Campaigning for the freedom to write and the freedom to read is a major part of English PEN’s work. We divide our time between International campaigning work on behalf of threatened writers, and ensuring that the space for free expression in the UK is as wide as possible.
Our current campaigns for free expression include the Libel Reform Campaign and UK Visas for Visting Writers. We are also active in the current debates surrounding privacy and the Leveson Innquiry into press regulation (read our submission here).
Previously, we have campaigned successfully for changes to the law on Criminal Memoirs, the abolition of Criminal Defamation and Seditious Libel. Our OFFENCE campaign successfully lobbied for changes to the proposed law on ‘incitement to religious hatred’ to ensure that satircial and creative expression could not be suppressed in the name of religious ‘offence’.
