PEN International celebrated World Book Day on April 23, 2024 by raising the issue of book banning globally.
PEN International is the world’s biggest organization of writers founded in London in 1921, and operates across five continents in over 90 countries, with 130 Centers worldwide, including the Philippines.
The statement also comes days before the second Philippine Book Festival, which will be held on April 25 to 28, 2024 at the World Trade Center in Manila.
According to the group’s statement, they “denounce the alarming surge in book bans worldwide, including Belarus, Brazil, China, Hungary, the Russian Federation, Türkiye and the USA, where authorities are attempting to stifle dissent and criticism by censoring literature, persecuting writers, and suppressing inconvenient truths.”
These recurring patterns of what is turning out to be a global move towards censorship against writers and their works had put at serious risk not only on the books written by literary authors and journalists, but also their lives.
The “War, Censorship, and Persecution” case list documents 122 cases of writers and journalists facing harassment, arrest, violence and even death worldwide. “These include 26 people imprisoned, 23 detained, 22 harassed, 14 on trial, eight (8) killed, and six (6) facing judicial harassment and death threats, among others. The breakdown by region shows Africa with 14 cases, the Americas with 36, Asia/Pacific with 24, Europe and Central Asia with 32, and the Middle East and North Africa with 16.”
PEN International also said it condemns attacks on writers and civilians caught in conflicts, “mourning the loss of prominent cultural figures, including PEN Ukraine member Victoria Amelina.”
Asia is not excluded in the report. PEN’s case list highlights the clampdown on writers and journalists in countries such as Myanmar, India and China, “where 11 members of the Independent Chinese PEN Center endure long-term imprisonment, along with the persecution of minority writers from the Uyghur and Dalit communities, among others.”
The case list, PEN said, “does not attempt to be a comprehensive list of attacks on writers, but an indication – a weather vane – of where the problems lie in any given year, enabling reflection on patterns and trends that can serve to inform future actions.”
Women writers, too, experienced “severe challenges, notably in Afghanistan, where under Taliban rule, writers and advocates for girls’ education face prolonged arbitrary detention,” the organization noted.
In the report, Ma Thida, chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee, said, “Protecting and promoting all forms of literary heritage and storytelling remain critical to our cultural memories and building our collective, global consciousness. Political projects that attempt to restrict linguistic identities, or deliberately seek to erase, tamper, expunge, destroy cultural memories – including through the deliberate targeting of cultural institutions – inevitably deprive societies the ability to proffer solutions for all.”
She added that “the pernicious jeopardy it propels, if unchecked, only paves a dangerous trajectory.”
Angelo “Sarge” Lacuesta, president of the Philippine Center of International PEN (PEN Philippines), told the Manila Standard in connection with the statement that “Beyond banned book lists and statements, PEN International’s unwavering attention toward protecting freedom of expression constitutes real action. This is made possible by the organization’s network of centers who share its values and its principles, and who are not afraid of playing their part.”
In PEN International’s overview, it raised the issue surrounding the future generations’ ability to participate in artistic endeavors due to dangerous and often life-threatening censorship, “through death, disruption to education, malnutrition, starvation, and disease, as well as the deliberate targeting of or loss of cultural heritage through displacement.”
PEN International recommends to the international community and governments worldwide the following moves designed to curb book banning and censorship: First, to foster peace; to seek to protect writers; to enhance the cultural role of minoritized communities; and to promote and protect women writers.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline PEN International condemns book banning on World Book Day