The past four weeks have seen protests erupt around the world: In South America, in Asia, and the Middle East. When the 85th PEN International Congress opened at he Culture Center in Manila, Hong Kong was in upheaval with protests that have yet to abate—and PEN Hong Kong’s president, Tammy Ho-Lai Ming issued that PEN Centre’s statement of censure against the shooting of a protester with live bullets at the Free the Word poetry reading mounted by the International PEN.
A week of violent street protests erupted in Barcelona, Spain in the wake of the Spanish Supreme Court ruling sentencing nine leaders of the Catalan separatist movement to prison terms for their role in the unilateral push to split from Spain in 2017.
In Beirut, Lebanon, people have taken to the streets seeking to oust corrupt politicians and government officials. The demonstrators have also called on the Lebanese armed forces to side with them, arrest politicians accused of corruption, and, even, steward a transitional period. The protestors have even adopted the clownish greasepaint of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, from the movie, for their own, painting their faces with it as part of their protests. The anti-government protests in Lebanon are massive, with reports of well over a million people pouring into its streets last weekend. The protests were sparked by outrage over taxes slapped on messaging apps like Whatsapp, and the people of Lebanon are demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
The Uighurs, a minority Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia, live in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. But news reports of late have shown that this Muslim minority is being oppressed, sent to re-education camps, and that their culture, language and religious practices are being suppressed.
In Chile, eight people died in widespread unrest. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera canceled the subway fee hike that initially sparked the protests, but the demonstrations continued to grow and Piñera declared a state of emergency in Santiago and five other cities, imposing a curfew and sending the military into the streets in response to civil unrest for the first time since dictator Augusto Pinochet’s nearly 20-year regime.
In London, up to a million people gathered outside the Palace of Westminster to reject Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal in one of the largest public demonstrations in British history.
All over the world, freedom of expression is under attack, and its advocates—artists, writers and journalists—are threatened, harassed, jailed, disappeared and marginalized. This is the context in which the 85th PEN International Congress unfolded in Manila, which hosted it for the first time in the 57 years that the Philippine PEN has existed.
One of the most enduring advocacies of the International PEN is the defense of freedom of speech and of expression.
Congress in Manila
THE theme of the 85th PEN International Congress theme was Speaking in Tongues: Literary Freedom and Indigenous Languages. It took place in conjunction with the United Nations’ declaration of 2019 as the International Year of the Indigenous Languages. The Manila Congress focused on indigenous writing, linguistic diversity, and multiculturalism.
PEN International and PEN Centres promote linguistic diversity and linguistic rights, and have done so for decades. Its Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee (TLRC) was founded in 1978 and, in 1996, it supported the signing of UNESCO’S Declaration of Linguistic Rights. The TLRC drafted the Girona Manifesto for Linguistic Rights in 2011, which was also ratified at the PEN International Congress.
October is National Indigenous Peoples Month in the Philippines under Proclamation No. 1906, 2009. The proclamation recognizes the importance of cultural diversity in the country and advocates for the conservation and promotion of its artistic and cultural products. The Philippine PEN has always been vigorous in its promotion of regional and minority writing, and has extended whatever modest support it could give to writers from the regions and of the minority cultures.
This 85th PEN International Congress, the first one to be convened in the Philippines since the founding of the Philippine PEN by National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose in 1957—is seen by the Philippine PEN as an excellent opportunity to promote more awareness of indigenous traditions and to affirm their significant contributions to the heritage of a nation, and that of the world.
This PEN International Congress was mounted with the following aims:
- To promote literature and its expression in various languages and forms, including those of the indigenous people and cultural minorities;
- To defend free speech, and promote expression and measures that address current concerns in societal environments, including peace, women’s rights, and linguistic diversity; and
- To serve as a meeting-place for writers and readers from all over the world to exchange ideas and creative endeavors, and to increase understanding and international cooperation.
Fighting for freedom of expression
“The right to freedom of expression remains under attack in Europe and Central Asia. Four journalists and a writer were killed in the year since we last met in Pune; at least three as a direct consequence of their work,” the PEN International report PEN presented at the Manila congress reads. “The number of deaths is the highest recorded in the region in recent years, a stark reminder of the growing hostility, threats and violence faced by journalists and writers.”
The International PEN said “Turkey is once again the world’s worst jailer of journalists—at least 135 journalists remain behind bars” it said, citing a report by the International Press Institute. “This year, we continued to witness the complete erosion of the rule of law in the country, with scores of arbitrary arrests, detentions and unfair trials, including that of 16 civil society figures and arts practitioners in the so-called Gezi Park case. Six former Cumhuriyet members of staff, and journalists were sent back to prison in April, after their unfair sentences were upheld on appeal. Writer and co-chair of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party Selahattin Demitras remains imprisoned, despite the European Court of Human Rights ruling in November for his immediate release.”
According to the discussions on the table at the congress, “several PEN representatives repeatedly traveled to [Turkey] to observe court hearings. Over 650 writers, journalists, publishers, artists and activists—the great majority PEN members across 25 Centres—signed a global appeal calling for the immediate and unconditional release of news editor, reporter and poet Nedim Turfent; they subsequently translated extracts of his poetry into 18 languages. In a moving letter written in March, Nedim Turfent thanked International PEN members for sending him postcards, letters and books, which he says have filled his cell ‘with resistance, resolve and hope.’“
“The PEN is also continuing its call for justice for investigative journalist and anti-corruption campaigner Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was assassinated with a car bomb in Malta on Oct. 16, 2017,” the International PEN said in its report to its members.
The PEN also said that, in Spain “the authorities continued to stifle artistic freedom by using the so-called 2014 ‘Gag Law’ to prosecute summary offenses or misdemeanors, such as graffitti, song lyrics and poems, as crimes of terrorism or arms trafficking. We campaigned on behalf of writers and Catalan civil society leaders Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, who are facing up to 17 years in prison for their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
The International PEN also noted that “Russia remained another country of focus for the PEN. In October, PEN International, PEN Moscow and St. Petersburg PEN issued a joint report entitled Russia’s strident stifling of free speech 2012-2018–available in both English and Russian–which sets our concerns about the situation of freedom of expression since President Vladimir Putin was re-elected in May 2012.”
The PEN continued to campaign for the release of Ukranian writer and filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, “who spent 145 days on hunger strike last year and was awarded the prestigious European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Friends at PEN Ukraine oversaw the translation of his short stories into German and Polish—with an English version announced for October this year—thereby providing us with new campaigning opportunities to highlight his literary credentials and his plight to wider audiences.”
In July, the International PEN “shared our indignation as a court in northern Kyrgyzstan upheld the life sentence of journalist and human rights activist Azimjon Askarov, who has been wrongfully imprisoned for the past nine years. Askarov remains an important PEN case, as we featured his plight in the PEN’s 80th International Congress in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in 2014 and it raised it directly with both the President and General Prosecutor at the time. We will continue to campaign for his release until he is free.”
In Africa, the PEN’s UNDEF-funded project on repealing criminal defamation and insult laws ended in July 2018 and has resulted in the revisions made in 2018 to the Penal Code of Rwanda that decriminalized defamation, “though other troubling provisions remain”; Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio promised to repeal criminal libel and sedition laws in December 2018; and Liberia passed a law decriminalizing defamation in February 2019.
“Despite some of the progress” in Africa, the International PEN reported, “journalists and writers are still being charged and prosecuted under these laws. One such example is Paul Chouta, a journalist in Cameroon, who is currently on trial for defamation.”
Other legal barriers remain in place in Africa, “for example, the use of laws circumscribing the use of social media.” They cited the case of academic and women’s rights activist Stella Nyanzi in Uganda “who was prosecuted under Uganda’s 2011 Computer Misuse Act for writing rude messages about President Museveni on Facebook. She was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison in August 2019. PEN has been campaigning on her case over the last year.” Another Ugandan, singer Moses Nsubuga, was also charged under the same legislation in 2018 for allegedly calling the president a ‘pair of buttocks.’
Some other new restrictive laws have also been introduced in Africa, the International PEN reported: “In September 2018, Rwanda adopted a new Penal Code which includes plenty of extremely restrictive provisions: writings or cartoons that ‘humiliate’ lawmakers, cabinet members, or security officers will see their authors facing up to two years in prison; anyone who defames the President could face between five and seven years behind bars; editing images or statements ‘in bad faith’ could lead to a prison sentence of up to one year.”
In Africa, “Journalists and human rights defenders continued to be harassed, threatened, abducted and jailed throughout 2018,” according to the International PEN, “sometimes they are killed.”
“A handful of the writers and activists who were persecuted in Africa in the last year include the January 2019 murder of Ahmed Hussein-Suale, a young investigative journalist in Ghana—the police have implied that he was killed due to his work but investigations are ongoing,” the International PEN reported. “In Tanzania, the authorities detained and interrogated a Committee to Protect Journalists Africa program coordinator, Angela Quintal, and its sub-Saharan Africa representative Muthoki Mumo, in November 2018. Their passports, phones, and computers were confiscated and they were released after 24 hours. Their arrests took place in a context of a serious crackdown on freedom of expression, with the arrest and harassment of journalists, bans on newspapers, and a legal framework that impinges on the right to freedom of expression.”
“At times, journalists found themselves targeted en masse, particularly during periods of heightened social and political tension, such as the general elections and protest in Zimbabwe and the anti-government demonstrations triggered by food price hikes in Sudan,” the International PEN also reported.
“Internet shutdowns, especially around election time or during protests, restricted the free expression of writers, journalists and ordinary citizens of many countries in 2018,” the International PEN reported, “including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Chad, Sierra Leone, Sudan and others. In the first half of 2019 this pattern has continued, with shutdowns again in Zimbabwe and Sudan as well as Gabon, for example.”
According to the International PEN, Eritrea is “one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to be a journalist or writer. Despite a 2018 peace deal between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the consequent opening og the border between the two countries, and the lifting of UN sanctions against Eritrea, hope that this might lead to further reform in the country has not materialised. The situation for writers and journalists remains dire. There are currently 16 journalists held in circumstances amounting to enforced disappearance, without charge or trial.”
PHL experience & martial law
National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose, now one of the vice presidents of the International PEN, sat down with Tony & Nick to speak of the International PEN and Martial Law shortly before the 85th International PEN Congress in Manila concluded.
Jose had initially run the Philippine PEN of his Solidaridad bookshop on Padre Faura St. in the City of Manila. He and the Philippine PEN members still run it from there.
Writers of gravitas, like Norman Mailer and Günter Grass, visited the Martial Law-era Philippines to connect with the PEN Center here and with its members in acts of solidarity. Grass, Jose said, “was very appreciative of the writers who opposed dictators.”
In those fraught times, the PEN Center in the Philippines was a haven for the country’s writers. “There is this old saying misery loves company,” Jose said in his wry, sardonic way. “We were bonded together under those times—especially since there were writers who were with Marcos during those times. One thing that Martial Law did was to create a very clear dividing line. These writers are those who are for freedom, and these writers are those who were for Marcos. That much was apparent.”
The PEN center in the Philippines contributes to the global effort of the International PEN “by supporting PEN International. By seeing to it that we also publicize the writers in prison.” This year’s congress in Manila focused on applying pressure to the Saudi Arabia government for justice for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year in Istanbul, Turkey.”
“During the Martial Law years, we felt so helpless, so desperate, that nobody knew about us, nobody comforted us—and PEN did that,” Jose said. “If only for that purpose, PEN is already justified as a guardian of the freedom of writers. All these conferences, they’re not as important in the sense that you discuss these matters, but because writers get together and they are bonded together. That is the importance, even here. We are bound together. We form a sense of community and, beyond that, I hope that we will also have a sense of nation.”
As a vice president of the International PEN, “you are recognized,” Jose pointed out. “Your name is important when you sign petitions. Maybe these are trifling matters, but, when presented to these dictators, they will see there is worldwide knowledge of what they’re doing and that affects them. He knows that he may have all that great power at home, but, elsewhere, he is despised. The fact that he knows that will affect him. In some instances, these writers are released with the help of international pressure.”
“Remember that Marcos censored media,” Jose said. “Many newspapers, my own journal, were closed. Many books scheduled for publication were banned and some writers were imprisoned.” One of those banned books was Jose’s novel My Brother, My Executioner. During those years, Jose made a trip to Europe, one which required that then German Ambassador Klaus Zeller head to the international airport to ensure that Jose was not stopped before he boarded his flight. “We became very good friends and, at one time, during a PEN meeting, he came with a case of German wine to show support for us.” “There was also a break-in in the bookshop,” Jose added. “They forced open the shop’s back door, but did not take anything. They didn’t take the money in the cash register. They didn’t take my watch, or a camera that was there. What they did was bash my fountain pen. They broke it. That was a warning: Huwag ka na magsulat (stop writing).”
Other writers suffered worse under Ferdinand Marcos’ martial rule, Jose said: “The PEN was considered an opponent of Marcos and several PEN officials, including the president, Mario Vargas Llosa, came here to plead for the release of the imprisoned writers—including Max Soliven, Bien Lumbera, and Pete Lacaba. There were several writers who were in jail, and this is where Kit Tatad was of great help, because he saw to it that these writers from abroad could go to Malacanang and see the President. He was the one who brought them there.” Tatad, then a journalist who’d become the Marcos regime’s Minister of Public Information and, later, a senator, was “one of the first members” of the PEN Center in the Philippines.
“We must always be vigilant so that those things that happened in the past will not happen again,” Jose said. To him, the writer is the “keeper of memory.” “Rulers always want to have power, more power, even absolute power, if they can,” Jose spoke firmly, his eyes unblinking as he said this. “Unless you have institutions composed of courageous, vigilant and righteous people and, I hope, writers—these are the torch-bearers of freedom. They are the ones who keep alive democracy itself. Not so much because they are writers, but because they write the truth—and that is very important—and if there is anything that dictators hate, it is the truth.”
To his mind, President Rodrigo Duterte is not yet a dictator, “but we have to be vigilant. You must take that for granted: That all rulers want absolute power. They may not voice it, but in their minds, there is no exception to that. If you must rule, you must have real power.”
In a world where freedom is hard to win and even harder to hold, the writer, journalist, artist and free soul is a vital lamp-bearer during dark and confusing times.
Image credits: Bernard Testa, Joel Pablo Salud