Creative Writers Speak Out for Imprisoned Writers
Rebekah Tucker
Issue date: 11/18/09 Section: News
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The Creative Writing students have been working through the Student Editorial Board and the Dos Passos Review to put this project together. This event has taken place every fall for the past few years.
The Day of the Imprisoned Writer is a worldwide event put on by PEN American Center, which is "An association of writers working to advance literature, defend free expression and foster international literary fellowship," according to their website www.pen.org.
Free the Writers day is held internationally on Nov. 15 of every year.
This year the Creative Writers of Longwood hosted the event. "Creative writers come together and try to get the idea out that these writers do face this in other countries," said Co-Project Manager Amanda Inman.
The students read off writers' cases and their imprisonment and informed people what the writers went through for what they have written. Stocks were used to represent what the writers go through as well.
One of the writers they were focusing on was Shi Toa, who is a journalist and poet who wrote for a daily China publication.
Tao is popular for his essays often calling for political reform, and he has also written several books of poetry. Tao was arrested in November of 2004 after forwarding notes taken at a meeting to independent Chinese-language websites, which are banned in China.
He was charged in December 2004, and all his writings were confiscated and his wife was threatened when the authorities took him away. He was found guilty of "illegally divulging state secrets abroad."
He was sentenced to ten years in high-security prison and deprivation of political rights for two years. He is currently in prison in Hunan, where he is forbidden from any writing.
In 2005, he was suffering from a respiratory illness and skin inflammation, but still forced to labor making jewelry sold by prison authorities. Tao's family blames his illness on the work conditions and dust from cutting and polishing the stones.
In addition to an ulcer and a heart ailment, Tao is also suffering from a deteriorating mental state.
On Tues., Nov. 17, a Free Speech Wall petition was held behind the Student Union. The petition is for a free speech wall to be put up on campus. "If we get a wall it would put us in the top four colleges in the state for free speech," said Co-Project Manager Jessy Koelzer.
PEN American Center's "Freedom to Write Program" works to protect the freedom of the written word wherever it is imperiled. PEN defends writers and journalists both at home and abroad, who are imprisoned, threatened, persecuted, or attacked in the course of carrying out their professional work.
The goal for Longwood's Creative Writers is to raise awareness that writers are being imprisoned. "We're not trying to sell anything, just raise awareness," said Koelzer.
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