Human Rights

An Award for Ashraf Fayadh

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Last week, PEN International, in affiliation with Oxfam Novib, named Ashraf Fayadh and Malini Subramaniam co-winners of the annual Oxfam Novib/PEN International Free Expression Award. The two join fifty previous winners, including the late Hrant Dink of Turkey.

Ashraf Fayadh remains in prison in Saudi Arabia and was not able to attend the ceremony. He is a poet, an artist, who has faced an array of blasphemy-related charges in Saudi Arabia, from “insulting the divine self” to being an infidel.
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When Will We Know?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Many of those who live in countries ruled by dictatorships―fascist, communist, inherited monarchy―are unaffected by the fact of the dictatorship. They are those who are members―by birth or achievement―of groups the government favors. The government gets to decide who it favors, and if one is a member of a favored group, life may feel like it is free, as long as one ignores that one’s neighbors are not free or, worse, are vanishing.

If one is a member of a preferred population, life under fascism will carry on and look much like a normal life. After all, many people in Nazi Germany fell in love and out of love and bought groceries and learned how to drive. They wrote poetry and crammed for exams and got hired and fired. Many people in Nazi Germany, though, they did not.
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Justice Delayed Once Again for Shawkan

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A journalist’s job is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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Mahmoud Abu Zeid, an Egyptian photojournalist who goes by the name “Shawkan,” learned today that his trial was once again postponed, this time until Tuesday, February 7. Ten prisoners, co-defendants with Shawkan, were released today for medical reasons. Shawkan’s deteriorating health began to qualify him for a release under medical grounds two years ago, but his detention continues, three-and-a-half years after his arrest.
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