International Women’s Day 2016 – Women Writers on the Frontline of Freedom of Expression
International Women’s Day, observed each year on 8 March, is an opportunity to reflect on the progress made for women’s rights, to call for change, and to honour those women who are agents of change at great personal risk and cost.
‘In our times journalists, our storytellers, are so often the story. The story is censorship, jail, death and disappearance. For women journalists, this story includes sexual harassment -- often viewed as an “occupational hazard”. The sexual violence faced by female correspondents all over the world is a serious human rights issue.’- PEN International president, Jennifer Clement.
Over the years PEN International has used this day to highlight and campaign on cases of persecution, violence and intimidation against women writers around the world. Although overall reporting on this issue remains limited and fragmented, the difficult conditions in which women writers, and in particular women journalists, carry out their work have been highlighted by a number of organisations in recent years:
Following an expert meeting of journalists, media actors, government and civil society representatives from participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in September 2015, the OSCE published a report which found that women journalists, bloggers and other media actors are disproportionately experiencing gender related threats, harassment and intimidation on the Internet which has a direct impact on their safety and future online activities.
A global survey carried out in 2013 by the International News Safety Institute (INSI) and International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) among nearly 1,000 women journalists found that nearly two-thirds of respondents had experienced some form of intimidation, threats, or abuse in relation to their work, ranging in severity from name-calling to death threats, while 46.12% had experienced sexual harassment.
Country specific research is harder to come by, however, a report on Violence against women journalists in Mexico published by Communication and Information on Women (CIMAC) in 2012 showed a sharp increase in violence against women journalists over the last two decades. The research also expressed concern about underreporting of violence against women journalists and impunity: ‘The alarming number of murders and death threats against male journalists obscures the violence suffered by their female colleagues because the latter cases represent the minority.’ In fact the report found that between 2002 and 2013, attacks against women journalists in Mexico increased by more than 2,200%, while attacks against male journalists increased by 276%.
This is a trend which is reflected in the data on persecuted writers collected by PEN International. Of 104 cases of writers at risk seeking refuge received by the organisation in 2015, only nine concerned women writers. Similarly, under 17% of all cases of persecution against writers recorded PEN International in its 2014 Case List were of women writers. The regional percentages of women recorded in the Case List are also instructive, ranging from around 10% of cases in Africa and Asia to just under 20% in MENA and Europe to 25% in the Americas. These low numbers are difficult to explain, but the gender gap in education which still exists in many countries is undoubtedly a contributing factor. According to UNICEF an estimated 31 million girls of primary school age and 32 million girls of lower secondary school age were out of school in 2013.
Furthermore, the vulnerable position of women and girls in many societies, and their reduced access to education, means that when women are persecuted for their writings, they are often more at risk than their male counterparts, their situation more desperate: they are more likely to have a large number of dependants; their access to justice is likely to be worse, their economic position to be weaker.
To highlight these unique challenges faced by women writers, each year on International Women’s Day PEN International and its Centres around the world, use this day to campaign on behalf of women who are denied their right to freedom of expression through harassment, intimidation, violence or imprisonment.
‘International Women´s Day is an opportunity for us to stand with and honour brave women writers who face unimaginable challenges in the course of their work every day. The PEN International Women Writers Committee have long promoted the unique and integral role women writers play in raising awareness about key issues facing girls and women around the world and in bringing about positive change. We will continue to work to create a global environment of equality, security and fairness for all women.’ Elisabeth Nordgren, Chair, PEN International Women Writers Committee
This year PEN is campaigning on behalf of:
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‘Beyond those gates, another world, another race,
a people poisoned and oppressed by woe; they
wearily at us, the prisoners we faced,
with sunken eyes, lack-lustre, circled with sorrow’– extract from ‘From Evin to Raja’I Shah’ in Prison Poems, published in English on 1 April 2013.
Background
Mahvash Sabet (Iran) is a teacher and poet who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in Evin prison, Tehran. She is one of a group of seven Bahá’í leaders known as the ‘Yaran-i-Iran’ (‘Friends of Iran’) who have been detained since 2008 for their faith and activities related to running the affairs of the Bahá’í community in Iran. Mahvash Sabet began writing poetry in prison, and a collection of her prison poems was published in English translation on 1 April 2013. PEN International is calling on the Iranian authorities to release Mahvash Sabet and all other writers imprisoned in Iran solely for exercising their right to legitimate freedom of expression.
The Baha’i community in Iran has been the focus of a systematic, state-sponsored persecution since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. After the revolution, the ‘Yaran-i-Iran’ (‘Friends of Iran’) was formed with the full knowledge of the government and served as an informal council for the Baha’i in Iran, working to support the spiritual and social needs of Iran’s 300,000-member Baha’i community, until the Yaran’s entire membership was arrested in 2008. Teacher and poet Mahvash Sabet was arrested on 5 March 2008 while on a trip to Mashhad. The other six members of the group - Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm - were arrested on 14 May 2008 at their homes in Tehran. All were imprisoned without charge until January 2010, during which they were held incommunicado for weeks and were not allowed access to legal counsel. All suffered appalling treatment and deprivations during pre-trial detention.
Charged with espionage, propaganda against the Islamic republic, the establishment of an illegal administration, co-operation with Israel, sending secret documents outside the country, acting against the security of the country, and corruption on earth, their trial began on 12 January 2010. On 14 June 2010 each of the defendants was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment after six brief court sessions characterised by their lack of due legal process. Their sentences were later reduced to 10 years each when an appeals court revoked three of the charges; however, in March 2011, the prisoners were informed of the reinstatement of their original sentences. They have never received official copies of the original verdict or the ruling on appeal despite repeated requests.
TAKE ACTION:
Send appeals:
Calling on the Iranian authorities to release Mahvash Sabet and all other writers currently imprisoned in Iran solely for exercising their right to legitimate freedom of expression;
Urging that further measures be taken to fully enshrine the right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion in law and practice in Iran as provided for under Articles 18 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a state party.
Addresses:
Leader of the Islamic RepublicAyatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader , Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, Salutation: Your Excellency, Email: info_leader@leader.ir, Twitter: @khamenei_ir
President Hassan Rouhani: Office of the Presidency, Pasteur Square, Pasteur Street, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Salutation: Your Excellency
Email: media@rouhani.ir
Twitter: @HassanRouhani And copies to:Secretary General, High Council for Human Rights
Mohammed Javad Larijani c/o Office of the Head of the Judiciary: Pasteur St, Vali Asr Ave, South of Serah-e Jomhouri, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: larijani@ipm.ir (Subject line: FAO Mohammad Javad Larijani)
It is recommended that you send a copy of your appeals via the diplomatic representative for Iran in your country. Contact details for embassies can be found here.
PUBLICITY
PEN members are encouraged to:
Publish articles and opinion pieces in your national or local press highlighting the situation about freedom of expression in Iran;
Organise public events, stage readings, press conferences or demonstrations;
Share information about Iran and your campaigning activities for Mahvash Sabet via social media.
SOLIDARITY
Elect Mahvash Sabet as an Honorary Member of your Centre and by doing so provide long term support and advocacy for her and her family. For details of the PEN International Honorary Membership scheme, read the PEN WiPC Guide to Defending Writers Under Attack (Part V, pgs 15-20). Please let us know if you do so and we will ensure that your Centre is networked with others working on the case.
To write to Mahvash Sabet in prison, please contact Emma Wadsworth-Jones (wadsworth-jones@pen-international.org)
Please let us know about your activities and send us a report about them by 21 April 2016 so that we can share them with other centres.
Background
Mahvash Sabet, now aged 62, began her professional career as a teacher and worked as a principal at several schools. She also collaborated with the National Literacy Committee of Iran. Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Sabet was fired from her job and blocked from working in public education, like thousands of other Iranian Baha’i educators. She served for 15 years as director of the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education, which provides alternative higher education for Baha’i youth. She began writing poetry while in prison, a collection of which was published in English translation on 1 April 2013. Her poems are described as ‘sometimes a means of historical documentation…; sometimes a series of portraits of other women trapped in prison with her; sometimes meditations on powerlessness, on loneliness’…. She is married and has two grown children.
‘My first encounter with Mahvash Sabet took place on a hot summer’s day. After many hours of tedious waiting in a special room set aside for lawyers, I was finally allowed to meet her in the presence of two women guards . . . it was obvious that the Baha'i prisoners had been deprived of fresh air and daylight for a long time; their entire beings seemed thirsty for the energizing heat and light of the sun. However, despite all their hardships, their will remained unbroken.’ Mahnaz Parakand, Member of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders and one of the four lawyers for the Yaran.
Mahvash Sabet is an honorary member of Austrian PEN and Danish PEN. Her case featured in PEN’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer campaign 2014. In November of that year, Argentine writer, Alberto Manguel wrote, ‘I can’t offer you anything in your cell except my devotion as your reader, my trust in better times, and my distant but sincere friendship. I hope that in the very near future we will meet in person, not only on the page.’
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Narges Mohammadi (Iran) is an independent journalist and the former vice-president and spokesperson of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), which advocates for human rights reform and represents political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in legal proceedings. She is also involved in campaigning against the death penalty in Iran. Mohammadi suffers from a neurological disorder that can result in seizures, temporary partial paralysis, and pulmonary embolism – a blood clot in her lung.
In May 2015, Mohammadi was arrested and put on trial on charges including ‘spreading propaganda against the system’, ‘gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security’ and ‘membership of an illegal organisation whose aim is to harm national security (Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty, an organisation that campaigned against the death penalty in Iran.)’. Her trial which was scheduled to commence in May 2015 has been subject to several postponements.
Evidence used against Mohammadi included media interviews she had conducted her connections to human rights defenders, as well as her activities against the death penalty, including her work with the campaigning group, Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty.
Serious concerns for Mohammadi’s health persist following reports that she suffered several seizures in August and October 2015. According to reports, Mohammadi was taken to hospital on each occasion and on at least one instance she was returned to prison against medical advice. In a subsequent incident she was handcuffed to the bed for the first few days of her hospital stay.
TAKE ACTION
Send Appeals:
Calling on the Iranian authorities to release journalist Narges Mohammadi immediately and unconditionally;
Expressing grave concern for the health and welfare of Narges Mohammadi, and demanding that she is given all necessary medical attention as a matter of urgency;
Urging the authorities to allow Mohammadi the right to make telephone calls so that she may speak to her children;
Urging them to ensure that the right to freedom of expression in Iran is fully respected in law and practice as provided for under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a state party.
Addresses:
Leader of the Islamic Republic: Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader, Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, Salutation: Your Excellency, Email: info_leader@leader.ir, Twitter: @khamenei_ir
PresidentHassan Rouhani: Office of the Presidency, Pasteur Square, Pasteur Street, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Salutation: Your Excellency, Email: media@rouhani.ir, Twitter: @HassanRouhani
And copies to:
Secretary General, High Council for Human Rights: Mohammed Javad Larijani c/o Office of the Head of the Judiciary, Pasteur St, Vali Asr Ave, South of Serah-e Jomhouri, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Email: larijani@ipm.ir (Subject line: FAO Mohammad Javad Larijani)
It is recommended that you send a copy of your appeals via the diplomatic representative for Iran in your country.
PUBLICITY
PEN members are encouraged to:
Publish articles and opinion pieces in your national or local press highlighting the situation about freedom of expression in Iran.
Organise public events, stage readings, press conferences or demonstrations.
Share information about Iran and your campaigning activities for Narges Mohammadi via social media.
SOLIDARITY
Elect Narges Mohammadi as an Honorary Member of your Centre and by doing so provide long term support and advocacy for her and her family. For details of the PEN International Honorary Membership scheme, read the PEN WiPC Guide to Defending Writers Under Attack (Part V, pgs 15-20). Please let us know if you do so and we will ensure that your Centre is networked with others working on the case.
Please let us know about your activities and send us a report about them by 21 April 2016 so that we can share them with other centres.
Background
Narges Mohammadi was elected as President of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Peace in Iran, a broad coalition against war and for the promotion of human rights. She has campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty in Iran, and is the recipient of both the Alexander Langer Award (2009) and the Per Anger Prize (2011) for her human rights work.
Mohammadi is the mother of eight-year-old twins, and the wife of prominent journalist and activist Taghi Rahmani, who has spent a total of 17 years in prison. Taghi Rahmani left the country in May 2011 following escalating pressure from the authorities. She and her husband are honorary members of Danish PEN. In July 2015 she wrote a moving letter to the Prosecutor General of Tehran, where she described the impact of her persecution on her children and herself.
Mohammadi has long suffered from persecution at the hands of the Iranian authorities; she has been banned from travelling abroad since 2009, when the authorities confiscated her passport. The following year Mohammadi was arrested from her home without a warrant and held in connection with her work with the Defenders of Human Rights Center. Immediately following her release on bail on 1 July 2010, Mohammadi was admitted to hospital for treatment.
PEN International first began working on her case in 2011 when a Tehran court convicted her of ‘acting against the national security’, ‘membership of the DHRC’ and ‘propaganda against the regime’ for her reporting on human rights violations, cooperation with Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and visiting political prisoners. She was sentenced to serve a cumulative sentence of 11 years in prison. The sentence was reduced to six years on appeal in January 2012.
On 21 April 2012, Mohammadi was summoned to Evin prison to serve out her sentence. She was released on bail on 30 July 2012 following the severe deterioration of her health.
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Fatima Naoot (Egypt) is a poet and former parliamentary candidate, having run for a parliamentary seat in late 2015. As well as being the chief editor of the literary magazine Qaws Qazah (The Rainbow), she is also a regular columnist and writer for a range of magazines and newspapers across Egypt and the Middle East. She has published 21 books, including seven poetry anthologies, and has translated authors such as Virginia Woolf and Philip Roth.
In December 2014 Naoot was referred for trial, accused of ‘contempt of religion’, ‘spreading sectarian strife’, and ‘disturbing public peace’ for a post she made on her Facebook page in October 2014, which criticised the tradition of slaughtering animals for Eid-al-Adha. The Eid-al-Adha festival celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his first-born son to obey God. Naoot also published a similarly critical article for the daily El-Masry El-Youm.
During her trial, which began on 28 January 2015, Naoot acknowledged that she had written the post but denied that her intention was to insult Islam. On 26 January 2016 Fatima was sentenced to three years in jail and handed a fine of LE20,000 (about $2,550). An appeal hearing is set for March 2016, and Naoot remains free.
TAKE ACTION
Send Appeals:
Calling on the Egyptian authorities to drop all charges against journalist Fatima Naoot immediately and unconditionally;
Urging them to ensure that the right to freedom of expression in Egypt is fully respected in law and practice as provided for under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Egypt is a state party.
It is recommended that you send a copy of your appeals via the diplomatic representative for Egypt in your country.
PUBLICITY
PEN members are encouraged to:
Publish articles and opinion pieces in your national or local press highlighting the situation about freedom of expression in Egypt.
Organise public events, stage readings, press conferences or demonstrations.
Share information about Egypt and your campaigning activities for Fatima Naoot via social media.
SOLIDARITY
Elect Fatima Naoot as an Honorary Member of your Centre and by doing so provide long term support and advocacy for her and her family. For details of the PEN International Honorary Membership scheme, read the PEN WiPC Guide to Defending Writers Under Attack (Part V, pgs 15-20). Please let us know if you do so and we will ensure that your Centre is networked with others working on the case.
Please let us know about your activities and send us a report about them by 21 April 2016 so that we can share them with other centres.
Addresses:
President of Egypt: President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Office of the President, Al Ittihadia Palace, Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt, Fax: +202 2 391 1441, Email: p.spokesman@op.gov.eg, Moh_moussa@op.gov.eg Salutation: Your Excellency Twitter: @alsisiofficial
Prime Minister: Sherif Ismail, Magles El Shaab St., Kasr El Aini St.Cairo, Email: primemin@idsc.gov.eg
And copies to:
Secretary General, National Council for Human Rights: 69 Giza Street, next to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Giza, Egypt
Background
Fatima Naoot ran as an independent candidate in the 2015 parliamentary elections for a Heliopolis seat. She reportedly said that she was running for a seat in order to stop Salafi parties from ‘rewriting the constitution.’
On 20 February 2016 Egyptian author Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison for ‘violating public modesty’ with some of the content in his new book, whilst the editor of the newspaper in which the novel was published, Tarek al-Taher, was fined LE10,000 (around $1,280). The Egyptian censorship authority had previously approved the novel, ‘The Use of Life’, but a reader complained after a chapter of the book was published in Akhbar Al Adab newspaper. The trial began in November 2015 and the two were acquitted in January 2016, but were then found guilty by an appeals court after the prosecution appealed.
In December 2015 the Muslim scholar Islam el-Beheiry was sentenced to one year in prison for ‘blasphemy’ after calling for reforms in ‘traditional Islamic discourse’ on his television programme ‘With Islam’. He was initially sentenced in May 2015 to five years in prison but this was reduced to one year after he appealed the sentence. This came after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for reforms in traditional interpretations of faith. Naoot reportedly said, in regards to her sentence, that she is ‘sad that the efforts of the reformists have been wasted.’
Karam Saber, author and land rights activist, is facing a possible five-year prison sentence after conviction of ‘insulting religion’ in his 2010 book of short stories entitled Where is God? His May 2013 conviction was upheld on appeal in June 2014; Saber remains free pending a ruling by the Court of Cassation.
Rights groups say that the crackdown launched by President al-Sisi has muzzled freedom of speech. They also suggest that those seen as ‘insulting Islam’ have been targeted by the state and charged with offences ranging from ‘blasphemy’ to ‘contempt of religion’, although this has been happening since before President al-Sisi came to power. According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Egyptian courts have jailed 27 out of 42 defendants charged with contempt of religion between 2011 and 2013. The organisation also says that it has documented 12 defendants jailed on such charges since the start of 2015, with at least another 11 cases pending before the courts. The Government denies accusations that it hinders freedom of speech or belief and says that it is committed to democracy.
