PEN Pinter Prize

Dr Abduljalil Al-Singace

2022 winner

Dr Abduljalil Al-Singace is an award-winning academic, activist, and blogger from Bahrain. He has spent the last decade in prison, where he is serving a life-sentence for his role in the 2011 pro-democracy protests.

In July 2021, Dr Al-Singace launched a hunger strike to protest his ill-treatment in prison, in particular the confiscation of a manuscript he had been working on for years. Amid mounting concerns for his health and well-being, PEN is continuing to call for his immediate and unconditional release.

Kakwenza Rukirabashaija

2021 winner

Kakwenza Rukirabashaija is a Ugandan novelist. He is the author of The Greedy Barbarian, a novel which explores themes of high-level corruption in a fictional country, and Banana Republic: Where Writing is Treasonous, an account of the torture he was subjected to while in detention in 2020.

In 2021, he was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize for an International Writer of Courage.

Amanuel Asrat

2020 winner

Amanuel Asrat is credited for the Eritrean poetry resurgence of the early 2000s. An award-winning poet and songwriter, his writings detailed the daily life of the underprivileged, and explored themes of war and peace. Unlike wartime Eritrean poetry popular at the time, he depicted the negative side of conflict. In addition, Asrat co-founded a grassroots literary club called ‘Saturday’s Supper’ in 2001. Similar literary clubs soon started to emerge in all major Eritrean towns.

Asrat was also editor-in-chief of the newspaper ዘመን (Zemen, The Times). The newspaper was the leading literary newspaper in Eritrea, and helped shape the cultural landscape. Asrat himself was a popular art critic.

In 2001, the Eritrean government began a campaign to silence its critics, arresting opposition politicians, students and many journalists. As part of this crackdown, Asrat was arrested on 23 September 2001, alongside the editors of all privately-owned newspapers. He has been incommunicado since.

The situation of Asrat and his fellow writers remains unclear. It is unknown whether charges have been brought against them or if they have ever been brought to trial. They are believed to have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including lack of access to medical care. Almost two decades on from his arrest, Amanuel Asrat is believed to be among the few surviving journalists arrested in 2001, detained in the purpose-built maximum-security prison Eiraeiro.

Amanuel Asrat is also the first featured writer in PENWrites – English PEN’s international letter-writing campaign in solidarity with writers in prison and at risk around the world.

Befeqadu Hailu

2019 winner

Ethiopian writer, activist and co-founder of blogging platform Zone 9 Befeqadu Hailu was chosen as the International Writer of Courage by Lemn Sissay, winner of the PEN Pinter Prize 2019.

By co-founding the award-winning Zone 9 Blogging Collective, Hailu created a platform for individuals to speak out against human rights violations taking place in Ethiopia. Zone 9’s motto ‘We Blog Because We Care’ underpins Hailu and his co-founder’s aim to create a space for freedom of expression whereby citizens of Ethiopia are supported to help end impunity in the country. As part of this effort they have conducted four major online campaigns which called for the Ethiopian government to respect the constitution.

Hailu is also the Deputy Executive Editor of Addis Maleda newspaper, a columnist for Deutsche Welle Amharic Service, and part-time programme coordinator for the Ethiopian Human Rights Project. Hailu has been jailed four times for his blogging and activism engagements, on one occasion for a period of 18 months. However, he has at no point been convicted of charges brought against him. Despite the risk of future imprisonment, Hailu continues to work tirelessly to bring about change for his country.

For his efforts, he – with Zone 9 bloggers – has been awarded Committee to Protect Journalists’s International Press Freedom Award 2015, RSF Award for Citizen Journalists 2015, Hellman/Hammet Human Rights Award 2015 and was a Martin Ennal’s Award finalist for Human Rights Defenders in 2016.

“I think freedom of writing or freedom of speech is an intermediary path between change and violence. Many writers disdain violence. And yet, they write sour truth and encourage audiences to get out of their comfort zone to configure a better world. No war, no force, no campaign has as much power to change the world without claiming lives as writing.”
Befaqadu Hailu, International Writer of Courage 2019

Image credit: George Torode

Waleed Abulkhair

2018 winner

Lawyer and human rights activist Waleed Abulkhair was named the 2018 International Writer of Courage by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Currently serving a 15-year prison sentence, Abulkhair is a founding member of the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRSA) and has written for local and international media. Abulkhair has also represented fellow activists and writers, including former PEN Pinter winner Raif Badawi, in court.

In addition to holding the Saudi Arabian government to account for human rights abuses, Abulkhair also provided salons for liberal youth to discuss new ideas, after laws around public gatherings were tightened to prevent ‘unbelief’ and ‘deviant thought’. Discussing politics, religion, culture and human rights, he named his salon ‘samood’, meaning ‘resistance’ or ‘steadfastness’. In response to his salons, a judge and several clerics voiced opposition to Abulkhair and demanded that death be the punishment for allowing guests to speaking openly about opposition to religious conservatism.

Tried in Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court, Abulkhair was given a 15-year sentence (ten years executed and five years suspended), as well as a 15-year travel ban and a 200,000 Saudi Riyal fine for ‘undermining the regime and officials’, ‘inciting public opinion’ and ‘insulting the judiciary’ through his peaceful activism. Abulkhair refused to apologise in 2015 at the Court of Appeal, and declared he did not recognise the legitimacy of the Specialised Criminal Court. As a result, the judge tightened the sentence to 15 years executed.

More than four years later, Waleed Abulkhair remains imprisoned and reports suggest that he is being denied medication, books and post. Nevertheless, his voice still reaches far beyond the bars of his prison cell. As Abulkhair himself wrote in The Washington Post in 2012:

“I am unable to leave this country, but the sun of humanity shines upon me every day. I bask in its rays, gaining strength against the darkness of oppression. My voice and the voices of others like me shall reach the world, no matter how hard they try to silence us. We shall say, consistently and proudly: steadfastness.”

Mahvash Sabet

2017 winner

Bahá’í poet and teacher Mahvash Sabet was named 2017 International Writer of Courage by Michael Longley.

Sabet was imprisoned for almost ten years in Iran. One of the group of seven Baha’i leaders known as the Yaran-i-Iran (‘Friends of Iran’), Sabet was detained in 2008 along with six others, for their faith and activities related to running the affairs of the Bahá’í community in Iran. They were held for twenty months without charge. Their trial finally began on 12 January 2010, on false charges including espionage, propaganda against the Islamic Republic and acting against the security of the country.

Five months later, on 14 June 2010, each of the defendants was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. These sentences were later reduced to ten years each. On 18 September 2017, Sabet was the first of the group to be released from prison, having served almost a decade in detention. Following her release, she has issued a public call for the release of her six fellow detainees.

Mahvash Sabet began writing poetry in prison and a collection of her work Prison Poems, adapted from Persian by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, was published in the UK in April 2013 by George Ronald Publisher. As Nakhjavani described in the introduction to the collection, ‘her poems allowed her to speak when words were denied, to talk when no one was listening to her.’

“Ten years of my life have just passed behind bars, and as I re-enter the world I find myself given this incredible award. It is a wonder to me and a mystery. Coming back into the light after these ten long years in darkness has not been easy. The changes I see all round me are truly astonishing. The pace of life is overwhelming. But the hardest thing for me is to know that even though I am walking free, many other friends and colleagues still remain behind bars.

So in the midst of my wonder, I am filled with anguish. I am torn between joy and sorrow at this moment. And in thanking you for this great honour, I would like to speak on behalf of all whose rights and freedoms have been deprived.

This is what PEN did for me, by championing my cause. This is what you are doing for so many poets and writers in the world. When I suffered in prison, your compassion sustained me; all through those dark years, your sincere support encouraged me. You are an example of advocacy to people of goodwill everywhere, including journalists and activitists among my own compatriots, and even certain clerics in Iran.”

Mahvash Sabet, 2017 International Writer of Courage

Tutul

2016 winner

Bangladeshi publisher, writer and activist Tutul, also known as Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury, was chosen by 2016 PEN Pinter Prize winner Margaret Atwood as the recipient of the 2016 International Writer of Courage Award.

In 1990, Tutul founded Shuddhashar magazine. He established a publishing house, under the same name, in Dhaka in 2004. Shuddhashar’s primary mission is to publish work at the intersection of politics, free speech, activism, and literature. It is a platform to inspire writers and activists, especially those at risk or in exile, by providing an opportunity to expose their work and contribute to social and political change through the exchange of ideas.

In February 2015, he received a death threat, for publishing materials of atheist writers. On October 31, 2015, he was attacked by assailants with machetes and hospitalised in a critical condition. He went into exile and settled in Norway in January 2016.

Image credit: George Torode

Raif Badawi

2015 winner

Saudi blogger and activist Raif Badawi has been a case of concern to English PEN since he was first imprisoned in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 2012. In May 2014, he received a fine of 1 million riyals (£175,000), a ten-year prison sentence and was sentenced to 1,000 lashes. Charges against him include ‘violating Islamic values and propagating liberal thought’.

The public flogging of Badawi, on 9 January 2015, sparked global outrage. Since then the campaign for his case, spearheaded by his wife Ensaf Haidar, has gathered international support and led to condemnation of the Saudi government. An anthology of his writings, 1000 Lashes: Because I Say What I Think, was published in the UK with all proceeds donated to his family to aid their efforts for his release.

“I speak to you today from Quebec, my heart and mind dominated by one concern – to defend my husband, Raif Badawi, who is in his third year in prison solely for exercising his right to express himself. Raif is just a peace-loving intellectual who was not content to be part of the flock or to follow men of religion who are out of touch with the real world and who rule through laws that are unjust and despotic. He was brave enough to speak out and say no to their brutality and oppression, and their only response was to punish his frail body with the whips of their ignorance. The fifty lashes he received have been enough to ignite massive protests that have still not subsided. From Korea to Australia and the farthest reaches of Canada, people of all kinds have cried, “I am Raif”. I am honoured to accept the PEN Pinter Prize from English PEN, and I would like to thank the British poet James Fenton for choosing Raif as his co-winner, as 2015 International Writer of Courage.”

Ensaf Haidar, Raif Badawi’s wife

Mazen Darwish

2014 winner

Journalist and human rights defender Mazen Darwish is the founding President of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM). Founded in 2004, the SCM works to promote freedom of opinion and expression and, since the uprising began in 2011, has documented the human rights abuses taking place in Syria.

Iryna Khalip

2013 winner

Iryna Khalip is a Belarusian journalist, reporter and editor in the Minsk bureau of Novaya Gazeta, known for her criticism of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. For her journalistic activities she has been regularly harassed, detained, and beaten by the Belarusian KGB and authorities.

“It is a great honour for me to be here and get this remarkable prize from Tom Stoppard. I would like to thank English PEN and Tom but what I want to say is that you did a lot more for me.”

Iryna Khalip, 2013 International Writer of Courage

Samar Yazbek

2012 winner

Syrian journalist and author Samar Yazbek was chosen as the PEN Pinter International Writer of Courage with PEN Pinter Prize winner Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

Samar Yazbek was chosen in recognition of her book ‘A Woman in the Crossfire’, published by Haus, an account of the revolution from inside Syria and her vocal opposition to the Assad regime. The book won a PEN award for translation earlier this year.

“This honour is dedicated to the martyrs of the Syrian revolution, and to all those women who are working in silence, in particularly difficult circumstances inside Syria, and to those who move among the downpour of bullets and artillery fire, the tanks and the fighter jets, in order to carry on the revolution of the Syrian people toward establishing a free and democratic society.”

Samar Yazbek, 2012 International Writer of Courage

Roberto Saviano

2011 winner

Acclaimed Italian investigative journalist Roberto Saviano has been living under police protection since 2006 after receiving death threats from criminal organisations following the publication of his book Gomorrah, in which he exposed the workings of Neapolitan crime syndicate the Camorra. He was chosen by David Hare to share the 2011 PEN Pinter Prize as the International Writer of Courage for risking his life in the pursuit of truth.

Lydia Cacho

2010 winner

Lydia Cacho was born in Mexico in 1963. Following the publication of her first book, Los Demonios del Eden: El Poder Que Protege a la Pornografía Infantil (The Demons of Eden: The Power That Protects Child Pornography) in 2005, she was arrested after exposing child pornography rings which she claimed were run by a Cancun hotel owner. Cacho founded and directs the Refuge Centre for Abused Women of Cancun and is president of the Centre for Women’s Assistance, which aids victims of domestic violence and gender discrimination.

Zarganar (Maung Thura)

2009 winner

Zarganar (Maung Thura) is a popular Burmese poet, comedian, film actor, and a film director as well as a fierce critic of the Burmese military government. Zarganar was handed a 59 year sentence in 2008 after criticising the Burmese junta’s poor aid response to Cyclone Nargis. Since his imprisonment, English PEN campaigned relentlessly for Zarganar’s release, with a rally in Trafalgar Square and ‘poetry protests’ at the Burmese Embassy in London. PEN activists sent thousands of letters and cards to Zarganar during his imprisonment, and the organisation co-hosted the first ever Burmese Arts Festival in 2010 at which Zarganar’s work was featured. He was released in 2011.

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