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Human rights organisation Article 19 welcomes the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s (PACE) adoption of a resolution and recommendation on legal remedies for human rights violations in the North Caucasus. Article 19 urges the Russian government to address the violations and to adopt comprehensive measures, specifically relating to the right to freedom of expression

English PEN’s Honorary Member, publisher and human rights activist Ragip Zarakolu who has been subject to harassment, trials and periods of imprisonment since the 1970s, was acquitted at a hearing on 10 June. On trial in the Republic of Turkey since May 2009, Zarakolu was facing a prison sentence of more than seven years for publishing the novel More difficult Decisions than Death written by N. Mehmet Güler.

Performance of ‘Another Sky: Voices of Conscience from around the world’, directed by Abbie Bergstrom and Susie Christensen and featuring seven King’s students, is composed of extracts from English PEN’s 2007 anthology of the work of persecuted and imprisoned writers.

The twelfth of June is the anniversary of the disputed Iranian presidential election. The ensuing events of last summer challenged assumptions about the political impact of the media, especially the internet, on Iranian society. Mahmood Enayat is a doctoral student at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, presents his thoughts about the role of internet in Islamic Republic of Iran today.

Quotes costs Turkish journalist prison sentence. A court in Istanbul has sentenced journalist Irfan Aktan to 15 months in prison for his article “Weather Forecast in the Region and in Kandil: There Can be No Solution without a Struggle” published in the bi-monthly journal Express.

The application for the 2011 session of the annual Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) at Columbia University is now available.

On Friday 18 June, members and friends of English PEN are invited to attend a demonstration to celebrate the 65th birthday of our Honorary Member Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

To mark Refugee Week, please join us for an evening in the company of two prominent writers in exile: Atiq Rahimi and Eli Amir. Both authors will be reading from their latest books and taking audience questions.

Article 19 continues to highlight cases of artists around the world whose right to freedom of expression has been curtailed and abused, and seeks to more effectively promote and defend freedom to create. Here are most important abuses from May 2010.