PEN International was founded in 1921 and today, more than a hundred years later, unites them all authors planets with other Greek artists through its official branch in Greece, PEN Greece. It is the world’s first association of writers and the first organization to point out that freedom of speech and writing are inseparable.

Founded in 1921 by the British poet Katherine Amy Dawson Scott as a meeting place for the association of writers after the First World War and a hundred years later, known as PEN International, it includes 148 national centers in which novelists, poets, playwrights, writers, journalists, translators, but also readers. In Greece, this year marks the end of the year of PEN Greece, with over 170 members.

Throughout its history, PEN International has remained committed to protecting free speech. In 1933, H. J. Wells, then president of International PEN, led a campaign against Nazi book burning in Germany. In 1966, under the chairmanship of Arthur Miller, he filed an appeal with the Nigerian government against the playwright Wole Soginka (Nobel Laureate in Literature 1986), who was ordered to be executed immediately. Finally, thanks to the efforts of PEN, he was released. The same thing happened to Arthur Kessler, who was sentenced to death in fascist Spain. In Greece, PEN also campaigned for the release of our great composer, Mikis Theodorakis, when he was a prisoner of the junta of the colonels.

Throughout history, writers have been exiled from their homelands for their opinions to countries where the authorities do not allow anyone to criticize. Exile was and remains their only option. Emile Zola after the publication of the manifesto “I accuse!” (1898), in which he publicly denounced the anti-Semitism of French society, and Pablo Neruda, who came into conflict with the Chilean authorities to suppress the communist movement, are two of the many eminent names of scientists excluded for screenings. Svetlana Aleksievich (President of the Belarusian PEN Club, Nobel Prize in Literature 2015) remains in self-exile today.

According to a recent report by PEN International (“Case List 2022”), there are 115 cases of arrest, violence and even death of writers worldwide, and those who manage to leave their countries continue to face serious problems in their host countries and remain objects discriminatory attacks.

From Arthur Kessler sentenced to death in fascist Spain to today’s Belarusian selfless Svetlana Aleksievich.

Recently, during a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, PEN drew attention to the illegal and arbitrary detention of journalists and pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. Also, according to PEN International, writer and journalist, citizen of Belarus and Poland Andrei Potsobut is serving an eight-year prison term in Belarus on trumped-up charges of inciting hatred. In Guatemala, prosecutions have been brought against journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, also on trumped-up charges of money laundering.

American PEN called on the Chinese government to drop all charges against publisher Cao Zhixin and author Li Shiqi, who were arrested for free speech during the November 2022 protests due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And recently in Minsk, a writer, Nobel Peace Prize winner, member of the Belarusian PEN club Ales Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison on trumped-up charges of smuggling. Award-winning journalist and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi remains imprisoned in Iran. A year after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, writers and journalists have been victims of harassment, kidnappings, attacks and murders.

In the context of all this, and as this year marks the 50th anniversary of the uprising of the Polytechnic Institute, PEN Greece intends to organize actions that will expand the public debate on all issues related to freedom of speech and expression.

Ms. Dina Sarakinou is a writer, director of the online literary magazine Literature.gr and president of PEN Greece.