International Pen launches campaign on criminal defamation

From IFEX Communique

International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) has launched a campaign to call attention to writers around the world who are imprisoned or face jail for alleged defamation.

WiPC is urging countries to repeal laws that treat defamation as a criminal rather than a civil offence, and for the term "insult" to be removed from all penal codes. In its January to June 2006 case list of worldwide free expression violations, WiPC recorded 96 cases in which writers had been jailed or faced prison on criminal defamation charges.

To kick off the campaign, which runs from November 2006 to April 2007, WiPC is highlighting five cases of writers currently in prison or being prosecuted - in China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico and Turkey.

The cases include Turkish editor Hrant Dink, Ethiopian journalist Wesenseged Gebrekidan, Mexican reporter Lydia Cacho, Chinese Internet "dissident" Yang Xiaoqing, and Egyptian journalists Ibrahim Issa and Sahar Zaki.

PEN members around the world will be writing letters, raising publicity and staging events in support of these and other writers under attack. WiPC will also be coordinating a series of monthly actions focusing on different regions where criminal defamation laws are suppressing free expression.

Visit these links:
- WiPC: http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/
- Defining Defamation: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/standards/definingdefamation.pdf
- World Press Freedom Committee: http://www.wpfc.org/CampaignAgainstInsultLaws.html
- IFJ Campaign Handbook: http://www.ifj-asia.org/files/ifj_defamation_lr.pdf
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The IFEX Communiqué is the weekly newsletter of the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX), a global network of 72 organisations working to defend and promote the right to free expression. IFEX is managed by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (www.cjfe.org).