International PEN, Swedish PEN and Lawyers Without Borders are deeply concerned by Asiye Güzel Zeybeks continuing detention and are calling for her release.
The Tucholsky award is every year given by Swedish PEN to a writer or a publisher who is being persecuted, threatened or exiled from his or her country. With this award members of Swedish PEN want to honour the free word and support and help their collegues throughout the world.
This award has been named after the German writer Kurt Tucholsky, who came to Sweden in the beginning of the thirties as a refugee from the Nazi regime in Hitler's Germany. Still awaiting to have his application for political refuge granted he committed suicide in 1935 and was buried in Mariefred, Sweden.
The Tucholsky award was established in 1984 and has been awarded writers like Adam Zagajevski, Nuruddin Farah, Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasrin, Shirali Nurmaradov, Mirko Kovac, Svetlana Alexievich, Faraj Sakoohi, Vincent Magombe, Flora Brovina and Salim Barakat. Common to them all is that they during a period of their life have been oppressed, persecuted and threatened to their lives for one reason and one reason only, that those in power wanted to silence them as writers.
The following delegation representing The Swedish PEN will attend her trial on september 21st:
Kristina Hultman
Born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1964. Journalist. Editor of the feminist Swedish magazine Bang 1989-94. Editor and editor in chief of the sociopolitical magazine Arena 1996-00. Member of the Swedish PEN board since 2000 and chair of the Swedish PENs Women Writers Committée.
Mobile: +46 709324711
Mail: [email protected]
Ozan Sunar
Born in Gelibolu, Turkey, in 1964. Cultural critic and artistic director of the cultural center "Södra Teatern in since 1997. Public debator. Member of the Swedish PEN board since 2000. Former political advisor at the Swedish Ministry of Interior 1995-96.
Mobile: +46 708957340
Mail: [email protected]
Elisabeth Zila-Olin
Born in Stockholm, in 1945. Writer. "När och fjärran", shortstories,1990. "Färdemän", novel, 1993, "Vattenvägar", short stories, 1996, "Blådunster" novel, 1998. Member of the Swedish PEN Board 1994-2001, vicepresident and chair of Writers in Prison Committee 1998-2001. Attended Nadire Mater trials in 1999 and 2000 and Mehmet Uzun trial in 2001, all ofthem in Istanbul. Has been following Asyie Güzel Zeybek´s case closely since 1998.
Mobile: +46 739246741
Mail: [email protected]
