Women on the PEN Case List, 2023-2025

AMERICAS CASE LIST

María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez, Cuba

Cuban poet and activist María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez is continuing to serve a seven-year prison sentence imposed after she was convicted on 10 March 2022 of ‘public disorder,’ ‘contempt,’ and ‘resistance’. She was arrested with her sister on 12 July 2021 after participating in peaceful protests.

Garrido is held in poor conditions in detention, including solitary confinement and lack of food and water and unhygienic sanitary conditions. She has also been beaten. Together with her sister Angélica Garrido, she went on hunger strike for five days on 20 September 2022 in protest at their sentence and continued detention. In November 2023, Garrido sent an audio message to the PEN community talking about censorship in Cuba and the power of art.
Maria Cristina Garrido Rodríguez was born in Quivicán, Mayaquebé in 1982. In 2008 she won the First National Prize in the Carlos Baliño Tobacco Competition. Her poetry and artistic vision have led her to reflect and write about her daily life, while her career as an activist has led her to join the Cuban Women’s Network, where she supports the visibility of women in various spaces. Garrido is a member of the Vuelta abajo por Cuba Foundation and a member of the Latin Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR). She is the author of Examen de tiempo (Time examination), published in 2022. Her most recent book Voz cautiva: poemas escritos desde la cárcel (Captive Voice: poems written from prison) was published in 2023 by the Spanish publishing house Deslinde and highlights the challenges faced by Garrido during her political imprisonment, including ill-treatment, isolation, surveillance, and depression, among others.

Alina Bárbara López Hernández, Cuba
On 28 November 2023, writer, essayist, editor, academic and activist Alina López Hernández was sentenced to pay a fine of 7,500 Cuban pesos (about USD313) after she was convicted of ‘disobedience’ for not attending extrajudicial summonses from State Security. She had refused to comply with a 13 June 2023 summons as she believed it was outside the framework of a legitimate criminal or administrative investigation, after which she was placed under house arrest.
López said that during the trial, the judge was unable to provide any clarification as to why the writer was summoned for questioning by State Security. López refuses to pay a fine for a crime she did not commit. As long as she does not pay the fine, she is also prohibited from leaving the country and she could be imprisoned.
López believes that the summons relate to her peaceful activism, such as a peaceful demonstration in a park on 6 April 2023, in support of the writer Jorge Fernández Era, detained for his criticism of the government. At the protest, López walked holding a sign calling for the release of Fernández.
Alina Bárbara López Hernández, born in Matanzas in1965 is an essayist, editor, and researcher.
She holds a PhD in Philosophical Sciences and studies the political and cultural thought of the republican intelligentsia in Cuba. She works for Ediciones Matanzas. She is the author of several books of essays such as En tiempos de blogosfera (In times of blogosphere), and El (des) conocido Juan Marinello (The (un)Known Juan Marinello). She has been awarded prizes such as the 2008 Juan Marinello National Essay Prize and the 2013 Matanzas City Foundation Prize.
Update: On 23 January 2024, the municipal court of Matanzas dismissed López’s appeal against her conviction and sentence.

HARASSED

Tania Bruguera, Cuba

Tania Bruguera, born in Havana on 18 July 1968, is a renowned multidisciplinary artist and author. Currently a senior lecturer and affiliate faculty at Harvard University, Bruguera is the founder and director of the Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (INSTAR). Bruguera is author of several books, including The Francis Effect, Tania Bruguera: Let Truth Be, Though the World Perish; Portrait of an Artist (coauthor), Tania Bruguera in Conversation with Claire Bishop.
In November 2023, Cuban authorities launched a smear campaign against Cuban artist and academic Tania Bruguera with the intention of undermining her work and the IV INSTAR Film Festival, organised in seven countries in December 2023 by the Instituto de Artivismo Hannah Arendt (INSTAR) which she had founded.
For well over a decade, Bruguera has faced persistent harassment by the Cuban government, causing her to leave the country in 2021. This campaign to delegitimise her work has continued during her exile, with state-controlled media outlets suggesting that the festival and its accompanying activities constitute an attack on Cuban culture and an endorsement of terrorism, as well as allegations that she and some artists or movies shown in the festival have links or received funds from foreign intelligence agencies.
Coordinated social media attacks on the festival and its participants were made by various public officials and others close to the government, including the Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso Grau and Cuba’s First Lady Lis Cuesta Peraza. Cuban cultural institutions also launched a mass mailing campaign to institutions and individuals around the world, seen by PEN International, in an attempt to discredit the festival.

DEATH THREATS

Karol Estefanía Noroña Calvachi, Ecuador
Within 24 hours, Noroña had left country and will not return until there are guarantees for her return. GK called the death threat against Noroña ‘another example of the security crisis and the penetration of drug trafficking in the country that affects all sectors of society.
On Friday 24 March 2023, the directors of media outlet GK announced that they had activated a security protocol and an emergency operation for Ecuadorian journalist Karol Estefania Noroña Calvachi to flee Ecuador, due to death threats against her in retaliation for her journalistic investigations. According to Fundamedios, a press freedom organization based in Quito, this was yet another example of threats against journalists by criminal groups that are silencing the press in the country.
Noroña continues to work in exile as a journalist investigating human rights abuses and organized crime.
Karol Estefania Noroña is a journalist and writer who was born in Quito in 1994. She tells stories about women’s rights, the effects of organised crime networks in the country, the prison system and the struggle of families searching for their missing relatives. She has written for printed and independent media, both national and international. She was granted second place in the European Union’s Journalists for your rights 2021 award in Ecuador and received an Honourable Mention in the 2021 Eugenio Espejo Awards for her chronicle Los hijos invisibles de la coca (The Invisible Children of Coca). Co-author of the books Periferias: Crónicas del Ecuador invisible (Peripheries: Chronicles of the Invisible Ecuador) and Muros: voces anticarcelarias del Ecuador (Walls: Anti-prison voices from Ecuador).

THREATENED

Andersson Boscán Mónica Velázquez, Ecuador

On 25 July 2023, journalists Andersson Boscán, co-founder of social media-based outlet La Posta, and his wife Mónica Velásquez, who also worked for La Posta, left Ecuador shortly after publishing a report on corruption and drug trafficking allegations involving the brother-in-law of President Guillermo Lasso and members of the Albanian mafia, part of a corruption scandal that led to impeachment proceedings against the president and a constitutional crisis in the country when the president issued a decree to dissolve parliament early to avoid the proceedings. According to public information, the journalists said that European intelligence agency contacted La Posta about ‘a plan of attack’ against the outlet by the Albanian mafia.
In December 2023, Andersson Bocán and Mónica Velásquez published their La Posta reporting into a book entitled El Gran Padrino (The Great Godfather).

HARASSED

Dina Meza, Honduras
Journalist, human rights defender, and founding member of PEN Honduras Dina Meza faced continuing harassment during the year. Meza’s security situation remained a serious concern. She regularly finds herself under surveillance – her home, office and movements are surveilled, and she reports being followed by unknown persons. (For details of previous harassment see Case List 2017, 2020, 2022.)
Dina Meza and other activists highlighted a renewed smear campaign and threats during 2023, possibly linked to their work as human rights defenders. According to public reports, on 18 July, this smear campaign against Meza and well-known human rights defenders began to circulate on social media, linking them to former President Juan Orlando Hernández and the American Embassy in a diagram called ‘Human Rights Defenders Corruption Networks Volume 1’ with the names of the people mentioned, accompanied by derogatory nicknames and images.
PEN International has documented that Association for Democracy and Human Rightsin Honduras (ASOPODEHU), of which Meza is Director, and PEN Honduras have been subject to harassment and persecution by the Directorate of Regulation, Registration and Monitoring of Civil Associations of the Ministry of Interior and Justice, who have systematically and repeatedly requested ASOPODEHU’s financial statements for 2020 to 2022, without providing any explanation of the reason for the request, which the organisation has nevertheless provided, placing a heavy administrative burden on the organisation. Meza, born in 1963, began her work as a human rights defender in 1989 and has worked for various human rights organisations and digital media outlets. In 2014, she was elected President of PEN Honduras. She also runs and writes for the website pasosdeanimalgrande.com which reports on freedom of expression and human rights in Honduras. She is the author of the Honduras chapter in Vamos a portarnos mal: protesta social y libertad de expression en América Latina (Let’s misbehave: social protest and freedom
of expression in Latin America) (2011) and Kidnapped: Censorship in Honduras (2015). She is the recipient of the 2007 Amnesty International UK’s Special Award for Human Rights Journalism Under Threat; the 2014 Oxfam Novib/PEN International Freedom of Expression Award; the 2016 Premio Letras in Periodismo y Derechos Humanos at Festival de Cine y Derechos Humanos de Barcelona; and the 2020 Sir Henry Brooke Award for Human Rights Defenders.
She is an Honorary Member of PEN Català.

Denise Dresser Guerra, Mexico
In April 2023, political scientist, journalist and author Denise Dresser Guerra was victim of a smear campaign, threats, acts of harassment and digital violence on Dresser’s personal social media. Since 4 April, there has been a marked increase in systematic attacks against the Mexican columnist, a critical voice of political power in Mexico.
These attacks began after she published a message regarding President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s latest statements about his children, who have been named in investigations by Latinus, Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad, and Reforma for alleged conflicts of interest and influence peddling.
Following these publications, the journalist received, for almost four consecutive days, intimidating and threatening messages with misogynistic and sexist connotations; in addition, personal information about her family was made public, including unauthorised images of her children.
Denise Dresser, born on 22 January 1963 in Mexico City, is a Mexican political analyst, columnist and academic. Dresser is the author of numerous books including ¿Qué sigue? 20 lecciones para para ser ciudadano en un país en riesgo (What’s next? 20 lessons for citizenship in a country at risk); El país de uno (Own country); Neopopulist Solutions to Neoliberal Problems: Mexico’s National Solidarity Program. She has published articles in the Journal of Democracy, Current History, Harvard International Journal 37 of Press/Politics and Foreign Policy. She writes a political column for the Mexican newspaper Reforma and the news weekly Proceso and was the host of the political talk shows Entreversiones and El País de Uno on Mexican television. She was a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times, among other media.

HARASSED

Gioconda Belli, Nicaragua
AMERICAS CASE LIST 2023/2024
Author of books such as El Pensamiento Contemporáneo and Decolonialidad y Emancipación Como Jazz Epistémico.
On 12 September 2023, the Nicaraguan Police and members of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) confiscated the home of writer and PEN Nicaragua President, Gioconda Belli. She was driven into exile in 2022, under threat of imprisonment and persecution.
In February 2023, she was declared a ‘traitor and a fugitive’, and was stripped of her nationality, assets, pension and all rights as a Nicaraguan citizen, after conviction of ‘spreading false news’ and ‘conspiracy to undermine national integrity’. (See details of previous threats in Case list 2020). In addition to Belli’s property, the home of her son Camilo Castro Belli, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, has also been confiscated. Castro lives in exile in Costa Rica.
Gioconda Belli is an award-winning Nicaraguan poet, writer, and activist. She is heralded as revolutionising Nicaraguan poetry with her 1972 collection On the Grass for having openly addressed the female body and female sexuality. Belli was the 2019 recipient of the Oxfam Novib/ PEN International Freedom of Expression Award and German PEN’s Hermann Kesten prize. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Jaime Gil de Biedma Poetry Prize in Spain; in 2023, she received the notable Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana Prize.

BANISHED

Gloria Maria Carrión Cruz, Nicaragua
Gloria Maria Carrión Cruz remained in exile in Costa Rica at the end of the year, after Nicaraguan immigration authorities prevented her from entering the country on 10 April 2023, when she was returning to Nicaragua after an eight-day visit to Costa Rica.
Libros para Niños, a non-profit organisation that Carrión leads and legally represents, was closed and its assets seized by the Nicaraguan State some weeks before, on 15 February
2023. Prior to its closure, the authorities obstructed its operation and refused to receive the documentation required for its proper functioning. Libros para niños published authors now considered enemies by the Nicaraguan government such as Sergio Ramírez, Ernesto Cardenal, and Gioconda Belli. Libros para Ninos has also published the biography of Dennis Martínez, a baseball hero, now also considered an enemy of the government.
Gloria Carrión is a Nicaraguan writer, literature promoter and editor of children’s books in Central America. She is the director of the Festival Literario Centroamérica Cuenta, and has written for magazines such as Pórtico 21 and specialist journals such as IFLA (International Association of Library Associations and Institutions).

IRAN CASE LIST

VARIOUS: persisting attacks against the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly

September 2023: Statement: Iran: More than a year since Iranians’ uprising for freedom, hundreds killed and tortured, and thousands remain in arbitrary imprisonment

Mahvash Sabet, Iran

Mahvash Sabet is a teacher and poet serving a 10-year prison sentence. She had previously spent a decade in prison due solely to her religious beliefs.

On 31 July 2022, Iranian authorities arrested Sabet and two other members of the long- disbanded ‘Yaran-i-Iran’ (or ‘Friends of Iran’), Fariba Kamalabadi and Afif Naemi, who helped to administer the Baha’i community’s affairs in Iran until 2008, over unfounded ‘spying’ charges. The authorities have sent Sabet to

Evin prison in Tehran, where she was previously imprisoned. According to media sources, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry alleged they were linked to the Baha’i Centre in Israel and had collected and transferred information there. On 21 November 2022, following an unfair trial that lasted only one hour, the Revolutionary Court’s Branch 26

in Tehran sentenced Sabet and Kamalabadi to 10 years in prison. The judge rebuked the defendants for ‘not learning their lesson’ before handing down his harsh sentence.

In May 2023, PEN International learned that Sabet has been suffering for months from broken kneecaps resulting from torture that she has been subjected to in August 2022 at Evin prison. The authorities have not provided her with adequate medical care and have subjected her to deplorable detention conditions. PEN International has also learned that she was repeatedly interrogated over the content of her unpublished book in which she details her previous prison experiences.

Sabet, born on 4 February 1953, began her professional career as a teacher and worked as a principal at several schools. She also collaborated with the National Literacy Committee of Iran. Following the Islamic Revolution

in 1979, Sabet was fired from her job and blocked from working in public education, like thousands of other Iranian Baha’i educators. She served for 15 years as director of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, which provides alternative higher education for Baha’i youth.

Mahvash Sabet began writing poetry in prison, and a collection of her prison poems was translated into English and published in 2013. She is an honorary member of the Austrian PEN and Danish PEN and was awarded English PEN’s 2017 International Writer of Courage. PEN International has campaigned for her release and featured her case in its 2014 Day of the Imprisoned Writer campaign.

Narges MOHAMMADI

Writer, journalist, human rights defender Nargess Mohammadi, imprisoned since 16 November 2021 and serving multiple unjust sentences, was sentenced to a further year in prison in August after conviction of ‘propaganda against the system’ following an unfair trial in connection with her writings from Evin Prison in January 2023 about violations against women in prisons and detention facilities in Iran on social media.

Mohammadi has faced reprisals by the Iranian authorities for her human right work for over 14 years, including multiple unjust prison terms after conviction of charges including ‘propaganda against the system’, ‘defamation’ and ‘rebellious conduct while incarcerated’. (For further details, see Case Lists 2022, and 2021). Her family believes that her recent sentences are retaliation for her book, White Torture, in which she documents the experienced of imprisoned Iranian women. Between January and June 2023, Iranian authorities initiated five new investigations into Mohammadi’s activism in prison on 7 and 25 January, 13 April, 16 May, and 18 June 2023.

Mohammadi suffers from a neurological disorder that can result in seizures, temporary partial paralysis, and a pulmonary embolism for which she is said to be denied essential medication that could prevent further blood clots from forming. She has been denied adequate medical care on several occasions. In November, prison authorities refused to transfer Mohammadi to a hospital to receive vital medical care because she refused to wear a headscarf and comply with the compulsory veiling law which has been challenged in recent years after mass protests broke out against the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

Mohammadi, born on 21 April 1972, is an Honorary Member of the Danish, Belgian, Norwegian and Swedish PEN centres. She is the former Vice-President and spokesperson of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), co-winner of the 2013 Oxfam Novib / PEN Award, winner of the 2011 Per Anger Prize and the 2009 Alexander Langer Award. In December 2022, Mohammadi was awarded the RSF Prize for Courage for her tireless fight for press freedom and human rights. In 2023, she was awarded the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Prize, UNESCO’s Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize and in October, she was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.

Update: In January 2024, Iranian authorities sentenced Mohammadi to a further 15-month prison term, in relation to her activism in prison resulting in a combined sentence of

12 years and three months in prison, 154 lashes, and two years of exile, and enforces a further travel ban and various restrictions on her social and political activism.

PALESTINE CASE LIST

Shireen Abu Akleh (f): journalist killed

Action:

May 2023: Joint statement: Palestine/Israel: A year since the brutal murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, justice is yet to be served, while Israeli strikes kill more civilians in Gaza

VARIOUS: persisting attacks against the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly

Action:

October 2023: Statement: OPT/Israel: PEN International calls for an immediate halt of hostilities, protection of civilians, and a just resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

October 2023: Statement: In response to LitProm decision to postpone award ceremony for Palestinian author Adania Shibli (f)

October 2023: Statement: OPT/Israel: PEN International calls for an immediate ceasefire, the protection of civilians, the release of all hostages and an end to the siege of Gaza

October 2023: Statement: PEN International Calls for Peace-Dispel all Hatreds

October 2023: Statement: OPT/ Israel: PEN International condemns the systematic violations of freedom of expression since October 7

Ahmed TOBASI and Mustafa SHETA: artists detained

December 2023: Statement: OPT/Israel: PEN International calls for the immediate release of artists Ahmed Tobasi and Mustafa Sheta, and an end to Israel’s targeting of writers and cultural figures

Mustafa Sheta, a researcher and journalist who is also producer and general manager of the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, was held in Megiddo Prison in Israel under an administrative detention order at the end of the year. On 13 December 2023, Israeli forces broke into The Freedom Theatre during a raid on the refugee camp, destroyed its offices, and later stormed the houses of three of its members, including Sheta. On 22 December, a lawyer who was able to speak with Sheta for 10 minutes learned that the Israeli soldiers interrogated Sheta about his political affiliation and activities.

BRIEF DETENTION

Ahed TAMIMI

Ahed Tamimi is a prominent Palestinian activist and the co-author (with Dena Takruri) of They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom, in which she reflects on her personal experience and the daily struggles of life under Israeli occupation. She was previously arrested in December 2017, at the age of 17, following dissemination of a video of an altercation with Israeli soldiers. She was later sentenced to eight months in prison after conviction of charges including ‘aggravated assault.’

On 6 November 2023, a dozen Israeli soldiers stormed the home of Palestinian writer and prominent activist Ahed Tamimi in Nabi Saleh, occupied West Bank, handcuffed her and took her to an undisclosed location. According to media reports, the Israeli army arrested Tamimi on suspicion of ‘inciting violence and terrorist activities’ on social media. Her family recounted that in the days leading to her arrest, Tamimi had been the target of an online smear campaign by Israeli settlers, who accused her of inciting terrorism and the killing of settlers on social media.

Tamimi was later taken to an undisclosed location and not allowed to contact her family or lawyers. On 13 November, Tamimi appeared in court via video link from Damun Prison in Haifa, Israel, where she was being held. The court extended her detention to allow the authorities to bring charges against her. She was denied any form of communication with her family and was not able to communicate freely with the lawyer who volunteered to represent her during both court hearings. Tamimi’s lawyer told PEN International that during a visit on 20 November, she saw clearly visible bruises on Tamimi’s body, and that she was held in poor detention conditions, including limited access to adequate food, drinking water, clothing,
and being held in overcrowded prison cells. Following her release on 30 November as a part of a temporary truce deal between Israel and Hamas, Tamimi told media that she was threatened that if she spoke about her time in detention, her father, who had been arrested earlier and placed under administrative detention, would be killed. Tamimi also spoke of the abuse and the inhumane detention conditions Palestinians face in Israeli prisons, including assaults and being forced to sleep on the ground with limited access to adequate food and drinking water.

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA CASE LIST

Taoufik Bouachrine : journalist imprisoned after unfair trial, Morrocco

Action:

February 2023: Joint statement: Groups call on Moroccan authorities to end persecution of Taoufik Bouachrine

EUROPE CASE LIST

KILLED

Victoria AMELINA

PEN Ukraine member, writer and war crimes investigator Victoria Amelina died on 1 July 2023, aged 37, from injuries sustained in a Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on 27 June 2023. Amelina was travelling to areas liberated from Russian occupation, recording the testimonies of witnesses and survivors, and working on a non-fiction book about her experiences. At the time of the attack, she was accompanying writer Héctor Abad Faciolince, journalist Catalina Gómez Ángel and politician Sergio Jaramillo – all from Colombia – who were keen to visit the war-affected areas. They were dining together when a Russian missile struck their restaurant, killing 13 people and wounding 65. The Colombian delegates sustained minor injuries, but Amelina was seriously injured and was rushed to hospital in Dnipro. She was buried in her hometown of Lviv on 5 July 2023.

Born on 1 January 1986, Amelina was a prize- winning writer and poet, and founder of the New York Literature Festival in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine. Since the Russian Federation’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Amelina had been documenting war crimes with the human rights initiative

Truth Hounds, recording the testimonies of witnesses and survivors. She notably uncovered the war diary of Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was abducted by Russian forces in March 2022 and subsequently killed (see Volodymyr VAKULENKO entry). She took part in the first presentation of his war diary at the Book Arsenal literary festival in Kyiv on 23 June 2023. At the time of her death, she was working on her first non-fiction book in English, War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, which tells the stories of Ukrainian women documenting war crimes by Russian forces, and their lives during the war. Her book will be published posthumously

NEW YORK (AP) — A posthumous book by Victoria Amelina, the Ukrainian author killed last year during a Russian missile strike, will be published in February upon the war’s third anniversary.

“Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary,” which draws upon Amelina’s interviews with 11 women who had been documenting war crimes since the Russian invasion, was left unfinished. Her husband, Oleksandr Amelin, was among those who helped edit and complete the book, which will include a foreword by Margaret Atwood.

“the …light/behind the door…”