Current Issues and Events

Iranian Publisher to Receive First Annual
Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award

New York, NY, April 2, 2003: The International Freedom to Publish Committee of the Association of American Publishers announced today that the first Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award will be given to Iranian publisher Farkhondeh Hajizadeh, who is also a writer, poet, and the editor of two literary journals.

Created last year, the prize will be given annually to a book publisher outside the United States who has demonstrated courage in defending freedom of expression and fortitude in the face of political persecution.

Farkhondeh Hajizadeh was born in 1953 in the village of Bezanjan Baft, and was one of the few girls who received an elementary education in the village school. Ms. Hajizadeh launched her publishing career in 1993, when she and her son Pejman Soltani received a permit from the Ministry of Guidance to establish Vistar Publications. Since then, they have published more than 60 books, mainly in art, music, contemporary literature, and education, despite constant pressure from the Ministry of Guidance. Many Vistar books have been banned before publication; many more have been banned and destroyed immediately after they were printed, a tactic calculated to cripple publishers financially. Permits to publish are routinely withheld, sometimes delaying publication for years. Vistar has survived threats and extreme economic pressure. In 2001 Ms. Hajizadeh and her brother started a second publishing company which is also pressing for permits to publish banned literary works.

Ms. Hajizadeh continues to publish in the face of her own personal knowledge of how dangerous literary activity can be in Iran. In 1998, her brother Hamid Hajizadeh, a poet, was murdered in his sleep along with his 10 year-old son in a brutal series of killings which targeted writers and intellectuals.

The International Freedom to Publish Committee, established in 1975 by the Association of American Publishers, was one of the first groups in the world formed specifically to defend and broaden the freedom of the written word, and to protect and promote the rights of book publishers and authors around the world. Among its activities, the Committee monitors and publicizes free expression issues around the world, sends fact-finding missions to countries where free expression is under siege, lobbies both at home and overseas on behalf of persecuted book publishers, and offers moral support and practical assistance to threatened publishers abroad.

The award is named in honor of Jeri Laber, one of the founding members of the IFTPC and the Committee's professional advisor for the past twenty-seven years. She was a co-founder of Helsinki Watch, which ultimately became Human Rights Watch, and was Executive Director of Helsinki Watch from 1979 to 1995. Her memoir, The Courage of Strangers: Coming of Age with the Human Rights Movement, was published in 2002 by Public Affairs Books.

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade organization of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP's approximately 300 members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. The defense of intellectual freedom at home and freedom of expression worldwide, the protection of intellectual property rights in all media, and the promotion of reading and literacy are among the Association's primary concerns.

The award will be presented at the PEN American Center annual Gala on April 22nd at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.

For more information about this award, please contact Wendy Wolf at Viking (wwolf@penguinputnam.com).

Nan Graham
Chair, International Freedom to Publish Committee

The International Freedom to Publish Committee is deeply disturbed by the arrest and sentencing of Liu Weifang, an Internet publisher in China and has sent the following letter of protest.

His Excellency Jiang Zemin
State Council
Beijing 100032, P.R.China

His Excellency Xiao Yang Buzhang
Minister of Justice
Sifabu, Xiaguangli
Beijing 100016, P.R.China

July 27, 2001

Your Excellencies:

We write on behalf of the Association of American Publishers, a nongovernmental organization that represents the major publishing houses in the United States. Our members are deeply disturbed by the arrest and sentencing of Liu Weifang, an Internet publisher. We are also concerned about reports that your government has shut down some 2,000 Internet cafes across the country and has ordered some 6,000 others to suspend operations and make changes. All of these actions are a threat to the basic right to publish freely and without state censorship.

We are informed that Liu Weifang was convicted of subversion in June of this year by the Ninth Agricultural Brigade District's Intermediate People's Court in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and sentenced to three years of imprisonment. His conviction, we believe, was solely on the basis of his essays published on the Internet.

The Association of American Publishers considers the detention of Liu Weifang a violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which China has signed. We ask for Liu Weifang's immediate and unconditional release.

Sincerely,

Patricia Schroeder
President

Nan Graham
Chair, International Freedom to
Publish Committee

The International Freedom to Publish Committee is concerned about the safety of Afghan writer Esmat Qaney and his publisher Mustafa Sahar. The two have been called "apostates" by the Taliban government and have received death threats. The committee has sent the following letters to officials in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, where the men have sought refuge. We urge others to do the same.

General Pervez Musharraf
Chief Executive, National Security Council
General Block, Pakistan Secretariat
Islamabad
Pakistan

January 25, 2001

Dear Sir:

The Association of American Publishers, representing the publishing industry in the United States, is deeply concerned about the safety of Afghan writer Esmat Qaney and his publisher, Mustafa Sahar. The two men have been labeled as "apostates" by Taliban religious leaders for their publication of a collection of Qaney's short stories. Ths has led to death threats against them.

Mr. Qaney and Mr. Sahar have sought refuge in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.

In recent years, more than a dozen Afghan intellectuals living as refugees in Pakistan have been assassinated and many more have received death threats. These attacks are believed to have been politically motivated, and we fear that the same fate may be in store for Mr. Qaaney and Mr. Sahar.

We respectfully urge that the government of Pakistan immediately take decisive steps to end the harassment and intimidation of Afghan writers and journalists living in exile in northern Pakistan, in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations Universal declaration of Human Rights.

Respectfully,

Patrica Schroeder President

Patrica Schroeder
President

The International Freedom to Publish Committee, deeply distressed by the recent sentences given to intellectuals in Iran, has sent the following letters of protest. The committee urges people and institutions everywhere to do the same.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran

January 25, 2001

Your Excellency:

The Association of American Publishers, representing the publishing industry in the United States, is deeply concerned about the harsh sentences handed down by a Revolutionary court in Tehran on January 13, 2001. The defendants were tried for attending an international conference organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, Germany, in April 2000.

Among those sentenced are writer and journalist Akbar Ganji and translator Said Sadr, who were sentenced to ten years in prison and Mr. Ganji to an additional five years in internal exile. Translator Khalil Rostamkhani, who did not even attend the Berlin conference although he was involved in its preparation, received a prison sentence of nine years. Publisher Shahla Lahiji, and writer and lawyer Mahrangiz Kar, both women's rights activists, each received four-year sentences. Journalist Mr. Raisdana, student leader Ali-Reza Afshari, and political activist Ezzatollah Sahabi received three- to five-year prison terms. Three others - writer Kazem Kardavani (Secretary of the Iranian Writers Organization), translator Roshanak Daryoush, and writer and professor Changuiz Pahlevan - were traveling abroad when the charges were pressed and have not returned to Iran to face charges.

We are especially concerned about Ms. Kar, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She has sought to leave the country for medical treatment but has been banned from travel.

Another accused participant in the Berlin conference, Hojatoleslam Hassan Youssefi Eshkevari, remains in prison awaiting sentencing by a Special Court for the Clergy on charges of apostasy, which may carry the death penalty.

We believe there is no basis to the charges that they "conspired to overthrow the system of the Islamic Republic." They appear to be victims of a politically-motivated prosecution intended to discredit the cause of political reform, to punish leading reformists, to intimidate independent thinkers, and to chill dissent.

The defendants, who participated openly in an international conference, were exercising their fundamental right to freedom of expression and to impart and receive information, rights that are protected under international treaty law to which Iran is a state party. Article 19 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:

Everyone shall have the freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

cc: Kofi Annan
Secretary Genral
United Nations
New York, NY

The IFTP Committee is pleased to report that on September 29, 2000, journalist Nadire Mater and her publisher Semih Sokmen, accused by a Turkish court of "insulting" the military, were acquitted of all charges. The ban on the book in question "Mehmed's Book: Soldiers Who Have Fought in the Southeast Speak Out," has been lifted.

Mater and her publishers, Metis Publications, were indicted on charges that the book, which consists of interviews with 42 Turkish soldiers, "insults the military and thus violates Article 159 of the Penal Code." Mater's book recounts conversations with soldiers who describe the mistreatment of Kurdish civilians in southeastern Turkey. The soldiers also complain of rampant corruption and drug smuggling within the army.

In a letter informing the IFTP Committee of the verdict, Ms. Mater wrote:"I would like to give you good news this time. I am acquitted and the publisher Semih Sokmen as well. It is the victory of all of your support and solidarity. You have never allowed me to feel alone. That was great. Many thanks."