The PEN News around the globe and urgent message from any PEN center over this world and local news of writers in India. I believe in FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and I use this space for this purpose. I am a stark activist of International PEN and I follow it. All the news and articles are posted here by Albert Ashok, you can mail if you have any news about writers and their troubles, struggles for posting here.Type respectable 2008 at live dot com
Mexico: One year one, silence surrounds murder of anthropologist
Published: July 30, 2009
English PEN is seriously concerned about the apparent lack of progress in the investigation into the murder of the anthropologist, author and indigenous rights activist Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila, who was beaten to death in Guerrero state on 25/26 July 2008. A year on, there has been silence from the Mexican authorities on the subject of the investigation and the crime would appear to remain unsolved.
The Chair of International PEN's WiPC, Dr Karin Clark, has sent the following letter to the Mexican Embassy in London:
Mr. Juan José Bremer, Ambassador Mexican Embassy 16 George Street London W1S 1LX Tel: 020 7499 8586 Fax: 020 7907 9483
28 July 2009
Re: Investigation into the murder of anthropologist, author and activist Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila
Your Excellency,
I am writing to you as Chair of the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN, the global writers' association with 144 centres in 102 countries, to express serious concern about the apparent lack of progress in the investigation into the murder of the anthropologist, author and indigenous rights activist Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila, who was beaten to death in Guerrero state on 25/26 July 2008. A year on, there has been silence from the Mexican authorities on the subject of the investigation and the crime would appear to remain unsolved.
Gutiérrez, anthropologist, linguist, author of a number of books on the indigenous people of Guerrero state and activist for the rights of the Amuzgo people, was killed late on 25 July 2008 or the early hours of 26 July 2008 while driving towards the capital of Guerrero, Chilpancingo de los Bravo. His body was found covered in bruises and cuts by the side of the Acapulco-Pinotepa highway near La Caridad community in the municipality of San Marcos, Guerrero, on the morning of 26 July 2008. Although initial police reports suggested that Gutiérrez died as the result of a car accident, it was later thought that he was beaten to death. According to his family, the vehicle in which Gutiérrez was travelling was untouched and only his filming equipment had been stolen.
A few days before his death, between 23 and 25 July 2008, Gutiérrez had visited the Suljaa' and Cozoyoapan communities in Costa Chica, Guerrero, in connection with a documentary film he was making on indigenous cultures and traditions. Gutiérrez had been carrying out research into the indigenous people of southern Guerrero for more than 20 years, particularly in Costa Chica, and had been involved in various cultural projects there, including the community radio station Radio Ñomndaa and the establishment of the first Amuzgo community library. During his last visit to the area, Gutiérrez documented alleged human rights violations on the part of the authorities against the staff of Radio Ñomndaa/ La Palabra del Agua (The Word of the Water), including an interview with one of the station's founders, which he reportedly intended to include in his documentary.
According to local press reports at the time of Gutiérrez' death, one lead pointed to the involvement of Aceadeth Rocha Ramírez, mayor of Xochistlahuaca municipality in Costa Chica. Rocha is allegedly one of a number of local political leaders opposed to indigenous movements and Radio Ñomndaa. Another lead reportedly suggested that Gutiérrez may have angered the authorities by filming members of the Federal Investigations Agency (Agencia Federal de Investigación, AFI) while they were conducting a raid on the radio station.
In August last year, the WiPC wrote to the Guerrero state and federal authorities asking them to ensure that a full and impartial investigation into Gutiérrez' murder was carried out and that those responsible were brought to justice. However, a year after the killing, there has been no response from the authorities; nor have we received any reports on the progress of the investigation from other sources. Our understanding is that the crime remains unsolved.
This is particularly worrying given that Gutiérrez is just one of 24 writers murdered in Mexico between 2004 and today, the majority of them print journalists. Four more print journalists have disappeared in the same period. It is our understanding that few if any of these crimes have been properly investigated or punished. Given this bleak panorama, we are understandably concerned that Gutiérrez' murder should not meet with the same impunity.
The WiPC respectfully requests assurances that a full and impartial investigation into the murder of Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila is being carried out, and for details of any progress in the investigation to date.
I thank you in advance for your attention and assistance in this matter and look forward to your response. I or another representative of PEN would be delighted to meet with you to discuss our concerns in person.
Please feel free to contact the WiPC's Americas researcher, Tamsin Mitchell, at the above address or at tamsin.mitchell@internationalpen.org.uk should you require any further information.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Karin Clark Chair, Writers in Prison Committee, International PEN
Copies to: • Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, Attorney General • Emb. Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, Minister of Foreign Affairs • Lic. Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo, Governor of Guerrero State • Lic. Eduardo Murueta Urrutia, Attorney General of Guerrero State
TAKE ACTION
PEN members and other interested parties are invited to do at least one of the following in the month following the first anniversary of Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila's death (25/26 July):
Send appeal letters:
Send similarly worded appeals to the Mexican authorities, asking for assurances that a full and impartial investigation into the murder of Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila is being carried out, and for details of any progress in the investigation to date. You may wish to use the letter above as a guide for your appeals.
Please send your appeals to the Mexican Attorney General, Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, via your nearest Mexican Embassy (Salutation: Dear Attorney General). For a list of some Mexican embassies, see: http://www.sre.gob.mx/acerca/directorio/embajadas/dirembajadas.htm
Write letters and articles:
You may also wish to use the first anniversary of Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila's death as an opportunity to send letters to your national press and/ or publish articles highlighting his murder and unsolved journalist murders and disappearances in Mexico (for more information, including case summaries and photos, click here).
I had posted the same earlier a few days ago, this is an updated and added version. some of my friends, Sadananda Singha and his companions ( BHASA SAHITYA) went to see the poet and editor Sweta in Hospital AND THEY HAVE DONATED HER Rs. 5000/:
( sweta has written a poem, posted below, lying in her hospital bed)
GOLDEN EYE //Sweta Bhattacharjee
The eyes are the mirror, The eyes are the mind, I peeped those in a maestro evening I peeped those in spring I, however peeped those In string at night.
The eyes are some special, The eyes are so nice, So sensuous like a dream --- I saw my dreamy then.
I fall in love— Where fingers are playing ---- Oh lord, I just know the beats. I just want a beat --- The beauty with a gold I’d seen within him.
A dark dew as shown, As depth of the sea --- I picked some conch shells Some pebbles and pearls there--- Only try …… only a try … To reach in his heart, To sink in his eyes.
I call those Golden eye— The eyes of my heart The eyes of m"
The girl in the picture is an editor of a little magazine, the name of the magazine is 'NEER'. She used to bring out the issues of the magazine with her peers/ friends, with a heart filled dream. Her overflowing excitement would fill the ground/ compound of the bookfare. Last January, she was diagnosed, her tummy ache is indicated as Cancer, Doctors consultation and advice had taken her at Vellore. After spending two lakh rupees on her treatment she was not cured. Her name is Sweta Bhattacharya, a fatherless, she is now at G B Hospital under treatment. Beside her bed, Nelly Bhattacharya, a poet- companion and co-writer of her book of poetry 'PRATIBIMBA ( mirrored shadow)'.
Her mother is helpless, a destitute and resourceless. Sweta needs chemotherapy, she needs financial assistance, we want to help her in this dire crisis keeping hand in hand. Friends, extend your hand, it is your generous cooperation that can save a brighter life. Let us try today our best.
your help should reach at:
'Aajker Fariad' Gandhighat, Agartala West Tripura Pin - 799001 India
Posted by Albert Ashok for any comment about this blog and any report posted here write : respectable2008@live.com
£23-25,000, full time, 9-month contract, central London
English PEN is the founding centre of an international writers' association, working to promote literature and freedom of speech. Our Readers & Writers programme takes this mission into communities across England where the power of literature can help to transform lives. Readers & Writers works in schools, prisons and community groups to introduce beneficiaries to great contemporary writers of all backgrounds; to build their confidence as readers; and to develop their skills as creative writers. Thanks to a major new grant, we are expanding our work with refugee and migrant groups. We are seeking an exceptional literature education specialist to lead this new project, whilst continuing to serve our existing beneficiaries in schools and prisons. The successful candidate will join a small, hardworking team, based at the new Free Word Centre in London's Clerkenwell, and will appoint and manage a number of freelance creative writing tutors.
Position
The Readers & Writers Programme Manager will lead on English PEN's educational work in schools, prisons and community groups. He or she will report directly to the Director of English PEN, and will be supported by the Readers & Writers Committee.
Responsibilities The Readers & Writers Programme Manager will have the following responsibilities:
• Developing and implementing an outstanding programme of creative writing workshops with refugee and migrant groups in London, launching in autumn 2009. • Overseeing and developing a continuing programme of creative writing workshops in prisons and young offenders' centres. • Collecting and collating monitoring and evaluation data in a format agreed with funders. • Appointing and managing freelance creative writing tutors. • Recruiting professional writers to participate in creative writing workshops. • Liaising with site coordinators and authors to set up workshops well in advance. • Ordering all books for the programme from the publishers and ensuring their safe arrival at the sites. • Attending and reporting on various site visits, in London and across England - on rare occasions an overnight stay might be involved. • Ensuring that sites and partners give feedback on the event as required and synthesising this feedback into overall evaluation documents. • Planning and implementing celebratory events featuring readings of new work by participants in creative writing workshops. • Overseeing the publication of 'chapbooks' of beneficiaries' work. • Performing other administrative tasks such as organising and preparing minutes for meetings of the Readers & Writers Committee; ensuring that invoices are paid and recorded; keeping the programme files in order. • Supporting the fundraising work of the Director towards the development of the Readers & Writers programme, including supplying information for funding applications, meeting funders, and including funders in workshops where appropriate. • Promoting and communicating the aims and activities of the programme to potential new sites, writers, donors and other partners. • Developing Readers & Writers activities and policy in consultation with the Director and the Chair of the Readers & Writers Committee. • Ensuring that the Director and Board are well informed as to the work of the Readers & Writers programme. • Producing regular reports for internal and external communications.
Experience and skills The successful candidate will ideally have relevant experience in literature development or other arts education work in the voluntary or public sector. They will be:
• Passionate about literature; • Passionate about working with disadvantaged groups; • Interested in other cultures; • Eager to develop new writing from unheard voices; • Enthusiastic about promoting new writing; • A great communicator, both in writing and verbally; • An experienced educator, in a formal or informal setting; • Calm and professional under pressure; • Able to capture, process and evaluate data relating to the programme; • Able to work as part of a team and with a range of partners; • Flexible and extremely well organised; • Keenly interested in English PEN's wider work for literature and free speech.
To apply: Please send a cover letter (with ref: Readers & Writers in the subject line) and your CV to Amy Oliver: amy@englishpen.org, by 5pm on Wednesday 29th July 2009. Interviews will be held in central London in early August. Successful applicants should be available to start work in early September.
We offer: • A fulfilling job, working on a range of challenging issues with a diverse team based in an exciting new centre for literature, literacy and free speech. • Flexible working. • 25 days Annual Leave per annum plus all public holidays.
Salary: £23-25,000 pro rata, depending on experience, full-time, 9-month contract
Please note: Only those candidates selected for interview will be contacted.
English PEN welcomes applicants regardless of race or colour, nationality or national or ethnic origin, religion or religious belief, sex or marital status, sexual orientation, disability or age.
There are currently no other full-time vacancies with English PEN. However, we are always looking for volunteers to help out with our regular programme of Writers in Public events so do fill out one of our online volunteer forms if you are interested in finding out more.
Cuba Campaign Updates Campaign Update, July 2009: http://www.englishpen.org/writersinprison/campaigns/cubacampaign2009/cubaupdates/
On 16 January 2009, fifty years after Fidel Castro took power, English PEN launched our 2009 Cuba Campaign. The principal aim of the campaign is to bring greater freedom of expression to our fellow writers, journalists, novelists, poets and dramatists in Cuba.
The campaign was launched with a letter to The Guardian on 16 February, highlighting the poor prison conditions and the effects that these have on the health of cases of concern to PEN. This letter proved controversial in some quarters. Shortly after publication, Professor Michael Chanan responded with a letter 'Cold war myths about Cuban jails' (The Guardian, 21 February 2009) in which he refuted the allegations of poor prison conditions, and questioned the motives of our campaign.
Days later, in response to Professor Chanan's letter, Terence Blacker wrote a piece, 'We can't ignore Cuba's dark side' (The Independent, 24 February 2009), in which he described Professor Chanan's reaction as "bizarre and vaguely shameful".
Nevertheless many people, ranging from PEN Members, the British Embassy in Havana, and a number of Cubans with whom we are in contact, have responded in a supportive and encouraging way to the campaign.
There were a number of reasons why we chose to focus on Cuba for this year's campaign, not least because of the recent changes in power, both in Cuba and in the United States, which have led to the widespread belief that now may be a good time to push for greater freedom of expression on the island.
The WiPC's Cuba campaign was also launched in conjunction with International PEN's Freedom to Write in the Americas, which aims to highlight the persecution of writers and journalists in Latin America. Although the WiPC is working closely with International PEN on this regional campaign, we decided to focus on Cuba, where we have the greatest number of Honorary Members.
Our Cuban Honorary Members, Fabio Prieto Llorente, Léster Luis González Pentón, Normando Hernández González, José Luis Garcia Paneque, Julio César Gálvez Rodriguez, Adolfo Fernández Saínz, and Pedro Argüelles Morán, are seven of the twenty-two writers, journalists and librarians who remain detained following the Black Spring crackdown of March 2003. As such, on the sixth anniversary of the crackdown we asked members to write to the Cuban authorities protesting their continued detention. We were extremely pleased to learn some weeks later that Honorary Member Léster Luis González Pentón had been allowed to return to his family home for a total of three days, between 20 and 23 March, and that another case of concern, Pablo Pacheco Avila, was allowed to spend 24 hours at home with his family. We find these latest developments extremely encouraging, and have written to the Cuban authorities to acknowledge them.
We were also delighted to have the opportunity to meet with a representative from the British Embassy in Havana, who was extremely enthusiastic about the campaign and made some very useful recommendations. We will be working closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office here in London, as well as the Embassy in Cuba, in order to ensure that our work, and theirs, is as beneficial as possible.
English PEN's Campaigns Team will shortly be producing a press pack and hope to hold an event in the autumn. We sincerely hope that we can contribute to bringing about change in Cuba, as well as raise awareness about the situation in the UK. At the very least, we know that our campaign is appreciated by those who matter most:
"Every campaign you can do has an enormous value and avoids him to be forgotten….Thank you very much for your work helping the prisoners of conscience."
(Joana C. Fernandez, daughter of journalist Adolfo Fernández Saínz, who was sentenced to 15 years during the Black Spring Crackdown of March 2003.)
Links:
Time to close Cuba's other prisons' (The Guardian, 16 February 2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/16/cuba-prisons-guantanamo-castro
'Cold War Myths About Cuban Jails' (The Guardian, 21 February 2009) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/21/cuba-jails-political-prisoners
'We can't ignore Cuba's dark side' (The Independent, 24 February 2009) http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-we-can8217t-ignore-cuba8217s-dark-side-1630342.html
International PEN Freedom to Write in the Americas Campaign http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/freedom-of-expression/campaigns
RUSSIA/CHECHNYA: Human Rights Defender, Natalia Estemirova, Murdered
16 July 2009
RAN 28/09
International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee is appalled by the abduction and murder in Chechnya yesterday, 15 July 2009, of the courageous human rights defender and journalist, Natalia Estemirova. PEN welcomes statements by Russian President Medvedev that an inquiry has been ordered into her death. It urges that the investigation be carried out speedily and that it not be beset by the problems encountered in other cases of murders of human rights commentators, notably that of the trial of writer Anna Politkovskaya, a close friend and colleague of Natalia Estemirova, who was herself murdered in October 2006.
Estemirova, of Russian-Chechen descent, worked at the Grozny office of Memorial, Russia's best known rights organisation. Tenacious in her investigations into torture, killings and other abuses in Chechnya, Estemirova was awarded for her courage by the Swedish and European parliaments. Estemirova was a close colleague of Anna Politkovskaya and in 2007, she was the first recipient of the annual Anna Politkovskaya Award given by the Reach All Women in War campaigning group. From 2001 until Politkovskaya's assassination in 2006, the two had worked together to expose abuses carried out by Russian armed forces in Chechnya and by Moscow-backed Chechen officials. Politkovskaya's killers remain free, three years after her death. In June 2009, three Chechen men were acquitted of her murder after a trial that many observers describe as a farce. The Supreme Court has ordered that the acquittals be reviewed.
Despite knowing the acute danger, Estemirova continued to research and advocate on abuses in Chechnya, most recently a spate of house burnings by government backed militia. She has been commended by local and foreign journalists for whom she was an important source of independent information in the conflict. Witnesses reported hearing Estemirova calling out that she was being kidnapped as she was forced into a van around 8.30 am as she left her home in Grozny. Her body was found some hours later in woodland in neighbouring Ingushetia. She had been shot in the head and chest.
In December 2006, Natalia Estemirova was a guest speaker at a PEN America event commemorating Anna Politkovskaya. She told the meeting that "Criminals were afraid of Anna and afraid of her investigations". It is clear that these same criminals also feared Estemirova. Aged 50, Natalia Estemirova leaves behind her 15-year old daughter. International PEN extends its deepest condolences to Estemirova's family and colleagues.
Since 2000, 17 journalists have been murdered in their attempt to uncover the high levels of criminality and abuses in Russia, specifically in Chechnya and Ingushetia. None of the cases have been properly resolved and their murderers act with impunity It has become increasingly urgent that the Russian government take serious measures towards fully and properly investigating these murders and ensuring that those responsible be brought to justice.
To see photographs and hear the panel discussion with Natalia Estemirova at December 2006 American PEN event go to: www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/911
For details of the Reach All Women in War Anna Politkovskaya award to Estemirova go to: www.rawinwar.org/
Take Action
What you can do:
* Protest to the Russian President * Write to the Russian embassy in your own country * Send messages of solidarity to Memorial
www.memo.ru/eng/index.htm
email: info@memo.ru
Government Appeals should:
* Express shock at the murder of Natalia Estemirova clearly in retaliation for her investigations into human rights abuses in Chechnya; * Welcome President Medvedev's promise that there will be an immediate investigation into her murder, and urging that this be carried out fully and impartially, and that those responsible be brought to justice. * Raise concern that almost three years after her murder, no-one has yet to be convicted of the murder of Estemirova's colleague, Anna Politkoskaya, leading to concerns that there is little real commitment to resolving such crimes and thus allowing those who carry them out impunity; * Call on the Russian authorities to counter these concerns by unequivocally condemning all attacks on the independent press and human rights monitors, to review the unresolved murders of 17 journalists killed in the past decade.
Addresses:
Mr Dmitry Medvedev
President of the Russian Federation
Kremlin
Moscow
Russia
Fax: +7 095 206 5173 / 230 2408
Email: president@gov.ru
Mr Chaika Yuri Yakovlevich
Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation
Ishaya Dmitrovka 1 a GSP e
Moscow 12599 3
Russia
Fax +7 095 292 88 48
*Please contact the address below for updates if you are considering sending an appeal after 15 August 2009*
For further information please contact
Sara Whyatt at the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN, Brownlow House, 50-51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER Tel: +44 (02) 20 7405 0338 Fax: +44 (0) 20 74050339 Email: sara.whyatt@internationalpen.org.uk http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/news/russia/chechnya-human-rights-defender-natalia-estemirova-murdered
ARTICLE 19 is shocked and deeply saddened by the killing on 15 July 2009 of Natalia Estemirova, a Chechen human rights activist and representative of the Memorial Human Rights Centre in the Chechen capital Grozny.
Estemirova was abducted outside her home earlier today; according to the reports of Russian officials, her body was later found near Nazran, the capital of neighbouring Ingushetia, showing signs of a violent death.
Estemirova had worked at the Memorial Human Rights Centre since 2000 on a number of sensitive cases documenting human rights abuses in Chechnya. A well-known and respected defender of human rights, she had been awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Award by RAW in WAR, an organisation supporting women in armed conflicts, as well as the European Parliament's Robert Schuman medal in 2005.
This killing is just the latest in a prolonged series of attacks, abductions and murders targeting media workers, journalists and human rights defenders in this troubled region. It also highlights the failure of Russian government to abide by international human rights laws, which stipulate that the state should protect its populace and create an environment which encourages pluralism and political debate. Instead, a climate of intimidation pervades Russia and such killings are all too frequent a way of dealing with opponents of the regime.
"We at ARTICLE 19 express our sincere condolences to Natalia's family, friends and colleagues," says Dr Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. "The global human rights community has lost one of its most courageous members. Her loss, however, does not weaken our resolve to stand in solidarity with those people suffering human rights abuses in Chechnya and to continue acting with principle and determination to expose abuses and bring perpetrators to justice."
ARTICLE 19 calls upon the Government of the Russian Federation to: " Immediately open a full and impartial investigation into the murder of Natalia Estemirova, and to ensure that both the perpetrators and instigators of this murder are found and prosecuted; and " Take all measures necessary to protect members of its population against acts of violence, threats and intimidation, and to insure that those reporting on human rights violations in Russia, and especially in the North Caucasus, are not targeted for attack.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
o For more information please contact Anoush Begoyan, Programme Officer for Europe at anoushb@article19.org or tel +44 20 7324 2500.
The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN is seriously concerned about the detention of Uyghur writer, academic and member of the Uyghur PEN Centre, Iham Tohti, who was reportedly arrested in Beijing on 6 July 2009. He had spoken out on the ethnic unrest which broke out in Urumqi on 5 July 2009. International PEN seeks details of any charges against Iham Tohti, and calls for his immediate and unconditional release if held in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which China is a signatory.
According to PEN's information, leading Uyghur academic and activist Iham Tohti was arrested in Beijing after an online report in which he criticised Nur Bekri, Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional People's Government for his perceived support of Han Chinese following the recent ethnic unrest in Urumqi in which hundreds died. Iham Tohti is Associate Professor of the Economics School at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing. He is also Chairman and General Manager of Uyghur Online Web Technology Development Co. Ltd., and a guest professor at the University of Kazakhstan.
Tohti was born in Atush, Xinjiang, on 25 October 1969. He graduated from the Northeast Normal University and the Economics School at the Central Nationalities University in Beijing. He has studied in Korea, Japan, and Pakistan, and is known for his critical views of Chinese government policy and the provincial leadership in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). He has been previously detained on three occasions for his peaceful support of Uighur rights, and is a member of Uyghur PEN. For more background on Tohti's writings go to: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/tohti-03062009130647.html?searchterm=None
Background
The Xinjiang Autonomous Region in north-west China is home to many Muslim Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, some of whom have waged a low-level separatist struggle for independence from Chinese rule for decades and where repressive government policies have led to severe economic deprivation amongst the Uyghur community and fomented ethnic tension between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. It is widely believed that the Chinese government has exaggerated the alleged terrorist threat in the region to suppress peaceful political and cultural expression. According to Human Rights Watch:
Much like Tibetans, the Uighurs in Xinjiang, have struggled for cultural survival in the face of a government-supported influx by Chinese migrants, as well as harsh repression of political dissent and any expression, however lawful or peaceful, of their distinct identity. Some have also resorted to violence in a struggle for independence. Chinese authorities have not discriminated between peaceful and violent dissent, however, and their fight against "separatism" and "religious extremism" has been used to justify widespread and systematic human rights violations against Uighurs, including many involved in non-violent political, religious, and cultural activities.
Writers and journalists are amongst those at particular risk of arrest in the region for speaking out on these issues.
On 5 July 2009, Uyghurs took to the streets of Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), to protest an incident in which a number of Uyghur workers in a toy factory in Guan Dong province, southern China, were attacked by Han Chinese and killed. These protests led to violent clashes with Han Chinese in Urumqi which were violently suppressed by the authorities. The state newsagency Xinhua reports that 156 have been killed and over 1000 wounded, although details and figures are impossible verify. An estimated 1400 people are said to have been arrested.
Take Action Please send appeals:
Expressing serious concern about the detention of Uyghur writer and academic Iham Tohti, apparently for expressing views critical of Chinese economic policy in XUAR, and seeking details of any charges against him; Calling for his immediate and unconditional release if held in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which China is a signatory. Seeking assurances that he is granted full access to his family and legal representation, and is treated humanely in detention. Calling upon the Chinese authorities to protect the right of citizens to accurate, impartial information, the right to peaceful assembly and free expression of all citizens, and the right to a fair trial for anyone suspected of committing a crime during the protests.
The WiPC recommends that you copy your appeal to the Chinese embassy in your country asking them to forward it and welcoming any comments. Government addresses:
His Excellency Hu Jintao President of the People's Republic of China State Council Beijing 100032 P.R. China.
Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional People's Government Nur Bekri Xinjiang Weiwuer Zizhiqu Renmin Zhengfu 2 Zhongshanlu Wulumuqishi 830041 Xinjiang Weiwuer Zizhiqu People's Republic of China.
Please note that fax numbers are not available for the Chinese authorities, so you may wish to ask the diplomatic representative for China in your country to forward your appeals.
Please copy appeals to the diplomatic representative for China in your country if possible.
**Please contact the PEN WiPC office in London if sending appeals after 1 August 2009**
For further information please contact Cathy McCann at International PEN Writers in Prison Committee, Brownlow House, 50/51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER, Tel.+ 44 (0) 20 7405 0338, Fax: +44 (0) 20 7405 0339, email: cathy.mccann@internationalpen.org.uk
(Click the photo to see it big then again press back button) The girl in the picture is an editor of a little magazine, the name of the magazine is 'NEER'. She used to bring out the issues of the magazine with her peers/ friends, with a heart filled dream. Her overflowing excitement would fill the ground/ compound of the bookfare. Last January, she was diagnosed, her tummy ache is indicated as Cancer, Doctors consultation and advice had taken her at Vellore. After spending two lakh rupees on her treatment she was not cured. Her name is Sweta Bhattacharya, a fatherless, she is now at G B Hospital under treatment. Beside her bed, Nelly Bhattacharya, a poet- companion and co-writer of her book of poetry 'PRATIBIMBA ( mirrored shadow)'.
Her mother is helpless, a destitute and resourceless. Sweta needs chemotherapy, she needs financial assistance, we want to help her in this dire crisis keeping hand in hand. Friends, extend your hand, it is your generous cooperation that can save a brighter life. Let us try today our best.
your help should reach at:
'Aajker Fariad' Gandhighat, Agartala West Tripura Pin - 799001 India
Just a reminder that the final event in English PEN’ssummer season will take place next week on Monday 13 July. The PEN/Ackerley Prize for memoir and autobiography is the only prize of its kind in the UK. In this special event, previous winners of the prize Diana Athill, Dan Jacobson and Miranda Seymour come together to discuss the impact of the prize on their lives and to consider the state of life writing as a genre. The winner of this year’s prize will then be announced.
The shortlist is:
Julian Barnes - Nothing to be Frightened of (Cape) Julia Blackburn - The Three of Us (Cape) Susie Boyt - My Judy Garland Life (Virago) Ferdinand Mount - Cold Cream (Bloomsbury) Sathnam Sanghera - The Boy with the Topknot [originally published as If You Don’t Know Me By Now] (Penguin)
Date: Monday 13 July, 6.30pm
Venue: The Gallery, Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB
How to Book: call the office on 020 7324 2535 or book online.
I am an executive member of West Bengal PEN chapter till today, but the writings that I have written here donot represent the PEN west Bengal Chapter in any way. Like other human being, I am also made of blood, flesh and emotion. Beyond this organisation, the PEN West Bengal chapter I am also an individual and I have my expressions on some on going events. So, read it as Albert Ashok's personal view and expression, I do not and never represent any writings for this organisation that I belong. I donot give any credit to the west Bengal PEN chapter. because The secretary of the organisation has other means of publication, they donot use this blog. From the beginning I have been collecting news/ information from different sources and publish here for the benefit of writers and common people, and credit goes to the source of information where from I collect it excluding my personal views.
I started this blog when I was not a member. My purpose was to project the news of The P.E.N. and its centers from West Bengal. It is very hard to face always fear and anxiety and rendering a service for greater world - Albert Ashok
The other side of Ms. Taslima Nasrin the feminist writer
Ms Nasrin has some misconception about PEN West Bengal, she is angry because Indian government could not provide adequate security for her stay in India. So, she wants a revenge and made a complain to an international organization without context and provocation on 22nd june 2009, in a time when it is very critical to West Bengal chapter of Indian PEN center for some reason. The mail is published here. This is a reply to Ms. Nasrin's mail.
It all started one day when I came to pick up an email of Taslima Nasrin from a website page of International PEN in 2008, (probably) month of May.( so far I can remember)
As my occupation is writing books and a stark defender of ‘Freedom of Expression’ it was my policy to defend and keep a vigil all the charters of UN covenant. I made many blogs where I post all the news that Article 19, IFEX, and PEN International and its centers world wide and other sources publish. I do it by my own pocket money, I could have used my time and my money enjoying my life as it is my hard earned money. I am a freelancer, I have no job guarantee, I have my family. I can give my son something he needs for his study. But I think I am doing something great for this world, like me there are many people ( in comparison, very few numbers in thousand) doing and thinking this. This is the way how the world moves. So, if you expect more how shall I give you. Be contented what you are having.
Ms. Nasrin was in problem and in trouble. International PEN had an appeal to Indian government to look into Ms. Nasrin’s Problem. Someone has to take initiatives to support or defend her cause. I stepped forward; I told my PEN members/ colleagues in West Bengal. We had a discussion as how to help her. We have no fund to start action and campaign. We decided personally we shall try our best level, influence people and do the necessary according our strength, and we did it for Ms. Taslima Nasrin.
The intellectuals in Kolkata, West Bengal, personally have defended ‘taslima’ the woman, and made speech in favour of her through different Media. Its recorded documents.
From early 1993, probably when she started attacking some persons (not the system) in media in the name of literature, from then on I had a close observation on her ( my sentiment is after all she is a writer I should defend her) like many defenders of Freedom of Expression. I have stored many important published news from different sources in my collection. From Hanifa Deen’s (an Australian author of Pakistani origin, ) ‘The crescent and the pen’ to many assorted news journals and her books. So, with out document I hardly speak.
Mr Sunil Gangopadhyay to Madam Mahasweta Devi, many came down to street to defend her. Our late president of All India PEN center, Mr Annada Shankar Roy had taken many initiatives to support Taslima in 1994, and it is a published news document. How come she says a lie to an international body! Is it a conspiracy to degrade a community and attract the attention of media, fooling all?
What you see is not the whole world, beyond your knowledge the world does exist too, it has the rest massive part. You are an ignorant, irresponsible and small creature when you make a comment what you do not know.
I sent a mail to Ms. Nasrin who is exhorting polygamy in society through interviews in media,as a feminists view, she retorted me: She replied on Saturday, 3 May, 2008
i did not know there was a PEN in west bengal. did you do anything when the west bengal government threw a writer out of the state?
(The exact mail with out editing what she sent to me)
I assured her in my mail a strong support next day.
After then I tried to keep a communication with her but she found she has no interest in us. Because this Bengal ( including Bangladesh) know her critically.
The western countries are very busy how they would expose themselves above all as a big champion of freedom of expression and Human rights, they don’t judge what they are doing in most cases.
Is there any precaution or punishment for those who abuse the rights freedom of Expression?
Do you think Freedom of Expression is for killing millions? Hurting millions? All pornography writings? Waging wars? Rioting ? Communal disharmony?
This question has arisen in me.
All I knew we want a better world. Taslima Nasrin is not matched with Salman Rushdie, We defended him for his good literature.
In early 90 when Lajja was published it was not a literary work, it is not that the fact she wrote, many criticized about her writing skill, many said it was not literature. Many individuals and organisations, the defenders of ‘Freedom of Expression’, supported many writers, reporters who were not like Ms. Taslima Nasrin.
Does she not wear the title as irresponsible, ungrateful and stupid woman when she says to International PEN ( the following mail ) :
Hi Caroline !
I just cant resist myself to inform you that during my stay in Kolkata, (West Bengal, India) the government of West Bengal banned my book called 'Dwikhandito', a several fatwa was issued against me by the Muslim fundamentalists, they set price on my head, i was physically attacked by the fanatics, I was forced to live under house arrest by the the government, after a violent protest against my stay in Kolkata I was bundled out of Kolkata which was my home for 4 years ( 2004-2007), I was again forced to live in solitary confinement in Delhi, and finally I was thrown out of India by the Indian government. A writer, because of her writings, and because of her views that are different than the extremists has been banished, banned and blacklisted in the ''largest democracy'', and PEN kolkata did not do anything to protest against the fatwas, or attacks or harassment.
I don't think PEN is at all a known organisation in Kolkata.
I am now having a nomadic existence in the West, living out of a suitcase. My home is still in Kolkata, and I am not allowed to return to my home.
I hope you will try to find some efficient writers to be involved in PEN kolkata who can support the persecuted writers.
Best,
Taslima
Because of PEN centers she is enjoying a VIP status, (she has exploited a lot people’s sentiment, we become emotional easily and illogically sometime!)
Ms. Taslima Nasrin is Bangladeshi national, she has lived there all her life,Bangladesh has a PEN centers of International PEN, did she ever complain against the center to International PEN or somewhere else because it could not provide security? Or is she taking revenge that we could not do adequate arrangement for her shelter in India?So far I know Indian government has extended her Visa, but she is free to speak a lie.
Or Is she exercising her freedom of expression this way? Or does she think it is a way to earn more dollar and live in news? Sometimes artists and writers do this intentionally its a trend to live in news.
Do feminists think it is her expression of feminism?
By the comment above she made, she did not insulted only the Bengal in India, the Bangladesh also will feel insulted and appreciate what a ungrateful genius it has brought forth.
Every one in a country is not a evil. Most people are good and can be trusted.
Stop Ms. Nasrin, commenting untrue and lies. You are creating a hostile environment in Bengal. If possible please, co operate us, to help the dissidents and persecuted writers. We, who defend you don’t discourage us, don’t steal our ground beneath our feet to stand for Freedom of Expression. This is our self willed service not by the fund of any generous or philanthropic organization. And West Bengal PEN chapter always a follower of International PEN, It works according its own strength.
Your comment the Bengal will keep as a treasure and remember you for ever.
I don’t think doing this you will earn more from the ignorant westerners.
Your comment has put us in an embarrassing position, it gave us pain and deep wound as a reward and in face of our hard working voluntary service. The damage you have done to us you can never restore.
We request the government of Bangladesh where she was born to treat her properly and secure her living, and Ms Taslima should return to her homeland where she can fight her cause and mission. We wish herthe best.
I have studied Ms. Taslima Nasrin’s a few years ( 1993 to 2009), I can not resist to tell all about her rise and western countries should know her well so that she will get more comfort all over the world. I shall post it with in few weeks. Promise.
------------------------- Siobhan Dowd wins Carnegie Medal
June 26, 2009Siobhan Dowd, much missed PEN member and a leading force in the establishment of our Readers and Writer programme, has been awarded the Carnegie Medal for her posthumously published novel Bog Child. A full report on Siobhan's triumph and the award can be found on the Guardian website. source:
Carnegie medal posthumously awarded to Siobhan Dowd
Siobhan Dowd's Bog Child, finished three months before her death from cancer, has taken the Carnegie medal for children's literature and made Dowd its first posthumous winner
A novel completed just three months before she died made Siobhan Dowd today the first ever posthumous winner of the most prestigious prize in children's literature, the Carnegie medal.
Bog Child, the story of a teenage boy who finds the body of a child in an Irish bog, was finished by Dowd in May 2007. She died of cancer that August at the age of 47, having only turned to writing in 2003. In just four short years, she penned four children's books: her first, A Swift Pure Cry, was also shortlisted for the Carnegie.
"It's infuriating that she didn't start writing earlier, that she couldn't go on. We've lost one of our great new voices, and they don't come along that often, not at Siobhan's standards," said her publisher and editor, David Fickling, who accepted the Carnegie medal on her behalf this lunchtime. "Bog Child was written with great intensity, when Siobhan was at the height of her powers, all the while being very ill ... You get to the end and are uplifted, and that's what she was like in person, too. She buoyed you up."
The book is "an absolutely astonishing piece of writing", said the librarian Joy Court, chair of the judging panel (the Carnegie medal winner is selected by 13 librarians from around the UK). "To be able to write like that when she was going through what she was going through is just astonishing – the sheer beauty of the language, the descriptions of the environment; she has such an amazing sense of place."
Bog Child intertwines two stories: that of the 16-year-old Fergus, who discovers the child in the bog in 1981 and thinks she has been murdered by the IRA, and that of the bog child, Mel, who turns out to have lived 2,000 years ago during the iron age. Fergus smuggles packages across the Northern Ireland border each day, believing them to contain semtex, while his brother goes on hunger strike in prison in an attempt to free Northern Ireland from "the misery of it. The mourning and the weeping. The vale of tears." Dowd's command of language is "extraordinary", said Fickling, as in her description of Mel's death: "Silver light fizzed and shot apart. Love fell in particles, like snow."
Dowd spent 20 years as a human-rights campaigner for PEN in England and New York before she turned to writing in 2003. "All that looking after other writers must have been preparation for writing," said Fickling. "There's a lovely letter which she wrote to her mother, where she said: 'I must get on with writing, I mustn't be modest any more.'" He recalled a conversation with Dowd on Waterloo footbridge, when he asked if she had started writing because she had cancer. "She said: 'Absolutely not. It's more of a hindrance than a spur.'" Her husband has said she "needed to experience life first in order to write to the standard she aspired to".
Dowd lived to see her first two books published, and to see her first, A Swift Pure Cry, win the Eilís Dillon award for a first-time children's author, writing on her blog at the time that it was "very precious to me, my first ever award". Her second novel, The London Eye Mystery, planned as the first in a series, won her the major Irish children's fiction prize, the Bisto award, which she also picked up last month, for the second year running, for Bog Child.
She's been "sweeping the board" where literary prizes are concerned, said Fickling, but winning the Carnegie would have been "very special" to her because it is organised by librarians who spend their days helping children find a way to read, a cause very close to her heart. She believed that "if a child can read, they can think, and if a child can think they are free", and in the few days before she died she set up the Siobhan Dowd Trust, which helps to bring books to disadvantaged children and to which her book royalties and prizewinnings go. "She was intensely practical, not airy-fairy or sentimental in any way," said Fickling. He added she would have been "overjoyed" to win the Carnegie, but would have found it "a terror" being on the seven-strong shortlist with the likes of Frank Cottrell Boyce, Eoin Colfer and Patrick Ness.
The Carnegie medal comes with no prize money but much prestige: in its 72-year history, it has been won by authors including Elizabeth Goudge, CS Lewis, Philip Pullman and Noel Streatfeild.
This morning's award ceremony also saw the 27-year-old illustrator Catherine Rayner win the Kate Greenaway medal for children's book illustration for her second title, Harris Finds His Feet. The book, inspired by an encounter in the wild with a hare and by Rayner's own large feet, follows the story of a small hare learning to hop with oversized paws. Court said the creation of Harris was "a triumph, from the way he moves and his expressions to his velvety fur". Rayner wins £5,000, and joins a distinguished list of former winners of the 50-year-old prize including Shirley Hughes, Raymond Briggs and Quentin Blake.
'For anyone who believes that words can help us chart a path, PEN International is essential reading' Alberto Manguel
'Reading in the pages of PEN International we celebrate not just our differences but also our common humanity and universal values' Azar Nafisi
PEN International addresses a global audience and features original work by contemporary writers from around the world.
Founded in 1950, the magazine was originally a compendium of reviews of world literature entitled ‘Bulletin of Selected Books'. Over the years, it was expanded to include articles, stories and poems either contributed directly or reprinted from other publications.
The magazine is read by the 144 PEN Centres in 102 countries, as well as readers all over the world.
In 2007, PEN International was relaunched with the ‘Context:' series, featuring a new design, a dedicated editor and special guest writers. ‘Context:' showcases writing from different regions of the world with the express goal of introducing the work of new and established writers to each other and to readers everywhere. It has so far covered Africa and the Middle East. ‘Context: Latin America' will appear in autumn 2008 and ‘Context: Asia/Pacific' in 2009. A special issue will be published in spring 2008 called ‘The Writer Next Door', and will be dedicated to International PEN's annual literary theme of the same name.
Contributors to PEN International have included Adonis, Margaret Atwood, Karel Capek, Siobhan Dowd, Nawal El-Saadawi, Moris Farhi, Antonia Fraser, Nadine Gordimer, Günter Grass, Han Suyin, Liu Hongbin, Chenjerai Hove, Alberto Manguel, Salim Matar, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ben Okri, Moniro Ravanipour, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, Hilary Spurling and many others. Previous editors have included Alexandre Blokh and Per Wästberg.
PEN International is supported by UNESCO, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, Bloomberg and an anonymous donor.
Volume 59, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2009 The magazine of International PEN
Le magazine de PEN International
La revista de PEN Internacional
Editor’s Note
Welcome to ‘Heaven and Earth’.
The theme of this issue takes its inspiration from International PEN’s second
annual Free the Word! festival of world literature in London, with which it coincides.
We have asked our contributors to respond to this theme in a personal way, and
the results hint at an almost infinite range of cultural perspectives.
Take our special guest writers, both of whom appear at the festival. Each has
taken ‘Earth’ as synonymous with that other possible antonym for ‘Heaven’: fearless
truth-teller Lydia Cacho of Mexico reports on her encounters during a recent trip
to Cambodia with people who have lived through the kind of hell that human
beings seem all to adept at inflicting on their fellows; Petina Gappah of Zimbabwe
imagines the lives of a young family who have made their way from hellish
circumstances to a better place – only to discover that ‘better’ is relative.
It’s not all infernal, of course. Jack Waveney’s narrator flies above Peru’s Nasca
Lines and vividly senses the Great Mystery; there is a numinous quality, too,
in Rebecca O’Connor’s tiny poem rooted in the material world.
Most of the writers in this issue grapple with the realities confronting us
in between Heaven and Earth: Azar Nafisi (also appearing at Free the Word!)
remembers a girl’s striking moment of independent thought under an authoritarian
theocracy; Kachi Ozumba’s hapless Nigerian pastor comes down to Earth from hislofty sense of self at the hands of canny, corrupt policemen; Jason Mooreland takes
a thoughtful look at a troubling trend in education and wonders which way it
will lead us.
For some, the ‘earthier’ elements of our existence take centre-stage: Florian
Zeller (another festival guest) gives us a cynical, desperate traveller who views
sexual encounters strictly in terms of ‘exchange rates’, and Encarna Cabello’s
young North African couple discover the erotic potential of a common garment.
The Earth as a planet harbouring ferocious power features as well, in a poem
by Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih (appearing at Free the Word! as well) that considers
the aftermath of the tsunami of 2004, and in a story by Élise Gruau set on Stromboli,
that Aeolian island in thrall to its volcano.
Heaven and Earth: sooner or later we must each of us come to terms with either
one, or both. We hope the writing in this issue can provide some sustenance for
virginity ensured the safety of the city. It took just a single detour by one of them
to turn stability into chaos. When that happened, there were meticulous rituals
in place to purge the curse and restore hope: failed Vestals were buried alive in an
underground chamber, and it was left to Vesta, the goddess they served, to decide
whether they lived or died.
2
For minor offences, a Vestal risked being scourged in private by Rome’s highest
priest, the Pontifex Maximus.
3
But a Vestal’s violation of her vow of chastity was
a public curse. All participated in the expiation. Immediately after her conviction,
the guilty priestess was flogged and then bound in thick cloth to muffle her
lamentations. Churning like a larva, she was put on a litter bed and carried through
the Forum. Thousands watched in tearful silence as she passed. ‘No other spectacle
is more appalling,’ wrote Plutarch of such sights, ‘nor does any other day bring more
gloom to the city than this.’
4
The crowd’s sombre mood came not from the woman’s
imminent death – gory public executions were common enough – but from terror
at what might result from the Vestal’s loss of virginity.
The procession ended near the Colline Gate, just inside one of the city’s walls,
where the burial chamber awaited. The room was supplied with furniture, a lamp
and bits of food, milk and oil. The Vestal was unfastened from her coverings except
for a veil over her face. As her soiled body stood in the wind, an object of grief and
scorn, the Pontifex Maximus stretched his hands toward heaven, muttered some
prayers and then sent her down into the hole. As soon as she was underground,
attendants sealed the room with stones and spread earth around it so that no traces
of it, or her, remained.
Technically, this was not an execution. No one shouldered the responsibility
of killing a Vestal, even a guilty one. The few provisions supplied to the accused
priestess absolved the priests for her death and gave Vesta the opportunity to hand
down the ultimate ruling. If the Vestal was, in fact, found by the goddess to have
broken her chastity vow, Vesta rebalanced the celestial scales by letting her starve
and suffocate. If she was innocent, Vesta could lift her up and restore her. Of theten or so Vestal virgins who endured this process over seven centuries, none was
resurrected. Their guilt was confirmed beyond doubt and Rome was saved, at least
until the next Vestal misbehaved.
Only girls between six and ten years old who were deemed perfect in all
respects were eligible for service in Vesta’s temple. No marks, lisps or other defects
were allowed. Both parents had to be alive and married, with no divorce, scandal or
slave blood clouding their lineage. Selected girls underwent an elaborate initiation
process that put them in service to Vesta and Rome and no one else. All Roman
women belonged to one man or another, but not the Vestals. They alone were free
from male control, because they were the sisters, daughters and wives of the city
itself. They were taken from their homes to Vesta’s temple in the Forum, where
they lived for at least thirty years.
5
Vesta was the goddess of the hearth, and of the
Earth itself.
6 The perpetual flame that burned in the Atrium Vestae was the fulcrum
of Roman life. Just as early Rome’s daughters tended the flames of their families’homes, the Vestals kept Rome’s fire alive. They also maintained a storehouse
of holy substances and took care of dozens of other ritual duties.
7
For that, the
priestesses received extraordinary privileges. They were allotted prime seats at the
theatre and at gladiatorial games, and rode in ornate carriages with bodyguards to
move people out of their way. Even consuls had to step aside. If, during their travels
around town, they encountered a criminal about to be executed, the man’s life was
spared. (However, anyone with the nerve to pass under a Vestal’s carriage would
be killed.) When Vestals died, they were among the very few inhabitants of Rome
whose burial was permitted within the city’s sacred precincts.
8
Most Vestals kept their bodies and reputations intact. There were precautions
in place to prevent temptation (their temple was closed to all men at night, even
doctors), but it was inevitable that some would fail. When a Vestal had sex, the
crime was incestum – an offence that incorporated incest (all Roman men were
their family) and sexual defilement. Because that loss of virginity was a direct
assault on the state, calamities were often blamed on Vestal incestum. In what
seemed like an instant, they transformed from high priestesses to monstrous
scapegoats.
The very fact of Rome’s troubles was taken as proof of Vestal unchastity.
In 483 BC, the city was at war with the Volsci and the Veii. Rome’s superior
resources should have permitted it to make short work of these enemies, but Rome
was wasting its advantages on internal struggles. To make matters worse, there
were daily heavenly prodigies showing the gods’ anger and portending disaster.
The city was in a panic. Its priests could not figure out what was causing the
problems, even after consulting animal entrails and bird flight patterns. They thenconcluded that a Vestal was misbehaving. ‘These terrors finally resulted in the
Vestal virgin Oppia being condemned for incestum and executed,’ wrote Livy.
9
In 215 BC, in the alarm over Rome’s loss of 50,000 men to Hannibal at the Battle
of Cannae, the Vestals Opimia and Floronia were found guilty of incestum. One of
them was buried alive; the other was allowed to commit suicide. A century later,
after the destruction of the army of Marcus Porcius Cato in Thrace, three Vestals
were put on trial for conduct more fitting to prostitutes than professional virgins.
‘Three had known men at the same time,’ wrote Cassius Dio.‘Of these, Marcia had
acted by herself, granting favours to one single knight … Aemilia and Licina, on theother hand, had a multitude of lovers and carried on their wanton behaviour with
each other’s help.’
10
If that was not bad enough, the fire in Vesta’s temple began to sputter out on
its own – a sure sign of Vestal misconduct – and a bolt of lightning killed a noble
girl on her horse, leaving her dress hiked up above her waist.
11
At first, only the Vestal
Marcia was found guilty, but the public’s thirst for a clear remedy for all this trouble
was too strong for a single verdict to stand. A second trial was convened, and the
other two Vestals convicted. All three were buried alive.
Vestals were sometimes prosecuted in the absence of a calamity. Emperor
Domitian’s moral reforms were punctuated by trials against Vestals for incestum.
12
The chief Vestal, Cornelia, was buried alive in 83 AD, but did not go down quietly:
‘Is it possible?’ she demanded of Domitian as he watched her being led to the
hole. ‘Does Caesar think that I have been unchaste, when he has conquered and
triumphed while I have been performing the rites?’
13
In other words, how dare
Domitian accuse her when he has enjoyed good fortune? But he did anyway.
Some Vestals were able to acquit themselves at trial with impressive feats of
magic. The priestess Tuccia was charged, in 230 BC, with giving away her virginity
based on one man’s accusation. Calling Vesta to her aid, she led a crowd to the
TiberRiver, where she pulled up a quantity of water with a sieve. To everyone’s
amazement, the water did not drain out of the holes. She took it back to the Forum,
where she dumped the river water onto the feet of her judges. Her life was spared,
and her accuser was never heard from again.
14
Another time, after the sacred fire
went out on the Vestal Aemilia’s watch, the priests enquired as to whether she had
been entertaining men. In the presence of everyone, she cried out:
O Vesta, guardian of the Romans’ city, if, during the space of nearly thirty years,
I have performed the sacred offices in a holy and proper manner, keeping a pure
mind and a chaste body, manifest yourself in my defence and assist me and do
not suffer your priestess to die the most miserable of all deaths; but if I have
been guilty of any impious deed, let my punishment expiate the guilt of the city.
She then threw a piece of her clothing on the cold altar where the fire had burned.
Instantly, a flame burst through the linen. With that, the city was safe again, and
Aemilia cleared.
15
The Vestal college lasted for about a millennium, until the fire was put out
forever and the order disbanded in the fourth century AD by the Christian emperor
Theodosius. Judging by Rome’s long run, the priestesses mostly protected the people
well by keeping the sacred fire lit and men out of their beds. In a sex-soaked culture
in which aristocratic women tried to register as prostitutes, the Vestals’ untouched
genitals were a guarantee of Rome’s long life.
(Unpublished, 2009)
1Holt Parker, ‘Why Were the Vestals Virgins?’, American Journal of Philology,
vol. 124, no. 4 (2004), p. 568.
2Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddess, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical
Antiquity (Dorset, 1975), p. 211; see also Plutarch, Roman Questions
(Loeb Classical Lib. 1936, Frank Cole Babbit, tr.), ch. 96.
3Plutarch, Life of Numa Pompilius (Loeb Classical Lib. 1914, Bernadotte Perrin, tr.),
ch. 10.
4Ibid., see also Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities (Loeb Classical Lib.
1937, Earnest Cary, tr.), Book II, ch. 67.
5Plutarch, Life of Numa Pompilius, ch. 10. It seems that many Vestals stayed
longer than the required three decades, however, as they had bad luck with
their marriages after laying down their sacred offices.
6Robin Lorsch Wildfang, Rome’s Vestal Virgins: A Study of Rome’s Vestal
Priestesses in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Routledge 2006), pp. 6–60;
see also Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book II, ch. 66: ‘And they
regard the fire as consecrated to Vesta because that goddess, being the Earth
and occupying the central place in the universe, kindles the celestial fires from
herself.’
7Wildfang, pp. 16–17. The Vestals were involved in other practices that seem
incompatible with virginity, e.g. agricultural and fertility rituals such as
the Fordicidia rites, in which a Vestal burned a fetus torn from an unfortunate
pregnant cow; see also Pomeroy, p. 211, and Mary Beard, ‘The Sexual Status of
Vestal Virgins’, Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 70, p. 13 (1980). The Vestals’
chastity throughout their fertile years gave them ‘stored up, potential
procreative power’ (Beard, p. 15).
8Parker, p. 568; O. F. Robinson, Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration
(Routledge 1994), p. 124.
9Livy, History of Rome (Dutton 1912, Rev. Canon Roberts, tr.), ch. 2.42.
10Cassius Dio, Roman History (Loeb Classical Lib. 1925, Earnest Cary, tr.) ch. 26.87.
11Wildfang, pp. 93–4.
12Cassius Dio, Roman History, ch. 67.3; The Letters of the Younger Pliny (Penguin
1963, Betty Radice, tr.), pp. 118–19; Brian W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian
(Routledge 1992), pp. 101–2.
13Pliny, Letters, 43.
14Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book II, ch. 69.
15Ibid., ch. 68.
Natalia Smirnova
Gas
look, we intend to croak. but we will just
live on. and on and on and on
and on, wrinkle-free, in a tiny flat
where there is no heating, only gas
where coffee grows old and grows cold
within two minutes. not like in ukraine,
of course – we’ve got some gas – but heating,
there’s neither heating nor even water
that could flood the place, flood it, no,
if only we could have our flood, or blood
but there’s no flood, no wrinkles, no poison
with which to croak and no home to live at
or leave. but there’s gas, at least.
god bless ukraine. oh please let there be gas.
Translated from the Russian by the author
Kachi A. Ozumba
THE POLICE IS YOUR FRIEND
Nduka was determined not to leave the Ikeja police station without his police
report. He waited at the counter, his gaze fixed on a poster on the opposite wall.
Although he had seen the poster many times before, it never failed to arrest his
attention. It depicted a policeman smiling broadly and benignly; radiating beneath
it was the caption: THE POLICE IS YOUR FRIEND.
A policeman emerged from the door behind the counter. His black uniform bore
the two red stripes of a corporal. Leaning on the grimy wooden counter, he asked:
‘Good morning, sir, can I help you?’
‘Yes, I’m Pastor Nduka Obi, and I’ll like to see Sergeant Bello.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, the sergeant is not around at the moment. Is there anyway I can
be of help?’
For a mere corporal, the policeman’s English was flawless, Nduka thought: his
tone was polite, his manners polished. Although this was his third time at the
station that week, Nduka could not help being reminded that the corporal before
him was not a semi-illiterate, as was so often the case in years past. A government
policy a few years back had pegged the minimum qualification for recruitment
into the police force at a National Diploma. This was to help stem corruption and
make the force friendlier.
‘Yes. He’s the one handling my case. I lost my passport two weeks ago, and I
need a police report to obtain a new one, which I will need for my trip to the UK in
a month’s time. The report has already been written since my first visit. All that has
been holding it is the Divisional Police Officer’s stamp. I need it to apply for my visa,
and I’m already running late.’
‘You say the report has been written since your first visit; how come you have
not collected it since then?’
‘On the first visit, I was told the DPO was not around; on the second, I was told
he needed time to study the document; on the third, I was told the document had
been signed and only the stamping by the DPO remained, and they were looking
for both the DPO and the stamp. Please, corporal, I hope I won’t leave here today
without it.’
The corporal smiled, but it was a tight-lipped smile, and the pastor felt there
was something incongruous about it. He could not tell whether it was born of
sympathy or mockery.
‘I really apologise for the delay so far. But you know how life is: nothing is
predictable. Anything can crop up at any time to cause a delay. But if you’re
determined, then your determination will move mountains – and you’ll get your
report today.’ The corporal smiled again, glad to show the pastor that he knewsomething of the Bible.
‘Of course I’m determined to get it today,’ the pastor answered, irritation
seeping into his voice. ‘I’ve been determined to get it since the first day.’
‘Okay, I’ll see the DPO about it right away. Won’t you like to send your regards?’
‘I don’t even know him,’ Nduka said. ‘Well, tell him a law-abiding citizen sends
his regards.’
The corporal hesitated, staring for some time at Nduka, then turned and
disappeared through the door. Moments later he reappeared, shaking his head.
‘The DPO has yet to reach your file. He has so many files to attend to, those of
people who came before you. We operate on a first-come, first-served basis, so
please exercise some patience.’
A red curtain fell over the pastor’s eyes, making them bloodshot. His voice rose
an octave: ‘What … what nonsense is this? Do I have to pass through the eye of a
needle just to collect a common police report? You people are –’ He caught himself
back from swearing. Be angry but do not sin, he cautioned himself, quoting the
Bible.
The corporal must have taken pity on him. ‘But, sir, why are you making things
so difficult for yourself? Have you not got the message? All that stands between
you and your report is just an express-service mobilisation fee of a mere two
hundred naira!’
Nduka’s eyes narrowed into slits. ‘What exactly are you saying?’ he asked.
‘Are you suggesting that I give a bribe in order to collect my police report?’
He pointed to a poster on the wall to his right. ‘I’m sure you can read this!’The poster bore the bold caption:
DO NOT GIVE BRIBE
IT IS ILLEGAL
‘Of course I can,’ replied the policeman. He gestured at another poster behind the
pastor. ‘I hope you have also read that one.’ It had an even bolder caption:
HELP THE POLICE TO
HELP YOU
‘I’m not asking for a bribe,’ the policeman said, ‘but that you help us to help you.’
‘I want to see your DPO right away,’ Nduka said. His anger had given way to a
zealous determination to fight corruption.
‘Sir, I’ll advise you to stick with me. Just pay the two hundred-naira mobilisation
fee and you’ll get your report. The higher you go, the higher the amount that will
be demanded of you.’
‘Will you take me to your DPO right now, or do you want me to find my way
there?’
‘Well, if that’s your wish …’
The corporal led Nduka into a dim hallway with several doors. He tapped on the
last door, on which a sign was affixed that read: DIVISIONAL POLICE OFFICER (DPO);
then he ushered Nduka in.
It was a small cluttered office. The DPO sat behind an enormous desk strewnwith files and papers. A miniature national flag sat between two plaques on the
table. On one of the plaques was engraved the name ‘Owonikoko J. A., B.Sc. M.Sc.’.
On the other was perhaps the man’s personal motto: Heaven helps those who
know how to help themselves.
The DPO lifted his face, frowning with irritation.
‘Good day DPO Owonikoko,’ Nduka began. ‘I have a problem.’
‘You have your problems, I have my problems, everyone has his problems,’
the DPO replied. He returned his gaze to the files before him.
This not-so-subtle message was not lost on Nduka: How can you persuade
me to abandon my problems and help you with yours? Blood raced through
the pastor’s veins, and his lips trembled. He nearly screamed his reply: ‘Well, my
problem now is that if I do not walk out of this station today with my police report,
the evils of this station shall be all over tomorrow’s papers!’
The DPO looked up sharply. He ran an appraising eye over this new-generation
pastor before him, taking in his Piaget wristwatch and Gucci shoes, the expensive
cut of his suit. A huge smile replaced his frown. Once again, Nduka felt odd about
the smile. It was indulgent – as though the man could see through his bluff. But
there was still something else hidden in its wide expanse, something the pastor
could not place his finger on.
The DPO waved Nduka to a seat and said: ‘Please calm down, and sit down.’
The corporal eased himself out of the office as Nduka sat, shutting the door quietly
behind him. ‘You are?’
‘Pastor Nduka Obi of the Mighty Faith Ministries.’
‘Oh, that’s the one located along the Lagos–Ibadan expressway, isn’t it?’
The pastor nodded.
‘Hmm! So you people are the ones building that gigantic church, eh? Great.
How can I help you?’
Nduka took a deep breath. ‘For over two weeks now,’ he said, ‘I’ve been trying
to collect a simple police report with which I may apply for the replacement of my
missing passport. You see, I have to be in the United Kingdom next month. I need
the report urgently so that I can obtain a new passport and apply for a visa.
Now your corporal is telling me I have to give a bribe before I can collect it.’
The DPO sprang from his seat and went over to the door, quickly. ‘Corporal!’
he bellowed. ‘Corporal!’
The corporal appeared promptly.
‘Did you ask this righteous gentleman for a bribe?’
‘Bribe?’ the corporal said, shocked. ‘No, sir. I only asked him for the usual express-
service mobilisation fee of two hundred naira, sir.’
‘Two hundred naira?’ the DPO barked. ‘Since when did the mobilisation fee
become two hundred naira? It’s five hundred! Something must be wrong with you.
Are you sure you were not planning to pocket the money?’
‘No, sir. I would have placed it into the coffers of the station and had it duly
receipted.’
‘Okay, you can go now. I’ll see you about it later.’
Nduka’s heart sank as he watched the whole exchange.
‘You see,’ began the DPO as he came round to his seat, now smiling benignly.
‘We have to collect such fees when someone wants us to jump the usual process and give him what amounts to an express service. It’s our policy, and you willfind the same everywhere, even in the presidency. Such fees help us in running
the station. You know as well as I do that in this country one cannot rely entirely
on the government.’
‘My report has already been delayed for over a week, and you’re still talking of
express service!’ The pastor’s voice was losing something of its crusader’s fervour.
‘You would appreciate the express nature of the service if you knew the
enormous number of reports and complaints we receive daily. Some have waited
months, indeed years, to collect a common police report. We try our best, but we
can only do so much …’ The DPO broke off, spreading his hands in a gesture of
helplessness.
‘And you’re asking for what you call a “mobilisation fee”, which you know as
well as I do is only a euphemism for a bribe.’
‘Bribe? No!’ The DPO shook his head, apparently hurt. ‘How can you say that?
Even the good Lord demands some mobilisation fee for the work He does for us.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my pastor says it is written in the Scriptures
that the Lord demands one-tenth of our earnings – what the Scriptures call tithes,
and what you collect, un-taxed, as offertory in your churches.’
The pastor opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
‘It’s really no different here,’ said the DPO.
Nduka suddenly felt tired. He glanced at his watch. He felt like running out
of the station. The atmosphere was beginning to choke him.
‘You have to understand that we cannot be partial in the way we apply our
policy here,’ the DPO began again. ‘So, just release the funds and I’ll personally
see to it that you get your report immediately.’
Slowly, Nduka reached into his trouser pocket and retrieved a five-hundred
naira note.
Lord, please forgive me if I’m committing a sin, he prayed silently.
But you’re only giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s, another voice whispered.
Nduka was about to banish it as the voice of Satan, but hesitated. He filed it away
in his mind. He would examine the idea later; there might be some truth in it.
He handed the money to the officer across the table.
