot of information on practical assistance. PEN and ICORN are a good match and this experience should be expanded. More cities should be included in the ICORN network. In Finnish PEN we have been working with other organizations that provide short-term residencies to artists. It gives us some guidelines so that Finnish PEN can do something bigger and broader despite limited capacity.
Scottish PEN (Nik Williams): in relation to the work on criminal defamation in Africa: useful and needed, but we ask not to stop there. There are also other cases of civil defamation, including in Scotland, that are very problematic.
Canada PEN (Tasleem Thawar): important to not just emphasize African countries re: libel. In Canada, we also work hard on it. Second, we have not yet mentioned Aung San Suu Kyi, considering at one time she was such an important honorary member.
ST: there is no one from PEN Myanmar here.
TRANSLATION AND LINGUISTIC RIGHTS COMMITTEE
Simona Skrabec (Chair Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee): Annual Committee meeting was in Bangalore, with a good representation from the leadership and collaboration from many various PEN Centres. There were truly outstanding speakers, writers and activists in a variety of languages. We enjoyed our great reception and a wonderful cultural program. We were also in touch with publishers in India that carry out independent publishing projects, magazines, websites and books, including in non-dominant languages.
More good news: the publication of Culture’s Oxygen report, supported by UNESCO, which can be found on the website or in print. This is the result of two years’ research in Nigeria, Kenya, Haiti and Serbia as case studies, which served to describe the situation in those countries and support broader conclusions about ways of supporting use of language and literary creativity in non-dominant languages. In India, we could clearly perceive that the Report was useful not just for the countries as case studies, but also for publishers, writers and translators in India. Although there is no reason for optimism, there is a growing interest for literature in non-dominant languages and translated literature.
The UNESCO report had echoes in Latin America, too. PEN Mexico published a report in Spanish, and PEN Argentina also published about the initiative. PEN Chile presented the work of PEN at the Committee on Indigenous People.
The third big project finalized after last congress has been the Protocol for Ensuring Linguistic Rights. It was presented in Donostia-San Sebastian in December 2016. The Protocol is developed on the basis of the UDHR and the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (promoted by PEN and approved in Barcelona, 1996). The important conclusion is that we need to develop a new terminology in the public sphere, the school system, the judiciary, the media, as well as in the publishing community. Without new words, we cannot avoid prejudice and exclusionary thinking. The Protocol will be a useful tool for all languages in the world that are trying to use their languages every day in all spheres of life, in particular in education.
Finally, some of the possible future projects: next year’s meeting in Bienne/Biel, welcomed by the Swiss spirit of respect for linguistic diversity. Another idea: continue debate about book markets in relation to small linguistic communities. Also link up with the WiPC work, as translators are especially vulnerable, often perceived as a traitor because they know the language of the enemy.
I am happy to report that there has been an increased participation from Committee members in the works of the committee, which is appreciated and yielding more ideas and new projects.
CТ: presentation of the candidates for the Board, with a view to making it possible for people to find them for a chat if they’d wish to do so.
14. Panel on Women and Journalism
Kavitha Muralidharan (PEN South India): few women journalists cover crime. Editors do not want to send them because they feel they are unsafe, but they seem to be fine. Threats against women are increasing. MWMI organization works for women facing sexual harassment. Trying to set up a campaign across India. Believe in FoE more for women and not just for women. Online trolling is worse for women. Men also face abuse, but I am afraid to speak up especially because I am a woman. Online trolls have coined a word ‘pressitutes’ derived from ‘prostitute’ it is used against all, but it is especially degrading for women.
Margie Orford (board of PEN International): advantages of being a journalist. Started at 18 under a state of emergency where almost everything was banned and everything was prohibited. It was a real baptism of fire. Continued to work in SA, Namibia and southern Angola. Very dangerous places. Several of my friends were shot and killed. It’s just something that you grow up with. All the advantages and difficulties of being a woman in a public space are clear. Advantages: women journos have access to private spaces that men can’t get in to. Men can go into the streets, but as a woman, I was invisible so I could go into their domestic spaces their personal spaces. It has given me an insight into how a violent society works. Assume it starts on the street and filters through to home. My understanding is that it starts on the street and moves out. Women because of way society is gendered we look sweeter so people accept us, we have a different power dynamic. How do you find an authoritative voice, how do you speak as authority and not voice of anecdote? Same can be applied to religious minorities. Women speaking for humanity rather than themselves. When I first worked as an investigative journalist, the male editors would put my stuff on the women and culture pages, didn’t matter that I was writing about politics. As soon as I had a female editor, my stuff was published on page 2 or 3. My journalism has informed my activism. I have seen so much that I have felt I had to do something about. The work I have done on sexual violence, led me to be the patron of xxx, it was my journalism that led me to the PEN work through writing. How dowel create space in which women’s voices carry authority as men have so kindly spoken on our behalf for the past 1000 years, we will now speak on your behalf and do better.
Elisabeth Eide (Norwegian PEN): travelling in Afghanistan and Pakistan can go into the home behind the curtain speak to women. There is a resonance, which is powerful. I think the reason why the ‘shameless girls’ came up as a collective, is because they have seen their predecessors, women of minority groups who have been harassed and silenced by social media as well, when came together as a group they were stronger. This is the necessity of being part of a group as well as individual. You can be an individual and rely on a group. The stats show that women and men are harassed as much on social meida, but women are more harassed sexually than men.
Iman Humaydan (PEN Lebanon): thanks all, so inspiring. A comment for Zeynep: I had many attacks also. Every time I was attacked, I posted on my page, named them, and they stopped. No one harasses me now.
No further comments
Alix Parodi (PEN Swiss Romande): I would say that unfortunately, in our developed countries in Europe, this situation described is beginning again. I think that we have forgotten as women of developed countries that in the past we faced these issues much more often.
I want to describe my personal experiences about thoughtful Alix. Now we are feminists in Switzerland, we struggled to obtain for women the right to vote. Four weeks ago, once talked about victims of harassment on behalf of women themselves. Always combatting being a sexual object. Look at the pictures of women with Botox at an early age. As a teacher, I speak about it with my pupils.
15. Centre Updates and Comments II
Regula Venske (German PEN): we are monitoring what is happening in Turkey. Can Dündar is a fellow in our writers in prison program, will support him for another year. Zeynep you asked us to put pressure on our governments, last year we created an online petition directed at the chancellor and the EU president. We did this with the German Publishers Association and RSF. We had 126,000 signatures. We asked for meeting with German chancellor. Well received by foreign adviser to chancellor and press speaker. Can Dündar was part of the delegation. He spoke with us for an hour. They asked Can to return and spoke with him for 30 minutes separately. We are waiting to go to Brussels next, which will be a bigger delegation. We are raising cases of Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia, and when he was released on medical parole –released to die- we did a public awareness campaign. There were also diplomatic maneuvers. Remains efforts to get Liu Xia to get her out of China. Sascha Feuchert has been in contact with the foreign affairs ministry. Finally, three of us are going to Ghana in November to continue our friendship with PEN Ghana and see what they are doing. We are very excited.
Mojibur Doftori (Finish PEN): we have been playing an active role on issues of Bangladesh and blasphemy issues. We have been working with other centres, such as Elisabeth Eide from Norwegian PEN who played great role in getting the blasphemy resolution. We are inspired by the Make Space campaign and working with ICORN. Got guidelines from them at Lillehammer. Jarkko has played important role in writing about censorship. Peace committee played major role with Finnish media with materials for kindergarten students as well as primary students to train them to distinguish between real and fake news, so that they can reach their own judgements and not need to limit the internet. Media literacy is important in this day and age. Happy to share experience on this issue.
Session 2 Wednesday 20 September
16. Introduction Empty Chair #2 (Syria)
JC: Asks Iman Humaydan to present empty chairs
Iman Humaydan (PEN Lebanon): Good morning. I am going to introduce two abducted Syrian activisists, women activists abducted during the war in Syria.
The first is Tal al-Mallouhi, a very young Syrian blogger and poet. She was taken from her home in December 2009. To now, we know nothing about her. She was charged with spying for a foreign country without evidence and sentenced to 5 years. It is believed the sentence is related to the contents of her blog where she promoted human rights and peace in the Middle East. She was first questioned in 2006 when she wrote an open letter to Bashar Al-Assad asking him to fulfil promises. She was questioned by the same service in 2007 and then later arrested. On 19 October 2013, her name was included in a prisoner exchange agreement. It was reported that she was released, but in reality, she was taken to another prison where she is being held incommunicado. We call for her immediate and unconditional release.
The second activist and lawyer is Razan Zaitouneh, she is a human rights defender and blogger.
Austrian PEN: Mahvash Sabet released from prison on 18 September 2017. Honorary member of Austrian PEN. Wants to invite her to Austria in November under a Schengen visa.
JC calls Burhan Sönmez to stage – Burhan received Vaclav Havel Peace award this year. He accepted it on behalf of all of us. Dr Thida (PEN Myanmar) also received the award but sadly cannot be with us due to family bereavement.
JC: announces process for Board elections.
17. Elections
CANDIDATE PRESENTATIONS
Treasurer
Jarko Tonti presented by Margie Orford. Only candidate – has been doing it for 4 years, done a fantastic job, has navigated the role with skill and diplomacy.
JT: has been challenging 4 years, difficult financial challenges but have managed to overcome them. 2016 is a record year of centres paying their dues – thank you.
International Vice President
Eric Lax (EL): nominated by 5 centres. Letter of nomination by John Ralston Saul, read by JC. Done great work for PEN through the 90’s and a wonderful writer.
EL: has been a great pleasure to work for PEN and to have your friendship. Thanks for nomination.
Judith Rodriguez (JR) (PEN Melbourne), nominated by Finnish, Basque, Melbourne and San Miguel PEN presented by Lucina Kathman. Fine poet and writer, member of order of Australia for services to literature. A moral force – member of PEN since 1994, has attended 19 congresses, has served in virtually every office of PEN. Interested in building literary and cultural partnerships and relations, teacher and committed to young writers.
JR: sees tasks ahead to develop new centres, especially in India. Thank you to be here with friends and to look forward to being here again.
Board
Teresa Cadete (TC) (Portugese PEN), presented by Tienchi Martin. Novelist, poet, teacher and scholar – has edited an online anthology ‘Women in War’. Already served 3 years on the board, has a sense of mission, bridges different parties and religions viewpoints.
TC: running for second term because PEN needs a balance between experience and engagement and she can provide both. Committed to supporting freedom of speech.
Iman Humaydan (IH) (PEN Lebanon): nominated by Estonian and Norwegian PEN.
William Nygaard (PEN Norway): she is a famous writer, researcher, photographer, President of PEN Lebanon. Has done a lot of work for writers at risk and in prison. Comes from a region central to key issues of PEN work (refugees). Has been leading creative workshops in English and Arabic at universities in Lebanon and abroad, currently working on 5th novel, travelling widely internationally. Has been working in secondary schools, creative writing projects, giving young people a voice and representing Syrian refugee and Lebanese writers. Just started youth PEN club. Committed.
IH: really wants to see Arabic centres represented in PEN and Arabic language of love strengthened. Wants to show women writers coming from a repressive society that they can make it – she published her first novel at the late age of 40. Needs help from PEN to take this mission forward.
Ola Larsmo (OL), nominated by German and Turkish PEN, presented by Regula Venske, German PEN. Writing focusses on immigrants, has been president of Swedish PEN for several years, during which Swedish PEN has expanded its membership and activities. Focus on Bangladeshi bloggers and working closely with ICORN, now more than 20 cities of refuge in Sweden. Swedish PEN supported a conference on Ukraine/Russian. Will bring his experience in Swedish PEN to wider international community. Humble man, inspiring and team player.
OL: running again this year. Historical perspective to work of PEN – in particular how to counter hate speech without damaging freedom of speech. One of great problems facing democracies, PEN a key organisation in navigating this.
Margie Orford (MO), nominated by Myanmar PEN and South Africa PEN. Presented by Nadia Davids, SA PEN president– she is loved in SA as a writer and activist. Patron of Rape Crisis and President of PEN SA. Served time in prison for opposition to apartheid. Has worked to build alliances, developed programs around literacy, to create a space for dialogue around difficult issues. Has empathy, solidarity, humor, all qualities needed in difficult path ahead. Much loved.
MO: Work in the board: have developed the Women’s manifesto. In addition, have brought in a pro bono fundraiser. Likes to mix practical with political. Has recently been given a fellowship from Oxford for her work with PEN – wants to work for centenary, how can PEN be relevant to next 100 years. Free speech is a right to speak but also to listen – standing on this mandate. Counter trolling and hate speech – enjoys the intellectual and practical challenge.
Philip Slater (PS) presented by Salil Tripathi on behalf of PEN Delhi who can’t be here. Also nominated by PEN Honduras. Philip proposed creation of PEN Delhi centre in 2013, followed by India report. Active commitment of PEN Canada in India. Also Honduras report developed under his leadership, which lead to the centre in Honduras. Strongly committed to centre development.
PS: has personal experience, coming from a family of jewish refugees who fled to Canada (Winnipeg) from Ukraine. Also his wife. Happy to have the opportunity to be here, but distressed that many PEN centres are not here, including PEN Delhi and PEN Honduras. Visas and money key problems. Concerned about financial trajectory of PEN, need to tap private sector for funds, and wants to have a chance to fix this problem.
Chair elections
Simona Škrabec, Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee, has been elected by TLRC as Chair for next 3 years. Vote endorsed by the GA by simple majority.
Simona Škrabec: thanks, happy to continue the work she is passionate about.
Zoe Rodriguez (Search Committee Chair): conducts the Board voting. Explains process. Ballot takes place.
After announced the election results, ZR prefaced the elections to be held the following year in Pune. Listed the roles that would be up for election and suggested that people who wanted to nominate might want to talk to current members of the Board or Vice Presidents to understand what being a Board member entails and to understand the process of nominating. Stated that the Search Committee was tasked with finding candidates to put themselves forward who represent the diversity of PEN Membership – i.e. geographic, gender, language diversity. She also encouraged people who knew other PEN delegates they thought would make good candidates, to encourage them to run – people needed to see that Board membership was open to any good candidate from anywhere.
ZR also clarified the process for VP election as there’d been some lack of understanding by some delegates about the process – made clear that centers could suggest possible candidates to the Board, that the Board then discussed such suggestions and it was at the Board’s discretion to put candidates forward to the Congress for election. We also clarified that a number of VPs whose terms had expired (it’s a 10 year appointment) would be considered emeritus, and this had made some space for more new VPs. Also clarified that there are two categories for VPs: 1) services to PEN; and 2) literary merit.
PROPOSED NEW CENTRES
PEN CUBA
Alicia Quinones (PEN Mexico): have the honour of present the new centre. Historical ties between Mexican and Cuban writers. Support to the new centre and wanting to collaborate.
Reynaldo Montero (PEN Cuba): In Havana PEN was founded in 1945, 23 years after the formation of PEN in London. In 1945 Cuban writers of that time wanted to put the island on the world map. It reunited writers of different schools and tendencies. Since 2015, Anton Arrufat has been able to do the same again, holding meetings were a diversity of writers are welcomed. There is a necessity for us Cuban writers to belong to PEN, after the long interruption that began in the 60s for complex reasons, which I won’t go into. Then, a part of the pen club went into exile and kept functioning. The new PEN Cuba based in Havana will have its first assembly in December. The centre is open to all. This is my hope. What do we want to do? We want to do away with closed artistic ideas, a cordial conversation with writers around the world about all issues, not just about those that we write about in Cuba. Cordiality is important. It is the matrix of our fraternal relationship. We think the best writers and creators in today’s Cuba will be present in our main gathering in December. The cultural climate will welcome it. Thank you very much.
JC: Lucina Kathman and JC were present at the founding of the Cuban centre in Miami and would like to honour this group of exiled writers who are extremely brave people.
CT: in 2015 the board asked CT and James Tennant to visit Cuba under the radar to explore the idea of founding a centre in the country. The board felt that given the changes in Cuba it was the right time to have a group of writers forging a PEN Centre and able to participate in the changes in Cuba from the inside. The present board has welcomed the initiative of the group of Cuban writers represented by Anton Arrufat and Reynaldo Montero. I wrote to the PEN Cuba in Exile, based in Miami, proposing establishment of the new centre based in Habana. – reads their reply: PEN Cuba in Exile feels conditions are not right for a PEN centre in Cuba and asks congress to postpone establishment of centre in Havana for another year, when the Cuban Writers in Exile can come to congress to defend their position. –the Board of PEN International thinks it’s important to have representation in Cuba in spite of severe limitations there, to promote change from within.
Chiara Maconni (PEN Esperanto): is grateful that the Board of PEN International is reaching out to writers in Cuba.
Jean Jauniaux (Belgian–French PEN): thinks we should support a centre who has adopted the PEN Charter and feels the Cuban in Exile centre shows no perspective. Supports formation of centre in Havanna.
Maria Sala Ilaria (PEN Hong Kong): asks what are the provisions/mechanisms to support a centre in a country which doesn’t respect freedom of expression and to make sure the centre isn’t hijacked by state?
CT: each case is different – gives the example of recent concerns about government interference in Russian PEN. PEN board reacted sending a mission to Russia, presenting the findings of the mission to the assembly of delegates for the delegates to decide. In the case of Cuba, the board wants to establish a group of PEN writers who will start their activity with a literary focus and in this way will create a network of writers in the island.
JC: A centre must follow the charter.
Helmud Niederle (Austrian PEN): in 1970’s centres in Eastern Block were part of PEN and there was much internal conflict. We have moved on, we should accept a centre in Havana.
Lucina Kathman (vice-president): we are not a political organisation.
Edward Kovacs (Slovene PEN): supports creation of centre in Cuba.
Sylvestre Clancier (French PEN): it’s our duty to support new centres and writers in Cuba, to provide them with an opportunity and to protect them. Should embrace writers in difficult situations, e.g. PEN Greece, Palestine, Israel. Enriches us as an organisation.
Tienchi Martin (ICPC): it’s important to observe the attitude of the government in Cuba towards the new centre – will it treat them as dissidents as in China? Constant fight to protect members in China but a chance to have a window to the outside world – therefore supports the new centre but should watch closely what happens.
Elisabeth Csicsery-Rónay (Hungarian PEN): supports the idea to have a centre in Havana, it’s an opening and thinks things are liberalising there.
Tomija Bajsic (PEN Croatia): thinks it’s an opportunity to work for democracy within Cuba.
Bao Viet (PEN Suisse Romande): has campaigned for persecuted writers around the world. We have given an opportunity to writers in China but failed to save the life of Liu Xiabo – continues to hope that other writers will have access to freedom of speech, so doesn’t oppose creation of Havana PEN Centre but isn’t sure whether it will succeed in its aims.
VOTE
Centre accepted – 2 against, 2 abstentions. New centre welcomed into the room. Applause and thanks. PEN GAMBIA
Mohammed Sherif to propose Gambia PEN. Group of writers in The Gambia mentored by PEN Zambia for 2 years, now meet criteria for a PEN Centre. Visited by Romana Cacchioli in November 2015. Moussa Sherif is one of founding members – worked with colleagues to hold meetings under difficult circumstances. Supported by PEN International. The Gambia is now on the path to democracy, a good time to have a PEN centre in the country. Letter from Moussa read out – the return of Gambia to democracy has opened doors for intellectuals/professionals who can work together for free speech under the umbrella of a PEN centre.
No questions. Vote held.
Accepted by simple majority. Applause.
SOUTH INDIA PEN CENTRE
South India PEN Centre, proposed by Salil Tripathi (English PEN). Kavitha Muralidharan new proposed president. South India Centre came about through discussions and visits over past 18 months – linguistic spread and diversity in southern India – a very rich literary heritage but serious free expression concerns. Diversity of Indian literatures needs greater representation in PEN. PEN South India is working closely with PEN Delhi. Courageous founding group, a mix of well-known and emerging writers. India is a violent place for journalists and writers – need to increase climate of tolerance for written and spoken word.
Kavitha Muralidharan (South India PEN): climate of fear is spreading across the country, hate speech (Gauri Lankesh murdered 2 weeks ago). Tamil women writers, started writing in 1990’s, bold and expressive but faced male backlash, need support. PEN South India will work in this context to support writers facing fear and intimidation. It will unite writers in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi and Konkani languages.
ST: adds that proposed South India centre is working with PEN Delhi to set up an award in honour of Gauri Lankesh.
Kavita leaves the room.
CT: clarifies that other Indian PEN centres in support of new centre. PEN Delhi supports founding of South India centre and wants to work together to strengthen presence of PEN in India. All-India PEN (based in Bombay) also supports the new centre and its contribution to linguistic and cultural diversity.
Raj Prakash (Nepal PEN): India has second largest population in the world with many great writers but not represented in PEN. Many famous writers living abroad. Also lack of representation in PEN from the region eg Pakistan Bangladesh Bhutan. Visa problems part of the problem for developing countries – don’t want PEN to be a rich man’s club, need to be inclusive. PEN could do more to ensure that delegates from developing countries can get visas to attend congress.
CT: any arguments against the centre? Otherwise, proceed with the vote.
VOTE
Accepted by majority.
Welcome new centre, applause. Kavita Muralidharan re-enters room, thanks.
PEN SAINT PETERSBURG
Eugene Schoulgin, PEN Norway, proposes St Petersburg Centre. Russian PEN established after fall of Soviet Union writers – Sacha Tschencko fiercely defended f/e in Russia, but since his death, Russian PEN became silent about freedom of expression issues. St Petersburg PEN have spoken up to defend free speech in Russia, we should support them.
Free Word Association was present during the election process also with its most known member, Sergey Borisovich Parkhomenko.
Elena Chizhova: St Petersburg PEN was founded in early 80’s as a branch of Russian PEN. Cooperated with Russian PEN but undertook their own activities. After 2014 and annexation of Crimea they couldn’t trust Russian PEN leadership and finally they split in 2016. At the same time, in Moscow, many writers left Russian PEN and formed Free Word Association –in 12 Feb 2017 the group unanimously voted to join PEN.
Elena leaves the room.
CT: has written to Tartar and Russian PEN. Reads reply from Tartar PEN – feels there is no need to break up Russian PEN as they share same language. Won’t be at congress. Reads reply from Russian PEN – challenges formation of new national centre on the grounds of procedural irregularities and factual inaccuracies. Seeks a trilateral meeting with Russian and Tartar PEN and new activists – fears split amongst Russian writers. CT clarifies that the new centre will be a regional one, not national.
Margie Orford (PEN board): asks for clarification on factual info.
CT: St Petersburgh PEN has been registered independently, is fully recognised as a cultural centre registered in the region of St. Petersburg.
Jean Jauniaux (Belgian-French PEN): strongly supports new centre.
CT: clarifies that the Free Word Association is different from the St. Petersburg group of writers.
Sylvestre Clancier (French PEN): assures that St. Petersburg PEN has been registered legally since its formation. Alex Bloch can confirm. Supports them.
Eduard Kovacs (Slovene PEN): Supported formation of PEN Kosova, feels this centre should also be supported.
Tienchi Martin (ICPC): Should be more dialogue between existing centre and new one, need to allow more time for this before voting.
Kätlin Kaldmaa (International Secretary): have spent a long time doing this, Russian PEN is not independent, don’t follow the charter, there a failure of democratic process within Russian PEN.
St Petersburg PEN and Free Word Association represent the values of PEN
Mykola Riabchuk (Ukrainian PEN): Russian PEN a typical Gongo, not a group we can work with.
Eugene Schoulgin (Vice-president): have tried consistently to open dialogue with Russian PEN but it has been in vain.
Caroline Stockford (Welsh PEN): questions whether the board has had legal advice on the Russian PEN letter, very threatening to the St Petersburg group.
CT: yes, clear that the centre has a regional scope, not national, and therefore legally registered.
Tatiana Bonch (Free Word Association): Russian PEN has refused to participate in congress and report on free speech in Russia – in contrast with PEN St Petersburg who are very engaged. 90 writers left Russian PEN in February this year – shows that Russian PEN not representing them.
Anna Livion (Swedish PEN) – St Petersburg already legally registered, therefore no problem, should be recognised by PEN International today.
Chiara Macconi (Esperanto PEN): in favour. VOTE
Accepted by majority, with 2 abstentions. Welcome back Elena Chizhova of PEN St Petersburg, applause. Elena thanks.
Election results announced
Treasurer: Jarko Tonti confirmed. 62 votes in favor, 3 abstentions.
International VPs: Eric – 54 votes; Judith – 54 votes, 3 abstentions, 1 invalid ballot.
Board results:
Teresa Cadete 17 Iman Humaydan 30 Ola Larsmö 23 Margie Orford 32 Philip Slayton 22 Abstention 1 Iman Humaydan and Margie Orford elected to the Board.
18. Key Note Speech
Harlem Jean-Philip Desir, OSCE representative on Freedom of the Media. Session 3 Thursday 29 September
19. Introduction of Empty Chair #3
JC calls Mykola Riabchuk (PEN Ukraine): presentation of Pavel Sheremet.
Tienchi Martin-Liao (ICPC): introduces letter of solidarity to Liu Xia which will be circulated, asks people to sign and it will be delivered to her via her lawyer.
Marian Botsford Fraser (MBF, PEN Canada): asks if Tienchi can make available an address to whom people can write to her individually. Tienchi agrees to give the address of her lawyer – will be made available.
Salil Tripathi: CT has written to Ma Thida, founding president of PEN Myanmar, for her views on the situation for the Rohinga. Based on her reply, Salil has written a statement to be adopted by the assembly of delegates – reads text.
JC: conducts Vote on the statement – accepted with 1 abstention.
Thanks to translators.
20. Centre Dormancies and Closures
KK: proposed name changes: PEN Flanders to be changed to Belgian Flanders PEN.
VOTE.
Accepted unanimously. Proposed Dormancies: We propose for dormancy centres who have paid no dues or had any contact with PEN International for over 5 years. Armenian, Bahrain, Thailand, Algeria, Cyprus, Jamaica, Panama, Salta Argentina.
MBF asks for explanation of the process – CT explains. Over one year we try to make contact. The intention is to wake them up so that other.
Macedonian PEN: in Balkan network meeting they raised the question of Greek PEN – are they dormant or not existing?
KK: not existing, we are working to create a new centre, again.
Laura Mintegui (Basque PEN): asks what’s happening with Bahrain? Have had some contact in the past.
CT: issue of security in Bahrain. If Basque PEN have contact please get in touch with Romana Cacchioli.
Sylvestre Clancier (French PEN): wants to know more what we have done to contact Algerian PEN.
CT: we are in touch with one writer (Mohammed Magani) who has been PEN’s contact for many years but has not succeeded in gathering a group of writers around him. We are also in contact with a large number of Algerian writers but until now is has been difficult to create a centre. We have created a position of Middle East and North Africa Coordinator at the International Secretariat, Nael Georges, who is increasing this contact with the perspective of re-launching the centre.
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman (Vice-president): if there is a pairing of centres that’s helpful – also members can join other PEN centres if their centre isn’t working.
Anders Heger (AH, PEN board): putting centres into dormancy is part of the functioning of a democratic process. Need to either wake them up or close them down, otherwise, we can’t work in that country.
Lucina Kathman (San Miguel) – Salta PEN was very active in the past, it published feminist books and held international conferences, but their president died and none of others have the same ability to do this work – Argentina PEN is now functioning well and need to recognise that Salta has finished.
Vote for dormancy:
Algeria – majority accepted. 2 Abstentions.
Armenia – accepted unanimously.
Bahrain – accepted with 4 abstentions.
Iman Humaydan (PEN Lebanon): need to consider the political situation of Bahrain, if we make the centre dormant we won’t be able to start a new one.
CT: share the same view that, we want to have an active centre in Bahrain but need to accept the reality.
Jarkko Tontti (International Treasurer): Bahrain was the only one on the list that did answer emails, but asked to be made dormant as they cannot operate in the country.
Eugene Schoulgin: we should feel responsible to help them back.
Cyprus – accepted with 1 abstention.
Jamaica – accepted unanimously.
Panama – accepted unanimously. Salta – accepted unanimously. Thanks to Lucina for doing all the work with them.
Thailand – accepted unanimously.
Proposed Closures
African Writers Abroad, Iraq, Roma, Tunisia, Writers in Exile London.
Sylvestre Clancier (French PEN): situation in Tunisia is improving, closure not a good thing.
CT: according to the charter they need to be closed, the centre is not active and need to recognize this so we can reopen with a new group.
Mille Rode (Danish PEN): can we be sure the registration rules in Tunisia doesn’t prevent another centre from opening again? Was involved in setting up the centre, had many legal problems.
CT: visited Tunisia twice with Marian Botsford Fraser, didn’t manage to find any PEN Tunisia writers to participate in the dialogues with European writers organized by the European Union Embassy. Sihem Ben Sedrine went into exile and then came back, founded an active PEN Centre but didn’t create a structure that could continue after her leaving the presidency. Legislation is moving in Tunisia, new centre should have no difficulty in registering.
Sylvestre Clancier (French PEN): we need to find other writers to revive the centre, centre can remain dormant while we do this. French PEN feels the process is undemocratic and is unhappy to come to general assembly for this reason.
French PEN walks out.
Helmud Niederle (Austrian PEN): very difficult to deal with the Roma. No common language after the Holocaust – speak 7 languages. Austrian Pen gives an award to Roma – they have 2 centres in Vienna and they don’t talk to each other. Not in favor of closing down.
CT: would love to meet Roma writers at congress, but no news, no dues, no sign of their existing. Happy to open a Roma centre if we can have contact with them.
Elisabeth Csicsery-Rónay (Hungarian PEN): vibrant Roma community in Hungary but they are very difficult to work with. Special case, should keep the centre open.
Alix Parodi (Suisse Romande PEN): very difficult if they have to begin from nothing. Roma don’t settle so can have a centre in many European countries, need a different model.
JC: the most painful work we do is closure of centres, not frivolous. We don’t always agree, we will have a vote.
AH: closure is necessary to start working with the Roma, its important to be able to create a new centre.
Judith Rodriguez (PEN Melbourne): Austrian offer to host Roma writers in its centre is the way to start creating a new centre, we should all look about us for isolated groups that we can work with.
Teresa Cadete (Portuguese PEN): must have dialogue and networks.
Maria Raffaella Bruno (Swiss-Italian PEN): is it possible for PEN International to keep contact with writers?
Edouard Kovacs (Slovenian PEN): need to be assisted by centres on the ground when investigating centres for dormancy and closure.
Chiara Macconi (Esperanto PEN): what about Iraq and Africans Abroad? Romana Cacchioli: have been trying to connect with PEN Iraq, very important centre re f/e and linguistic rights. No contact, but have over 20 writers who are waiting to start a new centre. Hope to bring them next year – our debate is not about closure but about creating the conditions for the reopening of a new centre.
Margie Orford (PEN board): lack of understanding about the process, it’s not a punishment but a way to move forward.
Berivan Dosky (Kurdish PEN): we always have these disagreements in the assembly, we must review our own procedures.
Iman Humaydan (PEN Lebanon): do you have contact with writers in Bahrain and Tunisia who are ready to open a new centre as in Iraq? Will inform voting.
CT: we have some contact with writers in Bahrain but not as established as Iraq. It could take a few years. Less so, in Tunisia – group of contacts is not yet ready to start anything new.
Tasleem Thawar (PEN Canada): have we done our research to close down a centre on a legal basis?
Jarkko Tontti: according to our rules closure means they are no longer PEN members.
Tasleem Thawar: it can take years to get legal registration.
CT: we are not deregistering them officially, just closing them in the assembly of delegates.
Maria Sala Ilaria (Hong Kong PEN): would have been useful if previous HK PEN had been deregistered as they had to come up with a different name for the police. The closure process has no influence on police/local authorities.
Margie Orford: dormancy is helpful to clarify next steps.
VOTE
African Writers Abroad – closure accepted with 2 rejections and 4 abstentions.
Iraq – accepted with 7 rejections and 3 abstentions.
Roma – accepted with 14 against and 3 abstentions.
Tunisia – accepted, 6 against and 3 abstentions.
Writers in Exile London – accepted, 1 against, 2 abstentions.
CT: this is a confidential procedure of the assembly of delegates, for internal info only, not for the public domain.
KK: Somali Pen were declared dormant last year and have now come forward to pay their dues, so can have good results. Applause.
Aïcha Mohamed Robleh (Afar PEN): president could not come so she is representing him. 2 working languages – French and Somali. Afar centre located in Djibouti, helped to get back from own culture. John Ralston Saul visited them. Preparing Afar dictionary, have own newspaper, in French and Afari. Has been enabled by PEN.
CT: a pleasure to see you here.
JC: answer question about Spanish PEN – were going to close it and reopen a new centre this year, but unfortunately the president of new centre had a family emergency so we have to wait till next year.
Wladimir Sergijenko (PEN Russia)(asked for a floor to speak about PEN Russia as simply a member of PEN Russia, not as an official delegate): Yesterday discussion focused on how difficult it is to work in Russia and this has resulted in a split in the PEN centre. He supported Ukrainian PEN against closure formerly; Russian PEN now needs our support.
21. Resolutions and In-session Resolutions
WOMEN WRITERS COMMITTEE
Women’s manifesto presented by Margie Orford. Join effort with other committees – few changes, runs through them on the overhead screen.
JC: tried to make it a document that follows the charter closely and is at the same time a literary document.
Vote: unanimously accepted in favour.
WRITERS IN PRISON COMMITTEE
Resolutions presented by Salil Tripathi, Chair. All amendments have been discussed in the WiPC and approved by supporting centres including the 10 in-sessions – only one that hasn’t been reviewed in this way is a new one on Honduras. Explains voting process – will assume consensus unless significant objections.
Resolutions
Resolution Blasphemy – no comments, no oppositions, no abstentions. Passed with consensus.
On Eritrea – no comments, no oppositions, no abstentions. Passed with consensus.
On Mexico – no comments, no oppositions, no abstentions. Passed by consensus.
On the Russian Federation – no comments, no oppositions, 3 abstentions. 46 in favour. Passed.
On Turkey:
Berivan Dosky (Kurdish PEN): clarifies that Kurdish PEN has proposed 2nd resolution on Kurdish issues and are not proposing this one. It is proposed by Norwegian PEN, seconded by PEN Kurd.
Caroline Stockford (Welsh PEN): figures on dismissal of teachers journos are not accurate. Need more researching.
Burhan Sönmez (PEN board): gives statistics.
ST: will find official figures by end of the day.
William Nygaard (Norwegian PEN): discussed it with Kurdish PEN and reached a compromise.
No opposition, 2 abstentions. Passed with consensus.
On Ukraine –
Mykola Riabchuk (PEN Ukraine): want to emphasis that freedom of expression is not threatened in Ukraine, only opinion, which is dangerous to express, is on LGBT issues. Cannot protect LBGT activists from being attacked. Nevertheless, government is not an enemy of the press – there is open space for diverse opinions. Want to accept it but with one proposed amendment to remove a sentence – shown on the overhead screen. Vote to drop the clause – 42 in favour, 1 against, 2 abstentions. Sentence dropped. Elisabeth Csicsery-Rónay (PEN Hungary): wants to add a recommendation to Ukrainian government about mother-tongue education – reads out.
Tasleem Thawar (PEN Canada): point of order that we should address all parties in the Ukraine not just government.
Mykola Riabchuk: some minorities are too small to provide education in their own language – add ‘wherever possible’.
Milan Richter (Slovak PEN): supports the amendment to the resolution as they have the same issue.
Caroline Stockford (Welsh PEN): supports it, ‘access’ doesn’t mean mandatory obligation.
Judith Rodriguez (PEN Melbourne): questions wording.
Tasleem Thawar (PEN Canada): suggests clarification.
Elisabeth Csicsery-Rónay (PEN Hungary): adds context as to why the issue is important.
Magda Carneci (Romanian PEN): reads a statement from her centre about the dangerous effect of new draft law 3419 on provision of public education and political climate towards minorities as a whole.
ST: is this a new statement or amendment to the resolution?
Elisabeth Csicsery-Rónay (PEN Hungary): supports Romanian statement, agrees for the call for the law to be repealed to be added as a recommendation.
Mykola Riabchuk: only a small part of this law is about language, the law is about the entire education system. Ukrainian government intention behind the law is to avoid another Kosova and enable minorities to be integrated into Ukrainian society.
Adam Pomorski (PEN Poland): understand ethnic minority issues.
Raj Prakash (Nepal PEN): questions language around annexation of Crimea.
Tasleem Thawar (PEN Canada): clarifies.
Nick Williams (Scottish PEN): Does not like ‘where possible’, gives get out clause, and should be omitted.
ST: reads new formulation.
Vote: 1 rejection, 3 abstentions, 45 in favour. Passed.
On Vietnam – one minor amendment.
No comments, no objections, no abstentions. Passed by unanimity.
In-session Resolutions
On Venezuela – proposed by PEN Mexico.
Alicia Quiñones (PEN Mexico): deteriorating situation, reporters denied visas to cover it, limitations to freedom of speech.
No comments, no objections, 1 abstention. Passed by majority consensus.
On India – proposed by Canada.
Elisabeth Eide (PEN Norway): it’s a problem that the delegates haven’t seen the in-sessions before. Tasleem Thawar (PEN Canada): drafted resolution to respond to the murder of Gaudi Lankesh and other recent events. Recommendations not new, based on the India report.
Caroline Stockford (Welsh PEN): seeks clarification about the word ‘chill’.
ST: used in free speech discourse by governments to discourage people from speaking out.
Raj Prakash (Nepal PEN): who are we calling on?
ST: state and central governments
Vote: No objections, no abstentions, passed by unanimity.
On China – proposed by ICPC and Uighur PEN.
Sarah Clarke (PEN Advocacy & Policy Manager): drafted after the death of Liu Xiaobo and disappearance of Liu Xia which both happened after deadline for resolutions. Major event that needed a response.
Emma Wadsworth-Jones: confirms.
Tienchi Martin-Liao (ICPC): also mentioned human rights abuses and suppression of freedom of expression in Hong Kong, Uighur region and Tibet. Calls for ratification of ICCPR.
Vote – no objections, no abstentions, passed by unanimity.
On Kazakhstan – proposed by Scottish PEN.
Laurens Hueting (LH, PEN Europe Co-ordinator): recent closing down of online spaces in addition to off-line.
Jean Jauniaux (Belgian- French PEN): wants to make a general comment while CT is in the room. Wording and fine-tuning of wording is important. No opportunity to read these texts in advance, also in English so hard for non-English speakers. Recommends for the increase in dues to be used for an increase in translation of key texts.
CT: apologizes. Normally are able to translate in advance but this wasn’t possible in the case of so many in-session resolutions. Will review next year and try to translate if have so many in-sessions again.
JT: in-session resolutions designed to be only for special cases, asks centres to prepare texts on resolutions and in-sessions on time.
ST: have 7 resolutions and 10 in-sessions – are the circumstances sufficiently grave to warrant so many in-sessions?
Concern that the proposing centre isn’t here – agreed that this is procedurally ok.
Vote: no objections, 2 abstentions. Passed by majority.
On Poland – proposed by Swiss-Italian PEN.
LH: introduces text and reads through suggested amendments displayed on screen.
Milan Richter (Slovak PEN): 2 spelling corrections.
Vote – no objections, no abstentions, passed by unanimity.
On Hungary – proposed by PEN Esperanto.
Introduced by LH. Elisabeth Csicsery-Rónay (PEN Hungary): wish the text had been done together with the centre. Agrees with most of it, there is a deterioration in freedom of expression and it’s a terrible shame. Has a few points of clarification, still free and democratic society overall, has a vibrant and diverse press.
ST: have to go by what we know publically and respect the judgement made the team at the secretariat.
LH: happy to hear that the CEU is not being closed, but still under attack even if its being back- tracked now. Georges Soros – defends language of anti-semitic undertones on the attack to him. Consistent with regional and international human rights law.
Vote – 1 against, no abstentions, passed by consensus.
On Spain – 2 in-sessions.
1. Extradition of Turkish journalists
Carlos Collado (German PEN) introduces it.
No comments, no objections, no abstentions. Passed by unanimity.
2. Raids on newspapers over referendum.
Carme Arenas (Catalan PEN): trend towards abuse of powers by Spanish government.
Alix Parodi (PEN Swiss Romande): why is Catalan speaking for Spain when Spain is not here?
CT: today no other centre active on the issue at the assembly of delegates.
Carme Arenas (Catalan PEN): hopes new PEN Spain will be founded soon and come to introduce a balance
Vote: no objections, no abstentions, passed by unanimity.
On Kurdistan – proposed by Kurdish PEN.
Introduced by Berivan Dosky (Kurdish PEN): supports resolution on Turkey but there is an acute situation in Kurdish region, which needs particular attention.
Caroline Stockford (Welsh PEN): fully supports the resolution and suggests some amendments on linguistic rights.
ST: asks Caroline to prepare text.
SC: clarifies
Urtzi Urritikoetxea (Basque PEN): supports
No objections, no abstentions. Passed by unanimity.
On Honduras – proposed by PEN Canada.
Introduced by Tasleem Thawar (PEN Canada). Resolution drafted after the harassment of one of their board members. Also 3-year sentenced asked by prosecution of Tony Morales.
Vote. No objections, no abstentions, passed by unanimity.
PEACE COMMITTEE
Hate Speech resolution – presented by Writers for Peace Committee Chair Marjan Strojan (MJ). Resolution presented jointly by Women’s Committee and Peace Committee.
Ola Larsmo (Swedish PEN): one of the core issues for PEN, how to defend freedom of speech as well as confront hate speech. Has a short addition to the text.
Tasleem Thawar (PEN Canada): have to accept that any infringement on hate speech restricts free speech, but have to decide as organization where we draw the line. The text is inaccurate, contradictory.
Mille Rode (Danish PEN): should be able to address ideologies whilst protecting people.
Tasleem Thawar: suggests we need a manifesto with practical solutions.
Elisabeth Heide (Norwegian PEN): recommends calling for a manifesto to be launched at 2018 congress.
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman (Vice-president): have had these debates in the past (eg. Balkan conflict), power behind the speaker very relevant to the discussion. Past debates can inform the discussion.
Anders Heger (AH, PEN board): need a manifesto that can be used as a tool for the centres.
Jarkko Tontti (International Treasurer): clarification of process.
Edward Kovacs (Slovenian PEN): need to be guided by the text of the resolution.
Marianne Bargum (Finnish PEN): too technical, need an ad-hoc working group to make it more practical.
Margie Orford (MO, PEN board): manifesto for centres very important. Is willing to coordinate this over the year from the board with a working committee.
Zeinab Oral (PEN Turkey): supports the idea of a manifesto.
Emily Keeler (PEN Canada): recommends rejecting resolution in favour of a more concrete one
Birmelle Jutta (German Speaking Writers Abroad): very reluctant to take any steps to restrict freedom of speech, therefore against the resolution.
MS: supports values of freedom of speech and fight of hate speech. Supports this resolution but happy to create a working group to form a manifesto.
AH: is the text in accordance with international law to restrict hate speech? In favour of having restrictions on the most severe forms of hate speech, as most countries do.
Sarah Clarke: supports the idea of a working group as there are various approaches to the issue – strong first amendment approach (US) and more nuanced ones. Regional and country-specific approaches. Working group would help us find a consensus.
Tasleem Thawar (PEN Canada): thinks passing a resolution today is premature without benefit of proper discussion via a working group. Resolution should define PEN’s real position on hate speech.
MS: text has been written and well discussed in Bled, but can postpone.
Zoe Rodriguez (PEN Sydney): worked on copyright document, a highly contentious document. Text was drafted by a group and a manifesto came after – this is a precedent.
MO: shares the concern that this will be the final PEN statement. Suggests that we pass it as a statement of intent rather than a resolution, to be taken forward at congress next year.
AH: not good to have a resolution without a large majority.
Edward Kovacs (Slovene PEN): suggest we vote. JC: agrees that it would be desirable to have a unanimous vote when the text is presented.
Jean Jauniaux (Belgian-French PEN): consensus not a useful tool, need a strong statement.
MS: supports the vote for the text as a working document for the group, not as a resolution.
Vote – no objections, 4 abstentions, passed by consensus.
Forming a committee
Jarkko Tontti (JT, International Treasurer) explains the process of forming the committee on hate speech. There’s already lots of interest from the board.
William Nygaard (Norwegian PEN): could the board put out a call?
JT: the general assembly has the power, you must say what it can do and who can join it.
Romania Cacchioli (PEN International Director of International Programs: ask Margie to lead it. We need to move forward.
JT: in order to have a committee
Tasleem Thawar: Isn’t it better to call it working group?
JT: then has no status and can’t instruct anything
MO: Margie happy to coordinate this with the board. Those interested in being on working group come to her and say they want to be part. All others here and those not present will be informed along the way. That will be the procedure. Margie will read names. Assembly can vote that it is the working group. Can discuss further and communicate with you after the board meeting
JT: Margie you just proposed for form an ad hoc committee
MS: anyone opposed to Margie’s suggestion?
No opposition
MS: also have proposition about name?
MO: put forward that PEN assembly has a statement of intent to focus on hate speech. Will bring it to the floor later. Vote on going ahead with process
JT: we have done this in the past. A few years ago there was a need to form an opinion on copyright. We created an ad hoc committee, just as we did now. In the end it was finally a resolution.
MS: create a small task force and just have a statement of intent. We will vote on the ad-hoc committee.
JT: we can accept something as a statement of intent for only one year and then we can review it.
MS: puts that idea to vote.
JT: clarifies – vote is to adopt declaration on hate speech for one year and at same time create ad- hoc committee.
Tasleem Thawar makes clarification of what voting upon. Ad hoc committee will use the declaration of intent that we are voting upon to guide the committee.
Regula Venske (German PEN): it means that this declaration won’t be published.
MS: No Vote: approved by majority.
22. Resolution on the Death Penalty
MS: small amendment. Only edited slightly. ‘in April 2017, Turkish president Erdogan…’
Puts amendment to vote by consensus.
Vote on resolution on the death penalty as a whole:
Approved, 1 abstention
23. Make Space Campaign for exiled writers and displaced communities – updates and progress
JC: invites up German Pen and Enoh Meyomesse
Franziska Sperr-Strasser (German PEN): Dear colleagues, according to the charter we are obliged to stand up for free speech.
CT: we are explaining experiences of centres in line with the make space campaign. As you know we presented Make Space Campaign last year. Little by little we have been gathering info on centres who are active on this issue. German PEN is a good example of work in this area, welcoming several exiled writers in cities. Explains that the Cameroonian writer Enoh Meyomesse will speak about his experience.
Franziska Sperr-Strasser (German PEN): presents the network of German cities welcoming writers in exile and the accompaniment that German PEN does of each of them. Expands about the case of Svetlana Alexievitch. She was a scholar at the German writers in exile programme.
CT: thanks Franzisca for her hard work coordinating the programme and extends thanks to German PEN for creating the programme. Now we have the pleasure of welcoming to the Assembly Enoh Meyomesse. Enoh is a Cameroonian poet, essayist, researcher who has developed a large body of literary work. He’s with us to embody German PEN’s programme. Enoh was teaching and involved writing about several political and social issues as a scholar. One day he was detained, held for more than one month in darkness, humiliated – until the day you were transferred to prison. I would like to start by asking you about this evening when you had already been in prison for a while and the two guards visited you and asked that you join them.
Enoh Meyomesse (EM): When I was located in my cell together with my cellmates. Two guards came to pick me up and told me the management was asking for me. I kind of winked saying to my cellmates: ok I’m being lead away in the middle of the night and you can witness that one evening someone came to take me. They had crossed the line. We crossed the yard to the prison director’s office. I calmed down because we headed to that office, not a truck. That man hated me. He said, ‘hey, why are you spreading my name across the world’. I said, ‘I don’t see how I could spread your word because we have not been introduced to each other: I simply don’t know your name’. He said ‘ the point is, why do you keep telling them that we treat you badly.’ He opened his file and picked up a letter from Belgium, a letter from New Zealand, this one from Canada, they’re all saying that I treat you badly. Why are you telling them this? Is your treatment so bad?’ He said ‘ok, you can reply to all the letters saying that you are being treated well’ I told him that the people would think I’d been forced to write them, better to ignore it. Otherwise you won’t get 200, but 500 letters. He said that if all prisoners were like me he could not bear it. He retained those letters, and then he took another package with more letters, from all over the world. They were addressed to me, personally, saying they were supporting me. I had tears running down my cheeks. He sent me away. I took the letters and showed them to other prisoners, and they said that I was well-known across the world. That’s how it all happened. I think that what we need to ask ourselves before is: what is the influence of the letters you are sending? Don’t contempt any single letter you are sending to prisons. They really matter, I am testament to that. I became a person whom the guards became afraid of. I was a V.I.P. and enjoyed my new status of Very Important Prisoner. They thought I was well respected and would create trouble. Your letters accelerated the process of my release. When I got out of prison I was very grateful to people.
[applause]
CT: that is the international campaign which contributed to your release from prison. You were also invited by German PEN.
EM: When letters came from German PEN I always replied and they wrote back. My daughter would bring them. I saw one with a German post mark, and I was enchanted. In my prison cell, I came to understand that you can also have internet contact. I started reading the letters, started communicating with German PEN, they asked how could they assist me. A laptop works miracles – I was given a laptop! I have this laptop here. This laptop was a miracle. I really had tears when I got it in December 2014. I was released in April the next year and I got a message when I was asked whether I could possibly accept an invitation to visit German PEN for a few days. But of course it was possible, I would definitely come! I was sure to do that. That’s what Europeans were like, they were welcoming. I didn’t understand how it was all happening. I told my daughter and she was like ‘wow’. I was asked to send a copy of my passport. I made a new copy, went to the German embassy because a visa was waiting for me. I was accepted there heartily and told yes, sure, you’re coming to see PEN Germany, you just need health insurance. German PEN provided me with health insurance, got my visa, a ticket for the plane. On 5 October I travelled to Germany. A month before the flight I was told that I wasn’t allowed to leave – I was interrogated. I had to bribe the airport commissioners, who turned a blind eye to my departure. The order was given, and I was allowed to leave. 5 October was a Monday. I was received by German PEN team, they gave me shelter.
CT: can you tell us more about your writing? If I’ve got it right, you’ve written a lot during your stay in Germany.
EM: They made me feel welcomed in Germany. Even before my arrest, I had been known by people, but being invited to Germany made me feel supported and enabled me to write. The former Cameroonian PM was known, a VIP, but I was just a writer. But then there was a global campaign for me as a writer. No one else thought anything of writers. Now writers are taken into consideration, considered important. My working conditions in Germany are so different. In Cameroon I might not have been able to write, no electricity. If it was early and the kids needed something I couldn’t focus on writing. Now, I can focus because I have all of these things. That’s why the quality of my work has improved greatly. Now I have the chance to work with open minded people like all of you here. These are not the hooligans I had to face in Cameroon. Such a congress is a real school. I learn how to support, how to formulate my ideas. I’ve been going to libraries, learning languages. I was learning Spanish now I’m learning… German! PEN has organized for me to attend events. Austrian PEN has invited me too, I also want to thank Helmut, because that was a real pleasure. They have published two of my books in Germany. My stay there is something extraordinary. I think staying there I face the situation where my mind is becoming more open. I had a limited mind and spirit. There wasn’t any cultural space, now I have access to everything. The books and articles I send to Cameroon now are much better. I have written 15 books since arriving in Germany. I want to say thanks to all of you, PEN International, and in particular German PEN.
CT: thanks a lot for sharing your memories and impressions. It’s good to hear that our work is important. Great to have you and celebrate with you and reinforce our friendship. 24. Making sense (and use) of ICORN
Elisabeth Dyvik (ED, ICORN):
Intro – song by Remy Esam. Now a resident musician in city of refuge in Malmö.
ICORN is a network of 65 cities. We are hopeful that Lviv will join the network soon. We send a signal to those in power that persecution can’t go on, and to those that chose to stay in their country and confront risk that they can be supported if they need it.
First cities of refuge set in 1995-97: Barcelona, Paris, Goteborg. Our secretariat is based in Stavanger – established as an international organisation in 2010. Cities sign an agreement where they commit to invite and host a persecuted writer for up to two years. City is responsible for visa, flights, accommodation, medical care. Most important is that the person can continue their work as writer, journalist, musician.
We receive and research applications in cooperation with PEN International. We co-operate with other organisations who provide relocation.
The largest number of applicants in 2016 came from Bangladesh and Burundi. We also opened up to artists in 2015 but main profession is still journalists. Writers and artists residencies exist but there’s no real residencies for journalists. Two thirds of applicants have family – comes with particular challenges (housing, schooling, etc.).
Cooperation with PEN
Has formal agreement with PEN International regarding research, the Protection team provides assessment for all ICORN candidates. We nave an international conference together with PEN every second year since 2011. We had it this year in June in Lillehammer.
PEN Centres have set up and are running ICORN residencies. Pen centres also support cities running ICORN residencies. PEN centres support, assist and promote writers in ICORN residencies, they support exile networks.
I invite all of you to engage and cooperate with current and former ICORN residents for events, advocacy, training. Please make writers at risk aware of ICORN and vice versa.
CT: we are open to all forms of collaboration with ICORN, we are looking for new ways of supporting writers who need a time to escape from strong risk in their countries, including short term residencies.
ED: Please also talk to your colleagues in PEN Centres who are doing this protection work for writers in exile, and centres who are sheltering other centres (as Norwegian PEN does with Eritrean PEN).
Eugene Schoulgin: urges all centres to give money to the emergency fund.
25. Frontline Report: Crimean Writers in Exile
No minutes from this session.
26. Presentation of Questionnaire to evaluate the Congress
MO: presents the questionnaire, explains that it is focused on content. Asks all Centres to complete on behalf of Centre, not as an individual. 27. Hate Speech ad hoc Committee
MO: draws attention to list with names who wish to be on committee. Invites others to sign up, should they wish to.
Lucina Kathmann (Vice-president): Mentions colleagues of Taipei Chinese PEN Centre. They are a group of maybe 4 or 6 every year at congress. The pay fees etc. and were then told that they could not get visas to the Ukraine. They think it has to do with the one china policy – won’t comment on that – but I want you to notice is their absence. They come to our congress every year and today they are absent. Thank you.
28. Report of last Congress
JC: calls on Xabier Castro to report on last congress
Xabier Castro: Shows video from vimeo. Many of you were there. It was very intense because we had to prepare congress in very little time. 6 months of accelerated coordinating with London to bring it about. Among other things, you could see an exhibition Proyecto Libertas in which 7 authors are featured – Lydia cacho, Liu Xiaobo, etc. – a dedication to freedom of expression. It is still touring. All of you can access this project from our webpage, in several languages. Please use the exhibition. Other thing to highlight: Kätlin was elected as International Secretary of PEN – welcome. WE also wanted to have a deference to Lusophony. We have an undeniable link to Portuguese. We wanted to show what Lusophony is. You saw the dancers from Cabo Verde in the video. We wanted to create bridges with Iberoamerica. For us it was important that many Spanish-speaking countries were there: Chile, Mexico, Argentina, for example. Special guests included Claudia Piñero, Almudena Grandes, Dina Salústio, Cristobal Pera, Can Dündar... We had recitals in the street so that the Galician world was open to the world. I thank you all for your support, I ask your forgiveness for the mistakes. From Galicia to Galizia! Many thanks to Ukraine PEN for your congress.
Want to talk about a project, which is Outwrite. I haven’t heard anyone speak about it since Quebec. I think it is worth carrying it forward. Homosexuals should be present, shouldn’t be forgotten from literature. They are also persecuted –exiled, killed, imprisoned. They exist. I want to carry it forward. Of all the projects I would like to see something that focuses on cases of writers that are persecuted for their sexual orientation. A first step would be a small meeting in the spring in Galicia, a meeting of Outwrite. We’ll keep you updated. The more who support us the better. We can go forward together and to create a committee to take on these types of cases. Thanks for your attention.
JC: on behalf of PEN, I’d like to thank you for your great efforts, we really enjoyed the Congress.
29. Centenary
JC: invites Antonia Byatt and Margie Orford to talk about the Centenary.
One of the mandates when I ran for President was to start working on the centenary, which comes about in 2021. We need time to organize. All these serendipitous things came together: the National Endowment of the Humanities came forward and gave money to the Harry Ransom Centre in Austin that holds most of PEN’s archive, to digitize it. At the same time, in the UK, the Arts & Humanities Research Council decided to support the research project Writers and Freedom of Expression, with three main researchers: Rachel Potter from the University of East Anglia, Peter Macdonald from Oxford and Laetitia Zechini from the CNRS in Paris. They are researching about the 100 years of PEN International, with a focus on the history of English PEN, All-India PEN and PEN South Africa. We are in collaboration with them to develop the PEN Centenary Internet Archive that will host the stories of all PEN Centres. We want to host all of your stories.
The board decided it would be good to host the centenary congress at Oxford. It will also be English PEN’s centenary. We are happy to say that English PEN has welcomed the idea of that congress.
Reads letter from Dame Elish Angiolini, the principle of St Hughes.
The congress would take place at St. Hugh’s College in September 2021, when dorms are empty. Thanks Margie Orford for having facilitated the whole process. We would be staying there at a reasonable rate. We have to vote on this today as we need to reserve the Oxford College the sooner the better, before it fills up.
Antonia Byatt (Director of English PEN): I think I’m the newest person in the room, since I just been appointed as director of English PEN. English PEN and PEN International were born of each other and together. The Centenary for us and all of you is a huge opportunity. Therefore, we look forward, I hope, to hosting. Oxford is a brilliant place. We want to make sure things happen around the centenary elsewhere, eg. in London. It’s a great opportunity to promote what we do and our work. Tell the powerful stories that are in the archives. We look forward to working with PEN International. The opportunity of bringing so many writers together would be fantastic.
MO: I was really honored, when St Hugh’s College – mistakenly, I think – made me a fellow. Dame Elish Angiolini values free speech and conversation around the world so profoundly. The great thing about being in Oxford is that we would all be able to stay in walking distance, in one place. We must vote now to get it penciled in. Once it’s in there the other colleges I have been speaking to are interested in doing programmes ahead of the centenary, focusing on what freedom of expression will mean for the next 100 years, it could be a good opportunity to counter this rising fascism that we all have all noted – and English food isn’t that bad.
AB: food in England is brilliant these days, and comes from all over the world.
JC: I always thought we needed to celebrate the Centenary Congress in a place with great intellectual gravitas –or somewhere very, very broken. We will have at least 3 important books coming out: an academic book of researchers of PEN’s history, a book of essays about our 100, and hopefully an illustrated book. Invites questions from the floor.
Milan Richter (PEN Slovakia): this is not comfortable for us, to sit here and not see you. Please change it. You should have a small podium where we can see you or else stand up and talk. Please, next time, I don’t want to have you as a low profile leadership. You should come and meet new representatives, like we are. For us it isn’t polite for us to come and bother you. Just like the hosts, Ukraine PEN, as a host have not shown up. There were just two members of their centre in the assembly of delegates, I don’t know how many members they have, but they should be present, all of them. We could translate their poems and literature, but if they don’t show up we can’t. This is for the next time. Be more approachable so we can communicate with the host for the next congresses.
Iman Humaydan (PEN Lebanon): Oxford is a great choice, I will vote for it. My concern, very serious, this time in Ukraine centres couldn’t make it because of visa issues. UK regulations for Visa are worse. What do we plan to do with African and MENA centres to allow them to be at congress, that’s the most important.
JC: we are very concerned and have talked a lot about this
AB: as English PEN – I haven’t even had time to discuss this with PEN International: English PEN is an agency. We hold Tier-5 visas – the kind you would use for a conference – we are an agency that can use that as much as we can for the benefit of the congress. It may not always go right, but with a three-year lead up we can try and make that passage as smooth as possible. JC: calls a vote
Passed unanimously.
30. Future Congress
JC: invites Ganesh Devy and Kavitha Muralidharan to come forward.
CT: to introduce them, it has been a real pleasure the way that this group of writers from South India have been organising not only themselves to create the centre we welcomed yesterday, but also organising themselves with the capacity of coming with a proposal to host congress next year. Introduces Ganesh Devy as a champion of linguistic rights
Ganesh Devy (PEN South India): Good afternoon, when I got a call from London the PEN secretariat said there could be a window opening for holding a congress in India, the first thought that crossed my mind was that someone had already turned them down. I’d like to believe that I was wrong. It is for humans to entertain the bad thoughts first. I’m convinced it was genuine and we decided to take it up. Just a few minutes ago we were dreaming of being at Oxford – a great dream. An English poet said, ‘I cannot give that dream to you, but…’ –so we invite you to India in a humble and genuine way. We don’t have an Oxford in India, but we had a Gandhi in India [applause]. That’s not to compare, but just historically so. This man, Gandhi, was born – centuries from now people will hardly believe he was flesh and blood– he was born next year exactly 150 years ago. So next year we begin the celebration of 150 years of his birth. In India we have started getting together to celebrate. A consortium of organisations, informed by me that a call had come from London, they said it won’t be a good idea to hold congress in India –but a superb one! And so, they said, let this congress inaugurate the celebration of Gandhi’s birth. Gandhi’s birth date is unchangeable – Gandhi believed in truth only, no ‘post-truth’, we can’t change it. It was on 2 October. Gandhi’s longest imprisonment – the WiPC have reason to celebrate — was in a jail in Pune, therefore we’ve chosen that jail as the point to start the congress [applause]. This for the old man who died – towards the end he was very lonely, like Jesus Christ – his wife died there, in the jail, in Pune. It is at that spot that we shall inaugurate the congress with complete silence for half an hour. Then the usual business of congress will happen. We have hotels and hot water India, and taxis do meet you at the airport. In addition to that, I am planning to bring about a group of 100 translators to Pune so that they can translate your work into their languages, you can meet them, this will be an additional feature. We will try to put you in touch with them at least 4-6 months before you arrive so they have a chance to go through your work or the best work from your language. They might send something from their language for you to translate.
The second thing I’m planning to do is bring 100 Roma writers together so that we can try and create in International Roma pen centre. Sedentary people have one worldview, but nomads have a completely different view. If nomads had ruled the world, it would be so much better.
I want to bring a speaker of every Indian language and from other parts of Asia, so that we have the presence of at least 1000 languages of the world there when we meet. My only request for doing all this in exchange, there is no free lunch, as they say. I would like to dream that speakers of 1000 languages come together and write something on a sign: that truth matters and that non-violence alone is the only way to counter violence – things Gandhi lived by. We have too much population in India but we have rooms for all of you. No guest is too many. We are generous and hospitable, though poor. We will do our best to make you as comfortable as we can. The dates will be the last week of September. After the congress, if you have some days free we would like to receive you in different states of India to stay with different writers and their families, go to Goa.
Kavitha Muralidharan: I think prof. Devy has covered it all. All the centres of PEN in India would be delighted to host you. Ganesh Devy: we’ll have to start registration by December – maybe there’ll be some drop-outs or additions, but we need a statement of intents so we can hook you up with translators and make accommodation arrangements etc. Thank you so much. I was asked where the funds will come from? We will ensure that very simple common people, students of lit, schoolteachers, will contribute first. We will raise funds from the people, no corporate or mega agency. The money will come from the people because PEN International stood with us when 39 writers handed back their awards. Your statement saved us from going to jail. I would have been in jail if it were not for you. This will by my thanks giving.
CT: thanks Ganesh Devy and Kavitha Muralidharan. Next year we will meet in India.
Prakash Raj (PEN Nepal): it’s a matter of honour that we’ll have congress in neighboring country. It could have been held 2 or 3 weeks later in October. October is his birth month. It will be hot in September.
CT: thanks for the suggestion.
Vone Van der Meer (PEN Netherlands): We’ve heard big problem was so many centres not being able to come also because of funding. Is it possible that if you sign up as a delegate or participant that you also have the possibility to sponsor another participant that otherwise would not be able to attend and then PEN International can sort it all out based on averages so that we can have more delegates in attendance?
CT: excellent suggestion, this already takes place. We have what we call twinning: a centre supporting another centre attending congress. But I welcome extending this network, so any who wishes to support another centre, please do. We will coordinate it from the secretariat.
Zoe Rodriguez: just in preparation of India next year. There will be elections, please think if you are willing to be candidate or encourage others to be candidates. We will elect two board positions, the chair of the Women Writers Committee and Writers in Prison Committee, all 5 members of the Search Committee, and the president of PEN International. The process for VPs is that centres can suggest candidates to PEN International board. The board discusses it and they determine whom to put forward. Please think about it. Usually the nominations are due in June.
JC: invites Tienchi Martin-Liao (ICCP).
Tienchi Martin-Liao (ICCPC): invites centres to sign the letter to Liu Xia, which is circulating.
JC: we all know the content. Anyone that does not want to sign, raise the red flag, I propose that all delegates sign it. All willing to sign.
Tienchi Martin-Liao (ICCPC): If you want to sign personally, you can do that too. We have the address of the law firm if you wish to have it you can write directly to it.
Zeynep Oral (PEN Turkey): Turkey is always the subject of prisons, sometimes we have literary events. Every May we have a poetry festival near Istanbul, it’s very vivid and democratic. Any poet among you is welcome.
CT: runs through evening programme.
JC: thanks all
[applause]
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