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Stressing concerns of human rights groups about the deterioration of press conditions under the administration of President Rafael Correa, 17 members of the United Nations submitted recommendations to Ecuador on freedom of expression issues before the U.N. Human Rights Council this week. While Ecuador tried to pass off the criticism as resulting from ignorance, the states’ observations made clear that the international community is fully aware of Correa’s repressive tactics against the local media.  CPJ, together with PEN International and Fundamedios, an Ecuadoran press freedom organization, submitted a report for consideration before the U.N. Human Rights Council. (via Nations urge Ecuador to guarantee freedom of expression - Blog - Committee to Protect Journalists)

Stressing concerns of human rights groups about the deterioration of press conditions under the administration of President Rafael Correa, 17 members of the United Nations submitted recommendations to Ecuador on freedom of expression issues before the U.N. Human Rights Council this week. While Ecuador tried to pass off the criticism as resulting from ignorance, the states’ observations made clear that the international community is fully aware of Correa’s repressive tactics against the local media. 

CPJ, together with PEN International and Fundamedios, an Ecuadoran press freedom organization, submitted a report for consideration before the U.N. Human Rights Council.

(via Nations urge Ecuador to guarantee freedom of expression - Blog - Committee to Protect Journalists)

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Book Expo America (BEA) kicks off on June 4th at the Javits Center, and Russia is both this year’s guest of honor and the focus of BEA’s Global Forum. In association with BEA and sponsored by Russia’s Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication, Read Russia 2012 will present a week-long “showcase” of Russian literary and book arts in various locations throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Read Russia 2012 offers opportunities outside BEA to meet and engage with a new generation of Russian literary leaders and newsmakers. More than 50 contemporary Russian writers and publishers will arrive in New York during festival week, among them such writers and journalists as Dmitry Bykov, Sergei Lukyanenko, Vladimir Makanin, Edward Radzinsky, Master Chen, and Mikhail Shishkin…You can read the introduction to the Read Russia Anthology by PEN Translation Committee member Antonina Bouis here. (via PEN.org » Blog Archive The Russians are Writing! The Russians are Coming! - PEN.org)

Book Expo America (BEA) kicks off on June 4th at the Javits Center, and Russia is both this year’s guest of honor and the focus of BEA’s Global Forum. In association with BEA and sponsored by Russia’s Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication, Read Russia 2012 will present a week-long “showcase” of Russian literary and book arts in various locations throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Read Russia 2012 offers opportunities outside BEA to meet and engage with a new generation of Russian literary leaders and newsmakers. More than 50 contemporary Russian writers and publishers will arrive in New York during festival week, among them such writers and journalists as Dmitry Bykov, Sergei Lukyanenko, Vladimir Makanin, Edward Radzinsky, Master Chen, and Mikhail Shishkin…You can read the introduction to the Read Russia Anthology by PEN Translation Committee member Antonina Bouis here.

(via PEN.org » Blog Archive The Russians are Writing! The Russians are Coming! - PEN.org)

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From left: Erwin Piscator, Bessie Beatty, Ernst Toller, and Mr. and Mrs. Sholem Asch From PEN’s archives, a timeline of PEN’s activities in the 1930s. Here is one juicy nugget: Separation of German PEN from PEN International In accordance with the Belgian and French resolution passed at the PEN Congress in May and German PEN’s refusal end its current policy of exclusion, the International Executive Committee determines that German PEN is “incompatible with the general constitution of PEN” and votes to expel the center. Dr von Schnidt-Pauli (president of German PEN and a strong believer in “scientific anti-Semitism”) declares that there is no further possibility for international collaboration between the centers. Read more

From left: Erwin Piscator, Bessie Beatty, Ernst Toller, and Mr. and Mrs. Sholem Asch

From PEN’s archives, a timeline of PEN’s activities in the 1930s.

Here is one juicy nugget:

Separation of German PEN from PEN International 
In accordance with the Belgian and French resolution passed at the PEN Congress in May and German PEN’s refusal end its current policy of exclusion, the International Executive Committee determines that German PEN is “incompatible with the general constitution of PEN” and votes to expel the center. Dr von Schnidt-Pauli (president of German PEN and a strong believer in “scientific anti-Semitism”) declares that there is no further possibility for international collaboration between the centers.

Read more

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Royal Quiet Deluxe: A Conversation with Matthew Zapruder

Royal Quiet Deluxe: A Conversation with Matthew Zapruder

With PEN’s Poetry Relay, a series of readings and conversations, we hope to trace the topography of influence that connects contemporary poets to their peers and predecessors. Each leg of the relay will feature a podcast reading by a poet, a conversation that covers that poet’s inspiration and influences, and then a hand-off to a peer.

This new leg of the relay features Matthew Zapruder, author of American Linden, The Pajamaist, and Come on All You Ghosts, and editor at Wave Books.Below, Zapruder discusses the influence of the Russian language on his writing, tricking himself into hynagogic states, and “allegiance to the ill communication.” Listen to Zapruder read his poems “Poem for a Persian Singer” and “Aubergine” here.

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Photographer gunned down in Ecuador - Committee to Protect Journalists

Bogotá, Colombia, July 3, 2012—Ecuadoran photographer Byron Baldeón was shot dead Sunday in front of his home in El Triunfo, about 60 kilometers (100 miles) north of the city of Guayaquil. The photographer had become a witness in a criminal case involving alleged police corruption, according to news reports. 

PEN is trying to promote free expression in Ecuador. Together with CPJ, we filed a submission to the UN and local NGO fundamedios on threats in the country.

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