Ken Loach and Paul Laverty standing in solidarity with activists at the Edinburgh Film Festival Today, 26 August, 2025, Scottish PEN released the statement below on the arrest of award-winning Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty, giving its full support to him and other writers and citizens who would exercise their rights to freedom of expression and […]

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 […]

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

At the request of Scottish PEN member Heather Kiernan, working with the Hands Up Project, Scottish PEN organised a call-out to Scottish poets to respond to ‘Moon Tell Me Truth’, illustrated poems by children in Gaza exhibited at the Scottish Poetry Library during June.

We have had to take the decision to postpone the event, ‘Declarations: On Freedom for Writers, Readers and Palestine’, which had been due to take place at Lighthouse Bookshop on Friday, 5th April.

We hope to reschedule the event for a date later this year.