Sydney PEN has been invited by the Department of Foreign Affairs Trading to make a submission to the thirteenth Australia-China Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue to be held in Beijing in mid-September.
Our submission, compiled on behalf of the centre by the Chair of our Writers In Prison program, Dr Christopher Michaelsen, and secretary, Simeon Beckett, addresses the significance of freedom of expression within the issue of human rights in China.
All members of Sydney PEN are called to vote at a general meeting to be held on:
Wednesday September 8, 2010
6.00-6.30pm
Venue will be announced once numbers are confirmed.
If you are able to attend this meeting, please RSVP by August 27th to:
Natasha Ferguson, Executive Officer
sydney@pen.org.au
Phone (toll free): 1300 364 997
If you are unable to attend, please register your vote using the proxy form and return the completed form by September 8, to:
Sydney PEN Centre
5 Blackfriars St, Chippendale NSW 2008
sydney@pen.org.au
Fax: (02) 9319 0141
download proxy form,
The special resolution will be followed at 6.30pm by a meeting of Sydney PEN Management Committee members.
SPECIAL RESOLUTION VOTE: Agenda
Tabled for this meeting is a vote by all members on the following changes (in capitals) to the organisation’s Constitution according to proposed changes to membership rules:
Clause 10
(2) In addition to any amount payable by ordinary members and associate members under clause (1), a member of the Association must pay to the Association an annual membership fee of $2 or, if some other amount is determined by the Committee, that other amount:
(a) ON BECOMING A MEMBER, and
(b) BEFORE THE ELAPSE OF TWELVE MONTHS FROM THE ORIGINAL DATE OF JOINING IN EACH SUCCEEDING CALENDAR YEAR.
(3) Subscriptions from new members joining in IN ANY YEAR SHALL COVER THE PERIOD OF TWELVE MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF JOINING.
The Sydney PEN Management Committee proposes these changes in order to allow for a more efficient and viable approach to new and renewed memberships.
A vote on the proposed changes will be counted by a show of hands from those members present and proxy votes from absentee members who lodge their votes 24 hours ahead of the scheduled meeting.
The count of votes and outcome of the resolution will be announced at the close of the meeting, and the outcome published to all members following the meeting.
Sydney PEN is joining Amnesty in following up with Kyrgise authorities the case of Ulugbek Abdusalamov, an Uzbek journalist detained in southern Kyrgyzstan in July this year. Mr Abdusalamov suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and other issues including high blood pressure prior to his detention, and requires hospitalisation or strict medical surveillance.
Sydney PEN joins International PEN and Amnesty International in:
* calling for the immediate and unconditional release of prisoner of conscience Ulugbek Abdusalamov;
* urging the Kyrgise authorities to ensure that Mr Abdusalamov receives any medical attention he may require, including hospital treatment;
* calling on the Kyrgise authorities to allow human rights defenders, journalists and other civil society activists to carry out their work without the threat of harassment or obstruction by the authorities.
Independent Chinese PEN Centre has just released the Summer issue of its quarterly journal, the second issue for this year. We have again worked with ICPC on the editing and proofreading of these translations of new work by currently incarcerated writers including Sydney PEN Honorary Members, Shi Tao and Liu Xiaobo, and writers such as Zhang Jianhong (Li Hong) whose work we highlighted in The Painted Chairs project earlier this year.
In parallel, ICPC have created a website in Chinese and English focused on the well known case of Liu Xiaobo, to ensure Liu’s sentence is remembered and that supporters of his liberty and rights to freedom of expression remain informed.
Sydney PEN has learned from Uyghur PEN and Radio Free Asia that three webmasters have allegedly been sentenced for reporting content deemed by the Chinese government to be politically sensitive. This news follows the reported sentencing of Gheyret Niyaz, a prominent Uyghur journalist and webmaster. Niyaz was sentenced in late July to fifteen years imprisonment for “endangering state security” for his running of the website Uyghur Online. A group of 51 Han Chinese lawyers and academics posted an open letter of concern about Niyaz’s case and “the criminalization of free speech” affecting the Uyghur population. Visit our campaign profile on Mr Niyaz and sign our petition letter.
Millions of Uyghurs—a distinct, Turkic minority who are predominantly Muslim—populate Central Asia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of northwestern China. Ethnic tensions between Uyghurs and majority Han Chinese settlers erupted in July 2009 in rioting that left some 200 people dead, according to the Chinese government’s tally. Uyghurs say they have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness despite China’s ambitious plans to develop its vast northwestern frontier. Chinese authorities blame Uyghur separatists for a series of deadly attacks in recent years and accuse one group in particular of maintaining links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Read about this issue in a recent article for The Wall Street Journal by president of the World Uyghur Congress, Rabiya Kadeer.
The last three of Sydney PEN’s The Painted Chairs are available for sale. They are striking original works by the major Australian artists, Ann Thomson, Garry Shead and Elisabeth Cummings.
Photos: Stuart Spence
Each piece is a unique interpretation of PEN’s Empty Chair campaign, and each artist is generously donating the proceeds of their chair’s sale to Sydney PEN.
Sydney PEN is taking offers on each chair from all interested members of the public – but hurry! Buyers will need to be able to arrange for collection of their chair from Sydney PEN’s office in Chippendale, Sydney. For more information contact Natasha Ferguson at 1300 364 997 or sydney@pen.org.au
Chinese writer and former Vice President of Independent Chinese PEN, Yu Jie, 36, has ignored questioning regarding his forthcoming book on China’s Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, stating last week that he intends to release the book in Hong Kong as planned.
Mr Wen’s interrogators suggested that by doing so Mr Wen could meet a similar sentence to Liu Xiaobo, who is currently imprisoned for eleven years for his role as a co-author and signatory to Charter 08.
Mr Wen’s book, China’s Best Actor: Wen Jiaobo, criticizes the Prime Minister’s populist appeal as a performance that hides oppressive principles.
In April, Fiji’s military leader, Frank Bainimarama, declared that Fiji’s media outlets must be 90% locally owned. It is decreed that this must happen within three months, forcing the country’s largest newspaper, The Fiji Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd, to close or sell immediately.
Bainimarama’s Media Industry Development Decree was released in April, cementing of the censorship program that has shadowed Fiji’s media since the military leadership commandeered Fiji’s constitution in April 2009.
The Fiji Times has remained an exception to that pressure, and it is believed that the Decree is aimed particularly at curbing its criticism of Fiji’s leadership and frustration of government censorship. The paper receives no government advertising and does not run government press releases without editorial intervention. The Fijian government deported The Fiji Times’ publisher, Evan Hannah, and the CEO of The Fiji Sun in 2008. Since then The Fiji Times has continued to frustrate the government by highlighting the deportation of the ABC’s Sean Dorney in 2009, and by running white space where government censorship has been enforced upon content.
The government’s new Decree states that organisations that publish material deemed by the authority to be “against the public interest or order, against national interest, offends against good taste or decency, or creates communal discord” are liable to a fine of up to $279,000, and journalists to prison for up to five years, penalties widely attached to all the decree’s provisions.
As well as declaring a majority percentage of Fijian media ownership, the Decree also states that a media tribunal, chaired by a person qualified to be a judge, will hear complaints made to a media development authority. There will be no recourse to the courts and conventional rules of evidence will not apply. Any broadcaster or publisher must submit to the media authority’s minister in advance all material that may be deemed to “give rise to disorder” or undermine the government.
Sydney PEN joins Stephen Smith, the New Zealand government, Amnesty International and other civil society organisations and regional voices that have spoken out against the Decree and its impact on freedom of information and freedom of expression in Fiji. Download our media statement on this issue.
We are thrilled to see the concept of The Painted Chairs project taken up by Scottish PEN, and created by staff and students at Lomond School, Helensburgh, Scotland, as pictured here. The centre revealed the chair on June 23 as part of the International PEN Writers in Prison 50th Anniversary, “Because Writers Speak Their Minds”, which is taking place worldwide this year. It will then be travelling to the Edinburgh Book Festival for display.
The Byron Bay Writers' Festival, which has long supported PEN’s WiP work via the Empty Chair campaign, will be featuring four of their own Painted Chairs by local artists Hillary Hermann, Christine Willcocks, Angus McDonald and Ken Johnson. The chairs will be displayed in the four main Festival marquees throughout the program, and sold by silent auction through bids registered with marquee supervisors. The artists are generously donating part of the proceeds of their sales to Sydney PEN. For more information contact the Festival Director,Jeni Caffin.
After two years of charges, trials and detention for his work, Sri Lankan reporter JS Tissainayagam (“Tissa”) has left Sri Lanka to seek safety abroad.
While the Sri Lankan government promised Tissa a pardon in May this year, the pardon has not been publically released. Tissa’s work as a reporter, as well as that of his editor and publisher, was muffled by the country’s oppressive counter-terrorism laws that sought to connect the magazine North-Eastern Monthly with pro-Tamil sentiment.
It is not currently known to Sydney PEN where Tissa has settled. Sydney PEN members and supporters have provided signatures to two major letter campaigns to the Sri Lankan government since late 2009.
