PEN Tree Planting

[Subhash Jaireth]

                I hope that the following may be of some interest to the
subscribers of the list


                Subhash Jaireth


>This year ACT PEN  dedicating a plaque and a tree to the memory of Larissa
>Yudina (journalist stabbed to death June '98) and Galina Staravoitova
>(politician shot dead November '98)
>>
>Larisa Yudina, 53, was a prominent journalist and political activist. She
>was  editor of the opposition Sovietskaya Kalmykia Segodnya newspaper in
the >southern autonomous republic of Kalmykia, and was also the
co-chairperson
of >the local branch of the pro-reform Yabloko party. She was investigating
>reports of corrupt business practices by regional officials when she
>disappeared on June 7. That day she went to meet a source who promised to
>give her evidence of financial improprieties by local firms involved in an
>effort by Kalmyk President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to set up an offshore zone in
>the republic. She was found dead on June 8 in the outskirts of the Kalmyk
>capital, Elista, with multiple stab wounds and a fractured skull.
>Yudina was frequently harassed and threatened for her exposés of local
>corruption and hard-line rule by the republic's millionaire president. For
>several years she was forced to publish Sovietskaya Kalmykia Segodnya, the
>only alternative news outlet in the republic, in neighboring Volgograd
after>President Ilyumzhinov ordered local printing presses to stop printing
issues >of the paper. Her troubles with Kalmyk authorities as a journalist
and
local >leader of the liberal opposition Yabloko party were documented by
>international and Russian media, and press freedom groups, but elicited no
>response from Russian leaders. Her death prompted public protests in
Elista, >as people demanded a federal investigation into her murder.
Hundreds of
>residents gathered for Yudina's funeral on June 10.
>
>Galina Starovoitova, 52, a member of the national Parliament, had been one
>of the new Russia's original democrats. She was a steadfast human-rights
>advocate who stood shoulder to shoulder with Andrei Sakharov in the late
>1980s, and with Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s. She was fighting both an
>increasingly criminalized regime in her home city (St. Petersburg) and the
>antisemitic threats of fellow parliamentarian General Albert Makashov
>(Communist Party). Late on the evening of Nov. 20, 1998 two gunmen waited
>for her on the first-floor landing of her St. Petersburg apartment. They
>killed her as she walked up the steps, seriously wounded her press
secretary >and then casually left their weapons behind. It was the most
brazen
>political assassination yet in the bloody, seven-year history of the new
>Russia.
>>
>TREE PLANTING DETAILS:
>>Date Sunday November 21st
>>Time 11AM
>>Place  Lennox Gardens (behind Hyatt Hotel next to lake, PEN Memorial Walk)
>
>INFORMATION ABOUT CANBERRA CENTRE INTERNATIONAL PEN:
>
>International PEN is a transnational network of writers who share a common
>concern for the craft and art of writing and who are committed to freedom
of >expression through the written word. It is a forum where writers meet
freely >to discuss their work. It is also a voice speaking out for writers
silenced
>in their own countries.
>
>Founded in London in 1921, PEN is the leading voice of literature
worldwide, >bringing together poets, novelists, essayists, historians,
critics,
>translators, editors, journalists and screenwriters. PEN has an
>international presence, with 126 centres operating in 91 countries.
>
>The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN was set up in 1960 as
a >result of mounting concern about attempts to silence critical voices
through >the detention of writers. It works on behalf of all those who are
detained
>or otherwise persecuted for their written opinions and for writers who are
>under attack for their peaceful political activities or for the practice of
>their profession, provided that they did not use violence or advocate
racial >hatred.
>
>Member centres of International PEN are active in campaigning for an
>improvement in the conditions of persecuted writers and journalists. They
>send letters to the governments concerned and lobby their own governments
to >campaign for the release of detained writers and for investigations in
cases >of torture and killings. Through writing to the families and, where
>possible, directly to prisoners, they provide encouragement and hope.
>
>International PEN has consultative status at the United Nations Commission
>on Human Rights and with UNESCO.
>
>PEN ACT has been active in Canberra, the Australian capital, for over ten
>years, and has been able to take advantage of the proximity of Parliament
>House, Embassies and the national media.