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Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet interviews Marian Botsford Fraser, the International Chair of PEN Writers in Prison Committee
The Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet | 11 April 2011
The Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet (Republic), a leading newspaper in favour of secularism and democratization, has recently held a full page interview with Ms Marian Botsford Fraser, PEN Int'l Chair of Writers in Prison Committee. The interviewer was Meltem Yilmaz, a young woman journalist. For the published interview in Turkish, you can visit: http://www.abhaber.com/haber.php?id=34229
And here is the English original:
Q: I’d like to initiate this interview with your observations of the WiPC Conference in Brussels. Could you tell us your observations of the conference in Brussels on 24th- 27th March. Which subjects were emphasized, what kind of decisions were made?
FRASER: It was a lively conference, with members from almost 40 PEN centres. In addition to our internal meetings, we met with EU officials, including several members of the European Parliament's Sub Committee on Human Rights. The Chair of the Committee, Heide Hautala, spoke to us at length. We also discussed issues such as Religious Defamation, a Freedom of Expression internet policy and urgent problems in China, Belarus, Turkey, and Ireland (where we supported Irish PEN's campaign against the blasphemy laws in their constitution).
Q:You are the Chair of The International PEN Writers in Prison Committee. What is the reason of the establishment of this committee, what is the purpose, how does this committee work, what kind of works or studies are carried out?
FRASER: The WiPC was established in 1960 initially to lobby governments on behalf of imprisoned writers. In 1960, the committee had 3 individual members, and about 25 imprisoned writers' cases. Last year, our 50th anniversary, the Committee consisted of about 70 PEN centres, and we usually have between 700-900 writers, journalists, bloggers, editors in our casebook (our main record, updated every six months). We have a full-time research staff in London, and in collaboration with PEN centres we also mount campaigns on general freedom of expression issues, such as impunity, religious defamation, and in specific geographic areas, such as Turkey, Iran, the Americas, in recent years. We also pursue freedom of expression concerns at the UN, where we have formal consultative status; recently this has taken the form of active participation in the Universal Periodic Review process, whereby every country member of the UN has to defend its human rights record.
Q:If you give your examples by numbers, how many writers are in jail right now all over the world? Which (10) countries are at the top when you put in order. Where ise Turkey in this order?
FRASER: We regularly have between 700 and 900 cases on our books, of writers not only in prison, but those who have been murdered or disappeared. In recent years, worst offenders have been China, Iran, Mexico.
Turkey is not among the worst offenders for imprisonment of writers. Although Turkey has among the highest numbers of writers and journalists on trial worldwide, this has little impact on free expression in general. Most of these trials do not end in imprisonment. There are around 20 journalists in prison, two of whom are PEN main cases. Most of the others are detained under Anti-Terror legislation and we are not able to say for certain that they are PEN cases; PEN only works on behalf of writers, print journalists, editors and bloggers. Similarly there are others on pre-trial detention linked to the Ergenekon case, where there is insufficient evidence for us to say for certain that they are detained in contravention of their freedom of expression rights. We do not see in Turkey the same levels of fear and harassment that prevail in countries such as China or Iran. There is not the wholesale killing of journalists, as in Mexico. In Turkey judicial harassment, meaning long, convoluted trials, appears to be the key concern.
Q: What kind of crimes of thought are being judged mostly? Could you give a few examples among these crimes of thought? If you make a comparison, which countries are especially sensitive to what kinds of crimes of thought? For example, Turkey is sensitive on “national issues”. Could you please give some examples of considering the countries where crimes of thought is relatively more common?
FRASER: Overwhelmingly, the common denominator currently is some combination of insult to the state and subversion; in China, Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11 year sentence for eleven sentences deemed "subversive." The exception is countries like Mexico, where journalists are murdered, or disappeared for exposing corruption, and their murders never investigated. So impunity is also a pervasive problem. In Afghanistan in 2007, a young student was sentenced to death for blasphemy, accused of downloading material from the Internet about the prophet Mohammed's ideas about women. But there are also very petty reasons given for arresting and imprisoning writers and bloggers: writers were sentenced in the past year for hooliganism (Azerbaijan) and defacing a street sign (Georgia). Jailed for writing about the environment in Panama and Morocco. Handed a three-year sentence for songwriting (Cameroon) a five-year sentence for blogging (Tibet), a nineteen-and-a-half-year sentence for blogging in Iran. Abducted in Yemen, beaten in Sudan, detained in Mauritania and killed by the dozen in Mexico.
Q: In Turkey, last week, the -unpublished- book (Imam’s Army) of the journalist named Ahmet Şık was banned. Afterwards, the Ministery of Interior sent notifications to the publishers by telling that “if any of the publishers publish this book, they are also going to be judged as the members of the terror organization.” However, “As the court procedures still go on, the organization cannot be defined as a terror organization,” the lawyers say. How do you evaluate the arrestment of an unpublished book, which is a first in Turkey?
FRASER: The WiPC recently did a RAN alert concerning Ahmet Şık, on the subject of the raid of his publishing house [see link below]. Of course we are concerned about police seizing a book from publishers, published or not. Ahmet Şık and his colleague Nedim Sener are detained solely for their writings, and in apparent contravention to Article 19 of the ICCPR and Article 10 the European Convention on Human Rights.
Q: As far as you observed, how does the productivity of the writers evolve after they are freed?
FRASER: Everything depends on the circumstances of the writer, and their spirit and the state of their health, mental and physical; whether they are in exile, whether they are able to work in their own language, etc. The WiPC does provide emergency funds to writers; many PEN centres now have active writer-in-exile programmes, and we also work with ICORN, the International Network of Cities of Refuge, to provide short-term placement for writers in exile. The issues are both practical and creative and they vary from writer to writer.
Q: How many writers are saved from prison through the agency (in a sense) of PEN?
FRASER: Impossible to say; we receive many many letters from writers who are released from prison, thanking us for the work we have done. [I attach an example, below, from a Cuban writer, who was not able to come to the Brussels conference.] We work in collaboration with other freedom of expression organizations, with the governments of our PEN centres, asking them to put pressure on offending governments; nowadays, there are many public campaigns and petitions. It is collaborative, long-term, patient work. I can only say that we never ever give up on a writer, until he or she is released, and often, as in the case of Hrant Dink, we go on working on their behalf after death. And that we have been doing this work for more than fifty years!
Q: What are the things, the measures to be done in order to prevent a writer to be punished because of what s/he thinks and writes?
FRASER: Freedom of expression is a human right. Governments, including the most repressive, sign international covenants protecting human rights, and then fail to live up to the promises they have made, to their own citizens and to international bodies. Apart from working on the cases of individual writers, it is essential to constantly reaffirm the right to freedom of expression, through education, campaigns and writing. Writers are arrested, punished, killed because they are courageous and principled and because they will not accept the tyranny of silence. PEN consists of 144 centres, in more that 100 countries, made up of more than 10,000 writers who belong to PEN because of that sense of solidarity with fellow writers.
Q: What are the plans and projects of The International PEN Writers in Prison Committee for the future?
FRASER: We will continue to work as we always have on individual cases worldwide, and on general freedom of expression issues. We are working on a position for PEN International concerning the freedom of expression issues that digital media raise. Repressive governments are more and more attempting to repress the rights of all citizens, not just writers, to enjoy the access to knowledge and information that digital technology offers and to share that knowledge.
Turkish PEN Secretary Sabri Kuskonmaz, novelist and lawyer, visited Nedim Sener and Ahmet Şık in prison on 7th April . Both writers have expressed joy and hope in relation to the international support of PEN.
- RAN on Nedim Sener and Ahmet Şık: http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/news/turkey-pen-free-expression-award-winner-nedim-sener-and-writer-ahmet-sik-formally-charged
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