When: Monday, 15. November 2010 19:00
To: Monday, 15. November 2010
Where: Oslo, Literature House
Host: Norwegian PEN
Contact: Carl Morten Iversen, Norwegian PEN (pen@norskpen.no / +4722607450 / +4792688023)
More info: www.norskpen.no/ArticleDetails/tabid/64/ArticleID/552/Default.aspx

On invitation from the Norwegian Forum for Freedom of Expression, Koushan came to Norway in 1998, to give a lecture, and go back to Iran. However, while in Norway, two of his best friends were killed in Iran, and Koushan was informed that his name was also on the clergy’s and the police’s death lists. Koushan was left with no choice but to remain in Norway, where he now lives with his wife and two adult children. In his new home town of Stavanger, he has among others taught art at at the arts centre Sølvberget, and staged a number of plays for the same centre’s theatre scene. Koushan, born in 1948, receives the Ossietzky award on the international Writer’s in Prison Day.

As part of the award ceremony, an update on the case of Swedish-Eritrean playwright, journalist and writer Dawit Isaak will be given, by Dawit’s brother Esaya.

Dawit Isaak has been imprisoned in Eritrea since 2001. He applied for asylum in Sweden in 1987 and received Swedish citizenship in 1992. Later, he returned to Eritrea where he worked as a reporter for the country’s biggest independent newspaper; Setit. He also became co-owner of the paper. On 23 September 2001, he was arrested in his home in Eritrea’s capital Asmara, allegedly for having demanded democratic reforms. Setit had covered the confrontations between the country’s President Isaias Afeworki and the reformists.

In 2005, Isaak was out of prison for a short while. Numerous appeals have been made for his release, but Eritrean authorities reject any and all outside intervention. In 2009, the Afeworki regime made it clear that Isaak will not be released. In absentia, Isaak has received numerous awards, including from Reporters Sans Frontieres, the Anna Politkovskaya award from the Swedish Press Club, and the Norwegian Authors’ Association’s Freedom of Expression award for 2009. In Sweden a Dawit Isaak support committee has been established. For more information on this committee, click here.