Home > FAQ PEN Personal Web Pages and Blogs: FAQ PRESS ARCHIVE: BY SUBJECT This is my first web page or blog. How do I begin? How do I log in to my PEN account? I already have a web site or blog. Can I link to it through the PEN website? I can’t see my profile or blog: how can I make them appear on the PEN site? I’m not able to upload a picture to my profile. What are your image requirements? Can I display more than three books on my Personal Web Page? I was working on my Personal Web Page and when I clicked "Save Changes" I lost all my work. Is there a way to get it back? How do I prevent this in the future?  OFAC lawsuit >> PEN award winners >> Press freedom >> World Voices Festival >> Writers in Iraq >> USA Patriot Act >> U.S. torture policies World Voices Festival June 3, 2007 | Roxana Robinson | The Novelist and the Curious Cabbie I was standing on the curb, uptown, my hand raised for a cab. It was evening, and the sky was clear and the air cool. I had plenty of time, and I was happy: I was on my way to an international literary festival. >> More May 13, 2007 | David Grossman | Writing in the Dark At times I feel as if I am digging up people from the ice in which reality enshrouded them, but maybe, more than anything else, it is myself that I am now digging up. >> More April 24, 2007 | New York Times | For Writers, a Voice Beyond the Page Nadine Gordimer, the South African novelist and Nobel Prize winner, said writing could be political almost by default. “Everyone is influenced by the framework in which they live, so that politics comes into everything. It’s not expressed by us in a didactic way, but comes through our creation of characters who are indeed made up of the kind of world and the kind of reactions that people have toward that world.” >> More March 21, 2007 | Washington Post | PEN Event Features Rushdie, Steve Martin Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, Salman Rushdie and Steve Martin will be among the many writers and performers featured at the third annual PEN World Voices festival, to be held April 24-29 in settings throughout New York City. >> More October 12, 2006 | New York Times | Turkish writer wins Nobel Prize in Literature Orhan Pamuk, whose uncommon lyrical gifts and uncompromising politics have brought him acclaim worldwide and prosecution at home, won the Nobel literature prize for his works dealing with the symbols of clashing cultures. >> More February 14, 2007 | New York Times | No Rest for a Feminist Fighting Radical Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali came to the attention of the wider world in an extraordinary way. In 2004 a Muslim fanatic, after shooting the filmmaker Theo van Gogh dead on an Amsterdam street, pinned a letter to Mr. van Gogh’s chest with a knife. Addressed to Ms. Hirsi Ali, the letter called for holy war against the West and, more specifically, for her death. >> More May 25, 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Freedom to Write To respect the humanity and religious beliefs of minorities is not to suggest that we should limit freedom of thought on their behalf. >> More May 14, 2006 | Philadelphia Inquirer Shriek it, chant it: 'Howl' turns 50 On stage in the New School auditorium, moderator and literary biographer Robert Polito described Howl to hundreds in the audience as a "grim but funny effort" that, like much enduring literature, beguiles through ambiguity. >> More May 11, 2006 | Christian Science Monitor | Uncle Sam Doesn't Want You Why have prominent foreign scholars had their visas to speak or teach in this country denied or revoked? Many, including the academic institutions who invited them, are baffled. >> More May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | An Enlightenment Fundamentalist Like an increasing number of immigrants in the West who refuse to have a "victim" label pinned to their lapels, the Dutch-Somalian actress, author, and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali represents something of a problem for liberal intellectuals. >> More May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | A Dark & Powerful Force From Down South If you haven't heard of Roberto Bolano, you will soon. The Chilean author, who died of liver failure in 2003, was the subject of a major panel discussion at last week's PEN festival. >> More May 3, 2006 | Philadelphia Inquirer | A literary world out there, but not for U.S. By both force of numbers and abundant literary talent, however, many of the writers challenged America's stinginess toward other literary cultures, what Italian writer Roberto Calasso called "a lethal mixture of provincialism and imperialism. >> More May 2, 2006 | Literary Voices, Loud & Clear | New York Sun The Argentinean-born author Rodrigo Fresan spoke at a BenettonTalk Young Writers Series on Saturday, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. >> More May 2006 | Jhumpa Lahiri interview | KGB Bar Lit I don't see myself playing a political role, but I do think that it's vital to contribute to a broader understanding of freedom of expression and of cultural tolerance and exchange, especially given the extent to which these values have been threatened in recent times. >> More April 29, 2006 | Jeanette Winterson | Her Word We are creating a world divided between faith-based fanaticism on the one hand, and amoral science and global market “logic” on the other. >> More April 28, 2006 | EITB | Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga at NY Festival of International Lit The Basque well-known writer Bernardo Atxaga is taking part these days in the PEN World Voices, the New York Festival of International Literature. >> More April 28, 2006 | El Pais | El festival de PEN El texto literario es una promesa que nunca se alcanza. >> More April 27, 2006 | Turkish Daily News | Pamuk: Iraq war is the shame of US and West Turkey's internationally acknowledged novelist, Orhan Pamuk, leveled harsh criticism at the U.S.-led war in Iraq by saying that the Iraq war did not bring peace or democracy to the region but rather sparked nationalist and anti-Western sentiments. >> More April 27, 2006 | El Pais | Rushdie acusa a Bush Hay momentos en los que los escritores son realmente importantes. Y el actual es uno de ellos, según el novelista Salman Rushdie, presidente del festival literario PEN Voces del mundo. >> More April 27, 2006 | New York Times | In a Break From Mystery, A Writer Turns to Africa To many English speakers Henning Mankell is probably best known as the creator of Inspector Kurt Wallander, a morose, self-loathing plainclothes officer whose dark vision of himself is matched only by the bleakness of the Swedish terrain and weather in which he somehow manages to track down the villains. >> More April 26, 2006 | El Pais | Los escritores cruzan la línea entre la razón y la fe Fe y razón son dos conceptos que coexisten en una relación que no es sencilla. ¿Qué papel juega la literatura en esta compleja interacción que discurre por todo el mundo? >> More April 21, 2006 | New York Times | Found in Translation: Endangered Languages Some 6,500 languages spoken in the world today. And, according to the 2000 census, you can hear at least 92 of them on the streets of New York. >> More April 2006 | Blogroll Read about PEN World Voices from blogs around the world. >> More March 29, 2006 | Bernardo Atxaga | The Basque Spring The story that began when a group of university students founded Basque Homeland and Liberty, the organization known as ETA, has finally come to an end with its announcement last week of a permanent cease-fire. >> More March 27, 2006 | Etgar Keret | Stupor in Our Time If, after all the hopes and disappointments, all the accords and intifadas, the best a whole country can wish for is a politician so nondescript that the pundits are still arguing over whether he's on the left or the right — if we want a non-event on Election Day — then we really must be exhausted. >> More March 21, 2006 | New York Times | Biographer to Lead PEN Center in the U.S. At the annual meeting of the PEN American Center on Thursday night, the organization of writers and editors is expected to ratify Ron Chernow, the best-selling biographer of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton, as its next president. >> More April 27, 2005 | Arab News | Word and World in New York You’re enamored of books, ideas and the life of the mind? Then you should’ve attended the weeklong PEN World Voices. >> More April 24, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | Books vs. Goons A butterfly flaps its wings in India, and we feel the breeze on our cheeks here in New York. A throat is cleared somewhere in Africa and in California there's an answering cough. >> More April 23, 2005 | New York Times | A Crowd That's Seldom at a Loss for Words It was one of the largest international gatherings of writers in New York since the PEN international congress of 1986. >> More April 17, 2005 | Salman Rushdie | The Pen and the Sword In January 1986 I came to New York for a gathering of writers that has become a literary legend. >> More April 16, 2005 | Globe & Mail | Still tilting at Quixote 400 years later Since the publication of the first volume of Don Quixote in 1605, the world has been enthralled by the tale of the aging country gentleman whose love of chivalric romance stories inspires him to travel the countryside righting wrongs. >> More April 15, 2005 | New York Press | Salman Rushdie Interview It’s ridiculous that New York doesn’t have an international literary festival. It was an obvious hole in the cultural calendar we wanted to fill. >> More   How do I log in to my PEN account? First, make sure you have a PEN ID. It's possible that you are a translator or new member and your account has not yet been updated to accommodate your blog.  If you think this may be the case, please get in touch with us.  Click here to send an email to blog support.                                         Hurricane Katrina February 24, 2006 | Fatima Shaik | Masking New Orleans On Mardi Gras Day, the nation will be looking to New Orleans to see if we are wearing masks. >> More December 22, 2005 | Fatima Shaik | Christmas in New Orleans Picture Santa’s sled with a rolling kitchenette attached and you have some idea about the size of a FEMA trailer. >> More September 19, 2005 | Bell Gale Chevigny | A Shock to the System When their government turned its back on them, survivors of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake were galvanized into political action. Katrina survivors may take a similar lesson from today's disaster. >> More September 11, 2005 | Alice Sebold | Living With the Dead These tragedies, it's worth remembering, grant us an opportunity to understand what is perhaps our finest raw material: our humanity. >> More September 4, 2005 | Richard Ford | Elegy for My City I write in the place of others, today, for the ones who can't be found. And there is a blunt ending now, one we always feared, never wished for, do not deserve. >> More September 4, 2005 | Anne Rice | Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. >> More   Ideological exclusion October 22, 2007 | New York Times | Say What You Like, Just Don't Say It Here The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border. >> More September 30, 2007 | San Francisco Chronicle | Promoting democracy while suppressing ideas This spring, the U.S. State Department sent a message to the Association of American Publishers announcing new procedures for expediting business visas for U.S. companies' foreign employees, customers and potential clients traveling to the United States. >> More September 26, 2007 | New York Times | Free Speech Groups Sue Over Visa Denial The government is increasingly using secret evidence allowed under new antiterrorism laws to prevent certain critics from entering the United States, according to a group of civil rights and academic organizations. >> More October 9, 2006 | George Packer | Keep Out State and Homeland Security have interpreted the language of the Patriot Act so loosely that, according to official documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, anyone who is guilty of “irresponsible expressions of opinion” can be refused entry to the United States. >> More October 1, 2006 | Tariq Ramadan | Why I'm Banned in the USA Unfortunately, the U.S. government's paranoia has evolved far beyond a fear of particular individuals and taken on a much more insidious form: the fear of ideas. >> More August 25, 2006 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Government Declines to Appeal Ruling In a case considered a bellwether of United States policy toward foreign scholars, the government has decided not to appeal a court ruling ordering it to either issue a visa to Tariq Ramadan or provide good reasons for not doing so. >> More June 26, 2006 | Publishers Weekly | PEN Fights Good Fight for Int'l Writer When prominent Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan was denied a U.S. visa because of statements he'd made against the U.S. government, the PEN American Center joined the crusade supporting the scholar. >> More June 26, 2006 | The Progressive | Tariq Ramadan Wins One While denying that Ramadan was excluded on ideological grounds, Jones said, “Professor Ramadan, tomorrow, could endorse or espouse terrorism.” >> More June 24, 2006 | New York Times | Judge Orders U.S. to Decide If Muslim Scholar Can Enter A federal judge in New York yesterday ordered the Bush administration to decide by September whether to grant an entry visa to a prominent Muslim scholar. >> More May 11, 2006 | Christian Science Monitor | Uncle Sam Doesn't Want You Why have prominent foreign scholars had their visas to speak or teach in this country denied or revoked? Many, including the academic institutions who invited them, are baffled. >> More May 2, 2006 | IPS News | A Chill in the Air "Thanks in large part to the Patriot Act, our government is once again excluding foreign writers and scholars from the country simply because of their political beliefs." >> More April 14, 2006 | New York Times | Hearing For Muslim Barred by U.S. Government lawyers clarified some mysteries yesterday and deepened others in the case of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim scholar and leading European theologian of Islam who has been barred by the Bush administration from traveling to the United States since July 2004. >> More February 21, 2006 | Christian Century | Religion scholars join suit vs. Patriot Act The ACLU and three other groups, including the large American Academy of Religion, have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to strike down a USA Patriot Act clause they say is applied wrongly to stifle academic debate. >> More January 26, 2006 | New York Times | Lawsuit Filed in Support of Muslim Scholar Barred From U.S. Citing the case of a prominent Muslim scholar who has been barred from the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit yesterday seeking to strike down a clause of the USA Patriot Act that bars foreigners who endorse terrorism from entering to this country. >> More November 25, 2005 | Christian Science Monitor | When US bars its door to foreign scholars Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws--namely, the Patriot Act--to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans. >> More November 11, 2005 | Inside Higher Ed | New Challenge on Visa Denials To many academics, one of the most fearsome parts of the Patriot Act is section 411, which allows the government to deny visas to prominent individuals from abroad who have used their positions to endorse terrorism. >> More   OFAC lawsuit December 16, 2004 | Miami Herald | Firms allowed to print Cuban works Academic publishers claimed victory on Wednesday when the U.S. government relaxed rules about printing works from Cuba and other blacklisted countries in response to a lawsuit filed in September. >> More December 26, 2004 | Pioneer Press | Ruminating on a troubled future The government is going to tell us what we are going to read and can't read. If these authors are really enemies, wouldn't it be better to understand them instead of keeping their books out? >> More December 11, 2004 | Washington Post | Will her voice ever be heard? Ever wonder what happened to the State Department's chief of propaganda? The head of public diplomacy was supposed to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim street. >> More December 9, 2004 | Hartford Courant | Lauded Writer Given Parole The state has granted parole to a woman who won a $25,000 writing award with the help of best-selling author Wally Lamb. >> More December 2, 2004 | Boston Globe | Iran Inanity Orwellian bureaucratic rules meant to impose sanctions on undemocratic or unfriendly regimes should not be used to silence democrats who oppose those regimes. >> More November 16, 2004 | New York Times | Bound But Gagged I learned, sometimes in the face of tragedy, that the written word is often the most powerful—and only—tool that we have to protect those who are powerless. >> More November 12, 2004 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Illegal Trafficking Most American scholars remain blissfully ignorant of the risks of international collaboration. Yet simply publishing in the United States an article co-written by a colleague from Cuba, Iran, or Sudan could subject the editor or publisher to criminal liability and fines of up to $500,000 or 10 years in prison. >> More November 1, 2004 | Wall Street Journal | Nobel Laureate sues U.S. When Ms. Ebadi sought to publish her memoirs in the U.S., she was startled to discover that doing so would be illegal, under a trade embargo intended to punish repressive governments such as the regime in Tehran that once sent her to jail. >> More October 9, 2004 | Chicago Tribute | Right to Publish The rule should be simple: The free exchange of ideas in books and other papers is not trading with the enemy. >> More September 30, 2004 | New York Sun | Trade groups sue Treasury on Freedom of Speech issues Two publishing trade organizations have jointly filed suit against the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control in a New York federal court. >> More September 30, 2004 | Baltimore Sun | Curb the Thought The Treasury Department's bone-headed decision not to allow U.S. publishers to edit the works of writers from trade-sanctioned countries has ended up in court. >> More September 29, 2004 | New York Times | Ending Editorial Oversight at the Treasury Department No matter how the Treasury Department's ruling is framed, denying editorial cooperation of this kind deprives us as much as it does the sanctioned countries. >> More September 28, 2004 | New York Times | Treasury Dept. Being Sued for Curbs on Editing The regulations, meant to keep Americans from trading with enemies, require anyone who publishes material from a country under trade sanctions to obtain a license before substantively altering the manuscript. >> More September 28, 2004 | Daily Variety | Embargo Violates Free Speech A coalition of publishers and authors filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to overturn Treasury Dept. rules restricting American publishers from working with authors in countries under a trade embargo, such as Cuba and Iran. >> More September 27, 2004 | Chronicle of Higher Education | Publishers will sue U.S. government A group of publishers' and authors' associations expects to file suit today against the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces regulations against countries under a U.S. trade embargo. >> More September 27, 2004 | Star-Ledger | Suit pits free speech vs. 'trading with the enemy' A geology journal spiked a paper by Iranian scientists on methods for predicting earthquakes. The reason: Fear of whopping fines and jail time for "trading with the enemy." >> More February 28, 2004 | New York Times | Treasury Dept. is warning publishers of the perils of editing Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue — literally. >> More February 21, 2004 | Los Angeles Times | U.S. Embargo Extended to Editing Articles For U.S. publishers, changing so much as a comma in an author's work can be more than a delicate process. >> More   PEN award winners June 28, 2007 | Bloomberg | Cuba Keeps Writer in Jail: No Medicine for Hernandez Gonzalez "Mi hijo esta muy mal. Muy mal." Even on the speakerphone from Miami, Blanca Gonzalez's voice is unmistakably choked with emotion. "My son is doing badly. Very badly," she says. "He said that from there he will leave dead." >> More May 2, 2007 | The New York Sun | PEN Honors Cuban Dissident An independent journalist, Normando Hernández González, was awarded the 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on Monday night. He could not travel to receive the award at the PEN American Center's Literary Gala because he languishes in prison in Cuba for his role in starting an independent newspaper and a school for journalists there. >> More February 26, 2007 | Washington Post | For Roth, a 3rd PEN/Faulkner Win The PEN/Faulkner Foundation will announce today that Philip Roth has won its 2007 award for fiction for his novel Everyman—making Roth the first writer to receive the award three times. >> More February 4, 2007 | New York Times | Hungry Heart Staring at a map of her new country, Nguyen wondered about New York and Los Angeles: “I had no idea what such cities were like, but I was convinced people were happier out on the coasts, living in a nexus between so much land and water. Gazing at the crisscrossing lines of Manhattan or the blue vastness of the oceans, I would feel something I could only describe as missingness.” >> More June 15, 2006 | Nevada News | Assistant English professor’s debut work wins PEN award Christopher Coake, an assistant English professor, received the prestigious PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers for his debut work, "We’re in Trouble," a collection of dramatic short stories, on May 22. >> More May 21, 2006 | The Wichita Eagle | WSU prof 'fills gap' with translation Baldridge's training in philosophy prepared him well for the works of French poet and intellectual Michel Deguy. >> More May 3, 2006 | Turkish Daily News | Philip Roth wins $20,000 PEN award Philip Roth, whose many novels include "Portnoy's Complaint" and "The Plot Against America," has received the PEN/Nabokov Award for lifetime achievement, a prize worth $20,000. >> More May 3, 2006 | New York Sun | A Dark & Powerful Force From Down South If you haven't heard of Roberto Bolano, you will soon. The Chilean author, who died of liver failure in 2003, was the subject of a major panel discussion at last week's PEN festival. >> More April 20, 2006 | New York Times | In Surprise, PEN Honoree Attends Gala A novelist from Turkmenistan whose books have been banned and who has been under house arrest for two years became the first writer in 20 years to personally accept a Freedom to Write award from PEN American Center. >> More April 19, 2006 | USA Today | PEN recognizes the write to be free Authors tend to complain. About their publishers or editors. About not selling enough books or getting enough attention. But every spring, PEN, an international group of writers, holds a literary gala that puts the everyday concerns of authors in perspective. >> More May 17, 2005 | Joan Airoldi | Librarian's brush with FBI shapes her view of the USA Patriot Act On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and requested a list of the people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. We said no. >> More April 21, 2005 | Seattle Times | Deming's defender of words The biggest battles, the ones that Really Count, always seem to start in the smallest places. >> More December 9, 2004 | Hartford Courant | Lauded Writer Given Parole The state has granted parole to a woman who won a $25,000 writing award with the help of best-selling author Wally Lamb. >> More November 28, 1999 | New York Times | 'Doing Time' We've seen it all already, and it has been real enough, the cellblock riots, the black majority, what goes on inside prison walls. >> More   Press freedom   January 22, 2007 | Elif Shafak | The Murder of Hrant Dink Few people can inspire a whole nation in their lifetime, fewer still with their death. Hrant Dink did both. He was a prominent journalist, the editor of the Armenian weekly Agos, an outspoken intellectual, a peace activist, a true citizen of Istanbul and a dear friend. >> More January 17, 2007 | The Progressive | Journalist on Hot Seat in Court-Martial Case Sarah Olson was on a big story, and now she has become a part of it. The freelance journalist was one of the first reporters to cover the story of Lt. Ehren Watada, who is facing a court martial for publicly refusing to deploy to Iraq. Watada has denounced the war as “illegal and unjust.” >> More   USA Patriot Act August 18, 2006 | New York Times | Ruling for the Law Ever since President Bush was forced to admit that he was spying on Americans’ telephone calls and e-mail without warrants, his lawyers have fought to keep challenges to the program out of the courts. >> More November 6, 2005 | New York Times | Lawmakers call for limits on F.B.I. power "We should not ever give up freedom on the basis of fear, and any freedom that we give up should be limited in time and limited in scope," Senator Tom Coburn. >> More November 6, 2005 | Washington Post | The FBI's Secret Scrutiny The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. >> More November 19, 2004 | Contra Costa Times | At the library In case you have ever wondered about the power of words, writers and books, this amazing situation may answer your question. >> More September 29, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Campaign for Reader Privacy press conference Why does the government need the power to search records of people who are not suspected of being terrorists or agents of a foreign government? >> More September 19, 2004 | Edward Hirsch | Poet's Choice PEN believes that it is urgently necessary to review the USA Patriot Act and the full range of antiterrorism laws and orders enacted since Sept. 11, 2001. >> More September 13, 2004 | Francine Prose | Reading Is a Prime Defense Against Assault on Our Rights The word "patriotism" is increasingly being used as a bludgeon with which to attack critics of the shameful war in Iraq, as a gag to silence dissenters accused of being unpatriotic. >> More August 29, 2004 | Ariel Dorfman | Liberty's Language As the ultimate guardians of language and its complexity, writers have always felt the need to deal with the great crises of their time. >> More August 10, 2004 | Le Monde | American artists in a campaign against 'liberticidal' laws In an initiative led by Salman Rushdie, writers challenge the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorist legislation adopted in the wake of September 11, 2001. >> More August 10, 2004 | Salman Rushdie | Terrorism, Intellectual Freedom, and the Patriot Act Will we become our enemy or not? Will we become repressive as our enemy is repressive? Will we become intolerant as our enemy is intolerant? Or will we not? >> More August 10, 2004 | Paul Auster | We're in the Process of Losing Our Country The PEN Club has rules that prohibit support for a political candidate, however, it's an organization that has always fought for freedom of expression in different countries, and, as Salman Rushdie reminded us during that meeting, it's important not to ignore a problem when it knocks on our own door. >> More August 9, 2004 | Newsday | The FBI Shouldn't Be Reading Over Our Shoulders Last month, a majority of the members of the House of Representatives voted to deny funding for FBI searches of bookstore and library records under Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. >> More August 9, 2004 | Liberation | Rushdie mobilizes American writers against Bush For fifteen years, Salman Rushdie had to hide for having written what some refused to read. These days, he wishes to denounce another form of censorship in his adopted country, the United States. >> More July 9, 2004 | Washington Post | House GOP defends Patriot Act The House rejected a proposed change to the USA Patriot Act that would have barred the Justice Department from searching bookstore and library records. >> More February 23, 2004 | Portsmouth Herald | Bookstores join to fight Patriot Act A local bookstore owner is hoping that a national petition drive will encourage lawmakers to amend a section of the USA Patriot Act that allows the FBI to view the buying and borrowing histories of customers. >> More February 22, 2004 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Take action to amend 215's abuses Lost in the current furor over missing National Guard duty and misread intelligence was President Bush's demand last month that Congress extend the U.S.A. Patriot Act. >> More February 22, 2004 | The Oregonian | A Day and a Deed for Gorgeous I hate to break in on your Washington's Birthday celebration, especially if you've just gotten to the cherry pie part. >> More February 18, 2004 | People's Weekly World | Petition drive against Patriot Act This isn’t about stripping law enforcement of the power to investigate terrorism. It’s about confidence that our reading choices aren’t being monitored by the government. >> More February 18, 2004 | Boston Globe | Book Groups Seek Privacy Three book organizations kicked off a national signature drive yesterday to amend a federal law that allows the FBI to inspect library and bookstore records surreptitiously. >> More February 17, 2004 | Publisher's Weekly| Patriot Act petition Groups seeking to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act launched a campaign today to obtain one million signatures in support of legislation that would protect the privacy of bookstore and library records that were eliminated by the act. >> More March 9, 2004 | Boston Globe | Reading Over Your Shoulder "It's the most naked form of intrusion into one's life -- to get into a person's mind, what they are reading, what their literary interest is," said Ciaran McCabe. >> More November 22, 2003 | Resolution on the United States of America From the Assembly of Delegates of International PEN, meeting at its 69th Congress in Mexico City, Mexico, November 22–28, 2003. >> More   U.S. torture policies September 24, 2006 | Edwidge Danticat | Does It Work? For many who remember what it means to live under a dictatorial regime, a regime in which citizens must leave work or school to witness public executions, torture is not just an individual affliction but a communal one. >> More September 24, 2006 | Ariel Dorfman | Are We Really So Fearful? It still haunts me, the first time—it was in Chile, in October of 1973—that I met someone who had been tortured. >> More August 18, 2006 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The shadow world of a 'dirty war' The law provides us with a rational, commonly ratified code of morality. In subverting this shared deference to law, the Bush administration, with its zeal for secrecy, intimidation and shadowy alliances, endangers us all. >> More October 6, 2005 | New York Times | Senate Moves to Protect Military Prisoners Despite Veto Threat In a sharp rebuke to the White House, the Senate overwhelmingly agreed Wednesday to regulate the detention, interrogation and treatment of prisoners held by the American military. >> More January 6, 2005 | Marguerite Feitlowitz | The Torturer General It seems surreal: The president's nominee for the highest legal position in the land is a proponent of torture. >> More October 8, 2005 | New York Times | Binding the Hands of Torturers When the Senate voted this week to bring America's chain of military prison camps under the rule of law, President Bush threatened a veto. >> More September 10, 2005 | New York Times | Abu Ghraib Unresolved Ever since the world learned of the illegal detentions and brutal behavior at American military prisons, the Bush administration has bet it could outlast public outrage with phony investigations and stonewalling. >> More August 2, 2005 | Gerald Posner | The Kingdom and the Power In May, Ali al-Domeini, a leading poet, and two scholars were given long prison sentences for having circulated a letter they had written to Crown Prince Abdullah calling for political, economic and social reforms. >> More January 6, 2005 | Mark Danner | We Are All Torturers Now At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. >> More November 24, 2004 | Edwidge Danticat | A Very Haitian Story When the international and combined Haitian forces left Bel-Air, gang members came to my uncle's home, told him that 15 of their friends had been killed and said he had to pay for the burials or die. >> More May 11, 2004 | Luc Sante | Torturers and Terrorists So now we think we know who took some of the photographs at Abu Ghraib. The works attributed to Specialist Jeremy Sivits are fated to remain among the indelible images of our time. >> More   Writers in Iraq July 19, 2007 | Haroon Siddiqui | Bush can do more for refugees There is George W. Bush and there's Larry Siems. Siems is among those Americans, like Senator Ted Kennedy, who want their president to take moral responsibility for creating the refugee crisis in Iraq. >> More March 26, 2007 | George Packer | Betrayed America’s failure to understand, trust, and protect its closest friends in Iraq is a small drama that contains the larger history of defeat. >> More January 18, 2007 | Wall Street Journal | Lost in Translation Since the start of the war, 257 Iraqi interpreters have been killed, says Titan Corp. of San Diego, which just completed a five-year, $4.6 billion Pentagon contract to provide linguists to U.S. forces. Most of those killed were assassinated while on home leave, the company says. >> More January 1, 2007 | New York Times | Few Iraqis Are Gaining U.S. Sanctuary With thousands of Iraqis desperately fleeing this country every day, advocates for refugees, and even some American officials, say there is an urgent need to allow more Iraqi refugees into the United States. >> More November 27, 2006 | George Packer | Save Whomever We Can Recently, I asked my friend what he would do if U.S. forces began to withdraw from Baghdad. Osman, an utterly secular Sunni who despises the religious extremists of both sects, replied, "I would have to be protected by Al Qaeda." >> More November 20, 2006 | Waddah Ali | Fear of Freedom History is an idea to you; to us it is our life. I’m a typical Iraqi. I love my country. I love my food, my way of life, I love the carpets, the mud of the Euphrates, Iraqi poetry, everything: this is my culture. >> More November 20, 2006 | Omar Ghanim Fathi | Republic of Dreams In Saddam Hussein’s time, in order to be accepted you had to tell the government that you were a Baathist; you had to tell people in your social environment that you were religious; and in fact you had to be somewhere in the middle. >> More November 20, 2006 | Basim Mardan | Lost After Translation The Marines paid me $150 a month, which was better than the $2 I was making as a librarian. So I didn’t see weapons in their hands, I saw flowers, and I took them all as friends. I loved what I was doing because I thought it was a good thing for my country. >> More Home | Site Map | Copyright / Privacy Policy | Contact Us © 2004-2012 PEN American Center. All rights reserved.