A bit of a serious note, but a very important issue for this fortnight’s BookMachine article. As ever, read the rest of the article over on the BookMachine blog:
On Saturday, Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist, Nasser Amin challenged the law stating the Egyptian authorities are allowed to imprison writers who publish works that are in ‘violation of the public morals’. The statement was made during the court trial of Ahmed Naji, who had an excerpt of his novel The Use of Life, published in Akhbar al-Adab magazine in August 2014. The piece contained explicit sex acts and made reference to the hashish that was used by the main characters. Under the current law, this is enough for the authorities to jail him.
Yet, Nasser Amin isn’t the only writer struggling to exercise his right to freedom of expression. Every year, huge numbers of writers, bloggers and journalists around the world are imprisoned, detained, or even killed, for what they have written. Even now, at a time of year when many of us are thinking about hunkering down with family for the winter, persecuted writers are facing sentences and threats that leave them alone, fearful and in danger.
Continue reading “BookMachine | Not at Home for the Holidays: The writers behind bars for freedom of expression”