<< PREVIOUS
PEN WiPC Chair - 8 March 2012 International Women's Day PEN - Members Called to Pay Tribute to Women Writers - Killed and Imprisoned in Turkey, Mexico and Syria
PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) | 5 March 2012
Dear PEN colleagues,
"The presence of you all out there surely makes us feel stronger....Yes, you can send me books; I’d love it."
That's an excerpt from a letter from prison http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/3787/letter-from-istanbul-bakirkoy-womens-prison, written to a friend in December by the Turkish translator and women's rights activist, Ayse Berktay.
It speaks to things that we as writers do best: write, read and share books. It also confirms that seemingly small gestures, writing a postcard, sharing a poem, can make a difference.
Yesterday in Toronto, I heard the Burmese poet and comedian Zarganar, released last fall in a general amnesty from the third year of a 35-year sentence, speak of the day when he was very ill and despairing, and returned to his cell to find forty-nine postcards from supporters around the world.
So this year, on International Women's Day, please take a moment to do something simple and concrete to show solidarity with courageous women who are in prison for speaking their minds, or who have been killed for investigating corruption:
- Send a card and/or a book to two women writers in prison in Turkey
- Publicize (on websites, on Twitter and Facebook) the poem by a young Syrian poet in prison
- Publish memorials for female writers and journalists murdered in Mexico
Further details are in the paper attached. Please send a signal to imprisoned writers, and to the families of murdered journalists, that they are not forgotten
Thank you,
Marian
Marian Botsford Fraser
Chair
Writers in Prison Committee
Email: m.b.f@sympatico.ca
Twitter: @mbotsfordfraser
