PEN America works tirelessly to defend free expression, support persecuted writers, and promote literary culture. Here are some of the latest ways PEN America is speaking out.
- PEN America called on the U.S. Defense Department to remove access restrictions to reporters without a government escort in the Pentagon complex. “These new measures will only undermine transparency, accountability, and public trust,” said Tim Richardson, Journalism and Disinformation program director. Read our full statement.
- PEN America called the pause on visas to international students subject to possible social media vetting “another crackdown on free expression.” Read our full statement. Read the AP story.
- PEN America strongly condemned the targeted killing of two Israeli Embassy staff members in Washington, D.C., last week. “Political and hate-motivated violence is a crime that silences not just the voices of its victims, but all those who sense they could just as easily have been the targets. It shuts down the space for discourse and poses a fundamental threat to free expression for us all.” Read our full statement.
- PEN America hosted author Samira Ahmed along with security experts to discuss threats faced by authors, librarians, bookstores, and publishers in an environment that is increasingly fraught. Here are some tips and guides.
- PEN America joined other human rights organizations to call for the immediate release of journalist and writer Pham Doan Trang, who marked yet another birthday at a Vietnamese prison. Read more.
- PEN America joined other human rights organizations to call for the immediate release of journalist and writer Pham Doan Trang, who marked yet another birthday at a Vietnamese prison. Read more here.
- PEN America’s Los Angeles director Allison Lee published an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee on a century-old digital news archive of California on the brink of going dark due to funding cuts and the cost of its loss. Read it here.
- PEN America’s Elly Brinkley was quoted in a story by Publisher’s Weekly on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issuing a decision in Little v. Llano County, reversing a preliminary injunction on book bans in the county’s library system. Read it here.
- Elaine Maimom, one of our “Champions of Higher Education,” published an op-ed in the Kansas City Star on the weaponization of antisemitism by the Trump administration to take down higher education institutions. Read it here.
- For this week’s PEN Ten, we spoke to poet and writer Shonda Buchanan about her latest collection, The Lost Songs of Nina Simone. Through poems, the book recounts the life and legacy of one of the world’s foremost Black artists and activists. Read the interview here.
