Every year on 15 November PEN International launches its Day of the Imprisoned Writer campaign, highlighting the cases of writers who are imprisoned or facing persecution and calling for urgent international action to release and protect them.
This year PEN International is featuring the cases of María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez (Cuba), Iryna Danylovych (Ukraine/occupied Crimea), Go Sherab Gyatso (China- Tibet), and Soulaiman Raissouni (Morocco). Please take action with us between November 15 and 22.
You can read this year’s solidarity letters in support of our imprisoned writers below:
Read J.M Coetzee’s letter to Iryna Danylovych in English, French, and Spanish.
Read Nina George’s letter to Iryna Danylovych in English, French, and Spanish.
Read Geert Mak’s letter to Iryna Danylovych in English.
Read Andrey Kurkov’s letter to Soulaiman Raissouni in English.
Read Jennifer Clement’s letter to Go Sherab Gyatso (aka. Gosher) in English.
Join our campaign in support of María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez, Iryna Danylovych, Go Sherab Gyatso, and Soulaiman Raissouni.
Moroccan journalist Souleiman Raissouni elected prisoner writer of the year
Moroccan journalist Souleiman Raissouni, 49, has been chosen as this year’s ‘imprisoned writer’ for 2023 by the world writers’ association, PEN International.
By Jesús Cabaleiro Larrán
This group, founded in London in 1921, has celebrated ‘Writer in Prison Day’ every November 15 since 1980, when 140 PEN centers around the world remember the plight of persecuted and imprisoned writers and journalists. PEN International established this day of commemoration in reaction to «the growing number of countries trying to silence perpetrators through repression.»
On this occasion, of the four proposals, the Moroccan journalist was chosen. The United Nations and the European Parliament, last January, expressed concern about the arbitrary nature of his detention and demanded Raissouni’s release.
He was arrested when he was editor-in-chief of the defunct newspaper Akhbar Al-Yaoum (Today’s News), known for its critical position against the regime, in May 2020. He was accused of «indecent assault with violence and forcible kidnapping» for an alleged sexual assault, which he rejects as having political motivations. He spent almost a year in detention without trial and then, in July 2021, was sentenced to five years in prison.
The trial was marked by irregularities and took place without his presence or that of his defense lawyers. Then he went on a long hunger strike, lasting more than 120 days, he is not in good health and his appeal was rejected.
The four writers nominated for imprisoned writer of the year are «seriously threatened.» In addition to Raissouni, there were Ukrainian citizen journalist and human rights activist Iryna Danylovich; the Tibetan writer, educator and intellectual Go Sherab Gyatso, known as Gosher, and the Cuban poet and activist María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez.
PEN International remembers the difficult situation of persecuted and imprisoned writers and journalists. Authors, journalists and editors are being attacked by unjust regimes around the world, they report.