Oxfam Novib/PEN Award for Freedom of Expression is a literary award made in collaboration with PEN International Writers in Prison Committee, the PEN Emergency Fund, and Oxfam Novib (the Dutch affiliate of the international Oxfam organization). The award is to recognize writers who have been persecuted for their work and continue working despite the consequences. Honorees receive € 2,500.
The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN affiliates in over 145 PEN centres around the world.
PEN International is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous International PEN centers in over 100 countries.
Sihem Bensedrine is a Tunisian journalist and human rights activist. In 2005, she was honored with the Oxfam Novib/PEN Award.
Lydia María Cacho Ribeiro is a Mexican journalist, feminist, and human rights activist. Described by Amnesty International as "perhaps Mexico's most famous investigative journalist and women's rights advocate", Cacho's reporting focuses on violence against and sexual abuse of women and children.
Mehrangiz Kar is an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist. She is also author of the book Crossing the Red Line, and an activist of women's rights in Iran.
Can Dündar is a Turkish journalist, columnist and documentarian. Editor-in-chief of center-left Cumhuriyet newspaper until August 2016, he was arrested in November 2015 after his newspaper published footage showing the State Intelligence MİT sending weapons to Syrian Islamist fighters.
Roya Toloui is a prominent Kurdish-Iranian journalist, human rights activist and feminist, currently residing in the US. She was born in Baneh in western Iran. She received her high school diploma at Baneh and her PhD in Medical laboratory from University of Mashad.
PEN Canada is one of the 148 centres of PEN International. Founded in 1926, it has a membership of over 1,000 writers and supporters who campaign on behalf of writers around the world who are persecuted, imprisoned and exiled for exercising their right to freedom of expression.
The Day of the Imprisoned Writer is an annual, international day intended to recognize and support writers who resist repression of the basic human right to freedom of expression and who stand up to attacks made against their right to impart information. This day is observed each year on November 15. It was started in 1981 by PEN International's Writers in Prison Committee.
Irakli Kakabadze is a Georgian writer, performance artist, peace and human rights activist. In 2009, he was awarded the Oxfam/Novib PEN Freedom of Expression Prize. Kakabadze's articles and stories have been published in Georgian, Russian, and English newspapers and magazines. In 2007 he received the Lilian Hellman/Hammett grant from Human Rights Watch. From 2008 to 2012, Kakabadze was based in Ithaca, NY, where he developed a new method of integrating performing arts and social sciences, called "Rethinking Tragedy" or "Transformative Performance." Kakabadze has also pioneered a multi-lingual and multi-narrative performing style, called Polyphonic Discourse. Irakli Kakabadze's work as an artist-activist is subject of a verite documentary At the Top of My Voice.
Rachid Niny, is a Moroccan journalist, chronicler and editor, and the director of Al Massae, which as of 2012 was Morocco's most popular daily newspaper. He was imprisoned from 28 April 2011 to 28 April 2012, allegedly for "undermining a judicial decision", "attempting to influence the judiciary", and "reporting on untrue criminal offences", leading Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience.
Razan Naiem Almoghrabi, also seen as Razan Naim Moghrabi, is a Libyan writer and feminist.
Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer and journalist. She was born in Jableh, Syria, near Latakia, in 1970, and studied Arabic literature at Latakia university. She has written in a wide variety of genres - novels, short stories, film scripts, television dramas, film and TV criticism, literary narratives.
The Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim controversy began in February 2013 when journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim interviewed Lul Ali Osman, who claimed that she was raped by government security forces while living in an internally displaced peoples camp in Mogadishu, Somalia. The two were arrested, tried, and sentenced to a year in prison for having allegedly fabricated the story. The trial was described by some human rights groups as politically motivated. Osman was later in the month acquitted following an appeal, and Ibrahim's sentence was reduced to six months. It was concurrently announced that an Independent Task Force on Human Rights had been established, which would review his case to see if due process has been followed. Ibrahim was released from detention the following month, on 17 March 2013.
Eskinder Nega is an Ethiopian journalist, blogger and politician who has been jailed at least ten times by the Ethiopian government on convictions for treason and terrorism.
Fatou Jaw-Manneh is a Gambian journalist and activist who received political asylum from the United States in 1994 and has lived in the U.S. ever since. She is a well-known member of the Gambian community in the U.S. and runs the popular news and politics website Maafanta.com. She was the first female reporter at the Gambian Daily Observer and is widely known as “Gambia's Iron Lady” and the “Dame of the Flaming Pen.”
Ashraf Fayadh is an artist and poet of Palestinian origin. He is the son of refugees from Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip and lives in Saudi Arabia. He was active in the British-Arabian arts organization, Edge of Arabia, and organized exhibitions of Saudi art in Europe and Saudi Arabia. In November 2015, he was sentenced to death by beheading for apostasy. The Saudi court overturned the death sentence three months later, imposing an eight-year prison term with 800 lashes.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Dareen Tatour is a Palestinian poet, photographer, and social media activist from Reineh, Israel, who writes in Arabic, her mother tongue. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced to five months in prison by an Israeli court in 2018 for "inciting violence" and "supporting a terrorist organisation" in postings on social media, one of which was a video that included a reading of her poem. Following her appeal, the conviction for the post containing the poem was overturned the following year, but the conviction for her other posts was upheld.
Malini Subramaniam is an Indian independent journalist, former head of the Chhattisgarh chapter of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a regular contributor for India-based internet based Scroll.in reporting on human rights abuses from where she lived in the city of Jagdalpur in the Bastar district of the Chhattisgarh state. She was viewed as a supporter of the Maoists and driven from Jagdapur by anti-Moaists and authorities.
Iqbal Baraka is an Egyptian journalist, women's rights activist, and writer. She served as editor in chief of the women's magazine Hawaa for over two decades. Baraka is known for her work to advance the role of women in Egyptian and Islamic society. She is considered "one of the most influential feminists in the Arab world."