A number of our members and other Scottish poets have written poems in response to the current conflict, and have kindly given permission for them to be shared here. Scottish PEN invites further poetic and literary responses to the poems.

Scottish PEN is supporting the Scottish Poetry Library in the presentation of two events in August.

30 June 2025 – English PEN, Scottish PEN, Wales PEN Cymru and PEN International are deeply concerned by the UK government’s proposal to proscribe the protest group Palestine Action under terrorism legislation. We urge the authorities to reconsider this step and to ensure full respect for the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful […]

Scottish PEN condemns the recent police raid on the Quaker Meeting House, central London, on Thursday 27th March 2025. This raid and the subsequent arrest of 6 young women is deplorable and constitutes a violation of human rights, freedom of expression, the right to protest and is, additionally, a violation of a place of worship.

Join Scottish writers reading international writers struggling against oppression and sharing their own work at this free International Women’s Day event, 7th March 2025

On Saturday, 25 January, The Times published an article by senior news reporter Marc Horne, regarding the release of security service files that have recently been opened and placed in the UK National Archives at Kew. These documents disclosed that MI5 and the police monitored James Findlay (JF) Hendry, the poet, editor and writer for decades over […]

Every year on 27 January the UK marks the horrific organised slaughter perpetrated in Europe in the 1930s and 40s and in many other parts of the world since then. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland. At a time when […]

Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s vital writing in his collected works, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated is like an explainer of why the principles of the PEN International Charter are so vital. Scottish PEN is proud to join PEN International, fellow PEN Chapters, Reporters Without Borders and other human rights organisations in urging the Foreign Secretary […]

Scottish PEN Trustee Dave Manderson writes on the threat to the arts in Glasgow