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October 10th, 2005

The ability to express oneself in words (among other talents, of course) is one of the most beautiful facets of human existence. Communication facilitates growth, exposing individuals to new ideas and issues that propel them ever forward and allow them to better grasp the multifaceted universe surrounding them. Through writing, the victims of radical politics, discrimination, torture, censorship, and other methods of controlling and destroying the human body and spirit can bring to light the darkest elements of society. Even with their very lives perpetually threatened by the possibility (if not probability) of capture and grievous harm or mutilation, these men and women cruelly shoved to the margins and denied the very basic of human rights passionately and courageously defy their oppressors in the name of justice, equality, and tolerance. Some, like Voltaire (pseudonym of François Marie Arouet), face the threat of imprisonment. Others, such as Salman Rushdie, find themselves on the receiving end of death threats and violence – if not outright murdered before they can even be arrested, as is the case with Georgi Markov and countless others. Detainment, torture, house arrest, and exile also comprise many of the other punishments enacted on those who stand up and challenge tormentors.

Imprisonment, however, remains one of the most common means of attempting to intimidate writers with politically or socially dissident portfolios to their names. Organizations such as International PEN and Amnesty International have worked tirelessly to bring their plights to the forefront of humanity’s awareness, in many instances actually freeing the prisoners. Far more than these 10 listed here endure an atrocious and unwarranted fate for the supposed “crime” of expressing themselves. Please take some time to explore these other stories as well – doing so will open eyes to the disgusting acts intended to squelch justice that tragically characterize everyday life for millions of men, women, and children across the globe. But it will also inspire, because the human spirit is capable of triumphing over terrifying acts of evil when it believes in sharing something much brighter than itself.

1. Liu Xiaobo

Considered one of China’s most feared political and social dissidents, Liu Xiaobo has been jailed for 11 years as a result of his extensive written work on human rights, law, and democracy. His sentencing came about as a result of his involvement with the highly controversial Charter 08, which demanded the presence of more political parties in China as a means of giving the citizenry more options beyond the Communists. Liu Xiaobo found himself detained without charges for 6 months before receiving the charge of “inciting subversion of state power” and subsequently slapped with the 11-year sentence. In spite of his imprisonment, however, his writings have grown more popular than ever – going decidedly against the Chinese government’s original intentions. Many individuals in America (as well as The House of Representatives) are calling for President Obama’s support of the jailed veteran of Tiananmen Square, bringing the issue to light across the Pacific. But the story has resonated far beyond China and the United States, of course. The famed Czech revolutionary Václav Havel has also weighed in on the matter, lending his voice to the masses – many of whom signed Charter 08 to begin with – pleading for Liu Xiaobo’s freedom from incarceration and the Chinese government’s compliance with human rights organizations.

2. Václav Havel

Probably one of the more visible cases of a writer facing jail time in response to his or her political and social commentaries, Václav Havel stands as an impassioned advocate for human rights and freedom as well as a notable playwright, novelist, and patron of the arts. Many of his politically-charged essays and letters penned in protest of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia are available in English on his official website, though Charter 77 is noticeably missing. The future president of Czechoslovakia (and, subsequently, the Czech Republic) participated in drawing up the petition in 1977 in order to galvanize the dissidents against oppression and compromised freedom. His prolific output of social justice-related demands in both writing and film earned him numerous stints in prison and labor camps, and his movie output ended up almost completely wiped from history altogether. Current political and social revolutionaries – including Liu Xiaobo, who kept Charter 77 in mind whilst piecing together Charter 08 – look to Havel’s extensive and storied career as a protestor for inspiration. There is even a human rights award that bears his name. Today, Havel continues to fight censorship and oppression throughout the world, pausing to write his memoirs and other works of both fiction and nonfiction alike.

3. Musine Kokalari

The name Musine Kokalari may not ring too many bells in the United States, but her efforts as a writer and an activist have had a significant impact on freeing the Albanian people and inspiring future generations of politically dissident and feminist writers. An ethnic Albanian, she was born in Turkey before moving to the country where she garnered such infamy and (much later) acclaim. She co-founded the Albanian Social Democratic Party in 1944 as a means of protesting the communist political structure in her adopted homeland. At the time, she worked as the only female writer in Albania – a status she clung to up until 1960. Kokalari’s arrest occurred in 1946, with the government labeling her a “saboteur and enemy of the people” and placing a cruelly long sentencing of 18 years upon her head. Even after her release, she was forced to labor away as a street sweeper and eventually died of cancer when the Albanian government denied her hospital treatment (though sources do conflict on the subject). Very little of Kokalari’s incendiary works exist today due to the fact that so many of her manuscripts were destroyed (or adroitly hidden away) and one element of her jail time involved the prevention of writing anything new – regardless of whether or not it intended to challenge the government. In spite of the few snippets of her writing that remain, her legacy continues to resonate throughout Albania and beyond. Kokalari’s contributions to the original Committee of Three helped lead to the creation of International PEN, an organization dedicated to promoting and raising awareness of writers killed, jailed, or threatened for expressing themselves.

4. Ángel Cuadra Landrove

Cuban poet Ángel Cuadra Landrove actually began his career as a fervent supporter of Fidel Castro’s revolution, serving as a law student (and later lawyer) active in multiple organizations opposed to Fulgencia Batista y Zaldívar’s American-backed dictatorship. However, he later began sharing feelings of unease and trepidation with his fellow writers and artists once the coup had successfully completed. Cuadra assumed the pen name of “Alejandro Almanza” and began writing in protest of the government he worked so hard to install. It was not long before he found himself one of the cornerstones of the new anti-communist movement, and subsequently sentenced to 15 years in a gulag on charges of acting as “an enemy of and spreading propaganda about the People’s Government.” After the imprisonment, the once respected and feared politico began to languish in obscurity amongst the very people he inspired to rise up against their oppressors. In spite of this, though, he managed to smuggle his poetry to Juana Rosa Pita, a contemporary who fled to Miami. These poems earned him the Miami Pluma de Oro in 1982 while still in prison, though he was released later the same year. Following his release, Cuadra fled to Miami and continued to pen poetry in addition to serving as an international jurist. He also heads the PEN Center dedicated to Cuban writers persecuted by the current regime and living in exile.

5. Nguyen Chi Thien

Nguyen Chi Thien served his very first prison sentence in 1960, though not for his writing. When asked to substitute for a friend’s history class, he noticed that the textbooks claimed the Soviet Union ended World War II by defeating Japan in Manchuria rather than the United States dropping the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because he told the students otherwise, the Vietnamese government sent him to both prison and reeducation and labor camps for a span of 3½ years. During this time, he occupied himself by meeting with fellow writers and dissidents and composing an extremely impressive number of poems which he kept within his own memory. Upon his release, he circulated many of these works underground as a grassroots form of protest – and ended up arrested once more in 1966 as a result. Though they held no tangible evidence towards his innocence or guilt, Nguyen Chi Thien served for 11 years more years for these poems. History repeated itself again in 1979 when he would go on to hand over 400 poems to the representatives at the British Embassy in Hanoi, only to end up incarcerated at Hoa Lo (or “Hanoi Hilton”) immediately afterwards. Now recognized as one of Amnesty International’s Prisoners of Conscience, after his release in 1991 (which required intervention from other nations) he sought refuge in the United States and continued to write poetry and nonfiction regarding his horrific experiences. One of the most harrowing volumes is actually a prose work titled Hoa Lo/Hanoi Hilton Stories, which tells the tale of 7 inmates Nguyen Chi Thien met during his stint.

6. Shahrnush Parsipur

A cornerstone of political, Iranian, and women’s literature, Shahrnush Parsipur boasts on oeuvre of 11 novels and 1 memoir in addition to a plethora of articles, essays, and stories. Her first novel, The Dog and the Long Winter, burst onto the scene in 1974 while she worked as a producer for a local television station. Soon after, however, she would resign from the position in protest of the torture and execution of two fellow writers – a move that resulted in her first incarceration. Following her release, she pursued a degree in Chinese language and philosophy before finding herself forced to return to Iran. Due to a misunderstanding, she ended up in prison yet again, this time for 4 years. Women Without Men, her third novel, earned her 2 more jail sentences due to its frank discussions of female sexuality. In 1994, she was able to flee and seek asylum in the United States, publishing many of her works which were staunchly refused publication in Iran. Even today, it is forbidden to print or read any of Parsipur’s works. But though her native land punished her for expressing an opinion, she has received a plethora of awards abroad, including 2 Hilman-Hammet Awards and an Honorary Tablet of Syrus the Great. Because she stood up to both the patriarchal and political atrocities she witnessed, Shahrnush Parsipur has fully earned her recognition as both a feminist and activist writer worth studying.

7. Breyten Breytenbach

Breyten Breytenbach is a true Renaissance man, expressing himself in poetry, prose, drama, and painting. After leaving his native South Africa, he eventually married a French woman from a Vietnamese background and was unable to return. Apartheid explicitly banned interracial marriages, and in retaliation Breytenbach founded Okhela – a human rights advocacy group that protested and raised awareness of the relevant issues associated with the South African government. When he tried to sneak back into the country under an assumed identity, he was promptly arrested for having penned the organization’s manifesto as well as numerous criticisms aimed at their practices. His sentence spanned 7 years and included 2 stints in solitary confinement, where he wrote and published A Season in Paradise. Other novels, poetry anthologies, and a memoir of his experiences in prison, titled True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, followed his release in 1984. Because Apartheid has since been abolished in South Africa and he is free to travel to and from the country with no fear, Breytenbach has turned his attentions towards human rights problems elsewhere in the world. His poetry has earned him loads of awards and professorships from around the world, and today he is continuously considered one of the greatest poets ever to write in Afrikaans.

8. Martha Kuwee Kumsa

Ethiopian writer, educator, and activist Martha Kuwee Kumsa currently teaches at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, but her route there is paved with heartwrenching devastation – and steely determination. She lived and worked in Addis Ababa during the “Red Terror” of the dictatorial Colonel Mengitsu Haile Mariam, which terrorized the Oromo peoples and left the streets of Ethiopia sprawling with dead bodies and other torments. At the time, her husband Leenco Lata led the Oromo Liberation Movement while she wrote bold newspaper columns intended to empower women and encourage them to embrace themselves, their culture, their country, and stand up against the oppressive regime. Both Kuwee Kumsa and Lata were arrested and underwent disgusting and humiliating torture for their political subversions, with the latter suffering from a game of cat-and-mouse that involved 4 separate rounds of arrest and corporeal punishment. Kuwee Kumsa sat in prison for 7 years – with absolutely no charges officially fired – and participated in the small educational community that sprung up as both a teacher and a student. After she was freed by the joint efforts of PEN and Amnesty International in 1989, she ended up reunited with her 3 children and fled to Kenya before finding refuge in Canada.

9. Ragip Zarakolu

Beyond his own writings, Ragip Zarakolu has been defying censorship laws in Turkey since 1977 through the Belge Publishing House – which he founded and operated with his late wife Ayse Nur. He began his writing career in 1968, though, penning articles for magazines regarding social justice violations in the country. Following a military uprising in 1971, he wound up in prison alongside his contemporaries for his progressive perspectives. Undeterred after the 3 year imprisonment ended, he spent the next 20 years barred from leaving the country and, in protest, never backed down from his beliefs and practices. In spite of a perpetual cycle of arrests, torture to both him and Ayse, bombings, and other scare tactics, Zarakolu’s press has continuously cranked out political documents intended to challenge Turkish government and society. He proudly publishes literature on taboo subject matter, including human rights violations against the Kurds and Armenians – including genocide. Books by Greek and Armenian protestors have a home here, as do those by current and former Turkish prisoners. Thus far, at least 40 court cases have been filed against him for this flagrant disobedience towards censorship standards. Never backing down in the face of total annihilation, he even serves as one founder of the Human Rights Association and chairman of the Freedom to Publish Committee facet of the Turkish Publishers Association.

10. Faraj Sarkouhi

Iranian writer and activist Faraj Sarkouhi and his family endured absolute physical and psychological hell for the sake of protesting the tight restrictions placed on creative types. His first arrest came in 1969 after penning a few protests against the Shah that found their way into student newspapers, with a second following in 1971 for the same reasons. Though the Islamic Revolution freed him early, Sarkouhi later fell out of their favor after founding, publishing, and editing Adineh – an independent literary magazine devoted to free thought and speech. In conjunction with numerous contemporaries, he penned and signed the “Declaration of 134 Writers,” a protest piece intended to criticize the Iranian government for their censorship practices. Doing so resulted in a bloody backlash, with many signatories losing their lives in horrifically painful fashions. Those who did not end up martyred for the cause of freedom underwent extreme torture and the persistent threat of a brutal execution – a fate suffered by Sarkouhi. By that point, his family had fled and found refuge in Germany. When he disappeared prior to an expected visit, they were left in abject despair as they pondered what became of their beloved husband and father. 40 days later, he would reemerge with a prepared statement his torturers had provided for him that led the public to believe he had made it to visit his family. However, a smuggled letter revealing the torment he suffered for his beliefs eventually led to yet another arrest – this time for one year with the charge of spreading propaganda. In 1998, Sarkouhi was able to reunite with his family in Germany, and he continues to write to this day.

These almost preternaturally brave men and women who looked into the eyes of a torturous, subjugating monster and made it blink deserve admiration for doing everything within their power to spread freedom and justice to an oppressed populace. They witnessed true suffering – when a society’s very human rights to expression, nourishment, education, medical care, a home, dignity, and the basic freedom to do as they wish without causing harm – and defied tyranny with their pens and their passions at the ready. Without their efforts as well as those of the myriad others unfortunately left off this list due to space constraints, thousands (if not millions) would continue to cower in fear of violence and marginalization. To read their stories is to understand how much of the world unfairly and tragically lives every day, but it can also inspire one to try even the most seemingly infinitesimal action to make the world just that much more enjoyable for someone. Even a seeming trifle holds the potential to resonate in a very big way.

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