The PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write award this year goes to Yang Tongyan, also known by the pen name Yang Tianshui. Yang, a Chinese journalist, poet, and novelist, is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence after being convicted of subverting state power by posting anti-government articles on the internet and organizing a branch of the China Democratic Party, an outlawed political movement.
On December 24, 2005, Yang was detained incommunicado at Dantu District Detention Centre in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province. His conviction and sentence were handed out on May 16, 2006 after a three-hour trial that was closed to the public.
This was not the first time Yang was imprisoned for his writings. He was arrested in 1990 and imprisoned for 10 years for denouncing the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
According to cpj.org, the Committee to Protect Journalists – an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, China currently has 29 journalists jailed on nebulous anti-state charges.
The PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write award, in addition to recognizing those who defend freedom of expression at a horrendous cost to themselves and their families, offers the symbolic prize of $10.000 to writers and journalists who are victims of oppressive regimes.
Rachid Nini will need 85 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write awards to extricate himself from the legal jam he is mired into.
Ahmed T. B. Copyright © 2008
