PEN Congress Urges Respect for Freedom of Expression

Bled, 20 June

Writers attending the 71st International PEN congress have called upon the authorities worldwide to respect freedom of expression. The appeal is included in several resolutions that the participants passed at the end of the week-long congress at Bled on Monday.

In an appeal that president of Slovenian PEN Tone Persak said was crucial for Slovenia, the committee for translation and linguistics has urged the judiciary and legislators to take into account the specifics of literature in court proceedings against writers and their works.
The resolution is a direct response to the cases of writers Breda Smolnikar and Matjaz Pikalo, who have both been fined in court because of what they wrote in their novels.
Persak also highlighted two other appeals: the call to Austria to respect the Austrian State Treaty and protect the Slovenian minority, and a petition signed by most participants urging the Slovenian government to declare Bled and its surroundings a natural heritage site.
The committee of writers for peace also passed several resolutions, according to committee chairman Veno Taufer, for example urging Russia to consider allowing peacekeeping troops to Chechnya.
Moreover, the writers endorsed a proposal of the Algerian PEN and asked the French government to abrogate a law that the French parliament passed in February and which labels the imperial presence of France in Africa as a positive fact.
The writers also expect in a declaration that the Turkish government will define as crime the Turkish genocide over Armenians, and they urge the Serbian parliament to condemn the slaughter in Srebrenica as genocide.
The committee for imprisoned writers sent appeal to the governments of countries like China, Iran and Afghanistan, where many writers have been incarcerated because of their thoughts and actions.
This year's congress was a landmark, according to PEN Slovenia, as it hosted for the first time a Chinese writer, Wang Yi, an independent critic of the authorities. Interestingly, it was Slovenia which hosted the first Soviet writer ever to attend a PEN congress, in 1965.
The 72nd PEN congress will be taking place in May next year in Berlin.

PEN Congress Urges Respect for Freedom of Expression

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