Among the many activities being launched by Norwegian PEN in 2005 are a fact-finding mission to Belarus in February and a two-day roundtable on freedom of expression in Tunisia during the UN Human Rights Commissions spring session in Geneva.

Belarus
Norwegian PEN has worked closely with our Belarusian colleagues during the past years.  Norwegian PEN president, Kjell Olaf Jensen, visited Minsk twice in 2002 giving the speeches «Can you fight terrorism by becoming a terror state?» (July) and «The responsability of a free press» (October).  Both speeches may be found on our English-language home page under «Reports, speeches, etc»

Earlier this fall Mr. Jensen and Norwegian PEN secretary general Carl Morten Iversen met with the vice-president of Belarus PEN, Andrey Dynko, who visited Oslo in October to attend a seminar arranged by the Human Rights House Network (HRH).  The meeting took place after the election and referendum in Belarus and Dynko expressed interest in a visit from a delegation of Norwegian publishers and writers (journalists, translaters, authors) in order to strengthen the ties between organizations and colleagues in Belarus and Norway.

Later, during av local seminar on Belarus in Oslo, Mr. Iversen and representatives from the HRH met with the leader of the largest opposition party, Liabedzka Anatol, and the leader of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), Zhanna Litvina.  HRH plans a seminar in Minsk in early 2005, the title being «European Convention for Human Rights and Freedoms. Belarusian Experience: Problems and Perspectives».  One of several workshops at the seminar is titled «Freedom of Speech and protecting the Righsts of Journalists».  During the meeting in Oslo there was agreement to arrange the Minsk-seminar on february 18. and 19. 2005.  A delegation from Norwegian PEN will arrive three days earlier in order to meet with Belarusian organizations and colleagues prior to attending the seminar and the workshops.

A program for the delegation is now under development by Belarus PEN and BAJ, but already the organizations have expressed interest in getting some assistance, both pratical and financial, in establishing a local freedom-of-expression price to be awarded on the World Press Freedom Day, May 2. every year.

Plans also exist for an international delegation with representatives from The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and World Association of Newspapers (WAN), as well as representatives from the Danish Journalists Association.  The Nordic PEN centres have been informed about both delegations and have been invited to join the Norwegian delegation in February.

Tunisia
At the recent IFEX AGM in Baku, Azerbaijan, in June 2004, 31 member organizations signed a letter urging UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to move the next session of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), due to take place in Tunisia in November 2005, unless Tunisia makes substantial progress on respect for freedom of expression.  Norwegian PEN was one of the 31 organizations.  A «Tunisia Monitoring Group» (TMG) was also established at the meeting.

WSIS is a series of international meetings under the UN, discussing editorial guidelines and regulations on the internet.  The first meeting was arranged in Geneva early in 2004 and the next meeting in late 2005 is planned for Tunisia, a country with a very negative record of freedom of expression abuses.  IFEX and the TMG is now monitoring the situation in Tunisia.

Norwegian PEN is also planning a seminar on Tunisia in cooperation with another IFEX-member, the International Publishers Association (IPA), to take place in Geneva during the UN Human Rights commissions spring sessions in Geneva in 2005.  Details and program will be posted on these pages when available.