James Kelman looks at the recent history of the Kurdish people’s oppression by Turkey and complicit European nations.

James Kelman argues that if we are to support Kurdish writers, we should demand proper media coverage and fully engage with their political cause.

Scottish PEN’s president recounts stories about freedom of expression that we heard at PEN International’s annual conference.

This is an edited extract from two essays by James Kelman relating to Turkey and Kurdistan, contained in his collection, And the Judges Said… and other essays [Polygon Books 2008] and is being reprinted here with the writer’s permission. The first “Freedom for Freedom of Expression Rally”, organised by a 200-strong group of artists and activists took place in Istanbul […]

by Jean Rafferty It was a senseless death, senseless in the way all sudden deaths are to those left behind, but senseless beyond that for the irony, the waste, the sheer stupidity of it. On 19 th January 2007 in Istanbul, Hrant Dink, editor of Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, was gunned down by a young Turkish nationalist […]

This news just came in from   Ragip Zarakolu   Maison du Peuple de Geneve/People’s House of Geneva Ragip Zarakolu is one of Scottish PEN’s adopted cases Publisher and Human Rights Defender Ragip Zarakolu ArrestedThe Turkish police detained Ragip Zarakolu, a well-known human rights activist and director of Belge Publishing House, in Turkey. Zarakolu is also […]