Kurdish writer and filmmaker Behrouz Boochani has been detained and marooned on Manus Island for five years by the Australian government.

Seeking refuge from persecution in his own country, Behrouz has committed no crime, he has been held without charge. The refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru have suffered the most inhumane conditions and to date twelve have died while in immigration detention. Throughout this time Behrouz has kept writing, under impossible conditions. And now, we have his book – No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, translated from the Farsi by Omid Tofighian.

Seeking refuge from persecution in his own country, Behrouz has committed no crime, he has been held without charge. The refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru have suffered the most inhumane conditions and to date twelve have died while in immigration detention. Throughout this time Behrouz has kept writing, under impossible conditions. And now, we have his book – No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, translated from the Farsi by Omid Tofighian.

The PEN community is deeply saddened by the death of dissident writer, Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC) member and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, soon after his release from prison following his diagnosis of late-stage liver cancer. Xiaobo passed away on Thursday, July 13. Xiaobo had led an exceptional live and will always be remembered. More about it on PEN International News page.

The fact that Rosie Scott’s friends have known the desperate state of her health for many months doesn’t lighten the blow of losing her. A fine writer, a beautiful and generous friend has gone from among us. Over the last decade and a half we have grown to admire the Rosie Scott who will continue to be admired even by those who didn’t have the good fortune to know her. Rosie was a hero in the fight to give voices to the despised and rejected, and to make Australia a more generous and right-thinking place than venal politicians have, it seems, have made it.

Rosie Scott, with her co-editor Thomas Keneally, edited and saw through to publication two collections that reached out to one another like those who did the writing: the asylum-seekers for whom Rosie fought so unremittingly, and the Australian writers who, in the words of reviewer Di Cousens, “give us back our imagination” to understand suffering and to reject the policies that cause it. Another Country and A Country Too Far together record the huge disjunction of humanity, the monstrous injustice involved in delaying acceptance of refugees, in placing them in detention, and in desperately planning alternative destinations for them while reneging on our national undertakings under the U.N.

I remember Rosie, earlier in this century when we still tolerated detention centres on our own soil, standing to speak on the dusty South Australian country road in front of the gates of Baxter Detention Centre. She had gathered together activists for child detainees, supporters from the writing community including PEN—many come from other states—and people from Whyalla who were endeavouring to help the detainees, and launched Another Country in sight of that prison. Rosie went on to recruit the Australian writers for the second book, and continued working for publicity in many cities and venues.

When eventually the policies of rejection and detention are abandoned and condemned, it will be found that many were reached and many were humanised by Rosie’s work. She gave a public voice to the dozens of asylum-seekers she published and to the writers who cared.

Vale Rosie. You showed, to quote your Introduction to A Country Too Far, that “workable and compassionate ideas about this human tragedy are not only possible but essential for us as a nation”.

At PEN Melbourne we’re excited about our partnership with The Mildura Writers Festival and have recently had the pleasure of offering the second Mildura Indigenous Writers Award, in association with the Mallee District Aboriginal Services. The winner for the 2016 prize is Sianlee Harris with her story, ‘Memories’. To read Harris’s story as well as more about PEN’s celebrations at Mildura, download the latest PEN Quarterly.

The award is open to local Indigenous writers aged 16 years and over, for a short piece of fiction up to 2,000 words, or a poem (open theme). The winner is awarded a prize money of $1,200.
The 2017 entries will open in May 2017 and close on 1 July 2017

As jailed journalist Peter Greste describes it, 2014 was his annus horribilus.

But in a New Year message the Al Jazeera correspondent wrote to NSW MP Shaoquette Moselmane, he said although it had been a tough year, he and his colleagues had found “extraordinary support from unexpected quarters” and wanted to thank the NSW Parliament for passing a motion expressing support for the freedom of the press, human rights and the rule of law.

Egyptian officials say Australian Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste will be deported to Australia today.
Egyptian officials say Australian Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste will be deported to Australia today.CREDIT:AFP

“This experience has, of course, been extraordinarily difficult for the three of us Al Jazeera journalists and our families, but we also understand that our case has come to stand for so much more than our freedom alone,” he wrote from his cell in Mazraa Prison.

Greste was jailed for seven years in June when an Egyptian court found he and his Al Jazeera colleagues guilty of spreading false news to support the Muslim Brotherhood.

Greste was writing to Mr Moselmane after learning that Egypt’s Court of Cassation (equivalent to the Australian High Court) had ordered a retrial.

“This is a significant step towards the vindication that we seek, and that we know must come if a credible judicial system is involved,” Greste said in the letter.

“Although we will probably never be able to draw a direct line between the actions of our supporters and the authorities’ handling of our case here, I’m convinced that steps like your motion send a very clear message that the world is paying attention.”