PEN recognizes the write to be free

[Independent_Liberal]

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PEN recognizes the write to be free
Posted 4/19/2006 8:45 PM ET

By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY
Authors tend to complain. About their publishers or editors. About not selling enough books or getting enough attention.
But every spring, PEN, an international group of writers, holds a literary gala that puts the everyday concerns of authors in perspective. It honors writers, publishers and others, in the USA and abroad, who have defied authorities or been jailed in cases of free expression.

This year's gala Tuesday at New York's Museum of Natural History, beneath a 94-foot model of a blue whale, was hosted by ABC's Diane Sawyer. She said she was filling "the spiritual shoes of Peter Jennings," her late colleague "who traveled the world in search of the voices we honor."

Sawyer described the awards as a thank-you from all "those who think or write or work in the privilege of freedom."

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Awards went to:

• Rakhim Esenov, a novelist, historian and Radio Free Europe correspondent, who has been under house arrest in Turkmenistan since 2004. He was permitted to travel to the awards only at the last minute.

• Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who was fired in 2002 after she discovered what she considered poorly translated documents about 9/11. Edmonds, who has been called an "inconvenient patriot" by Vanity Fair, started the National Security whistle-blowers Coalition and a website, justacitizen.org.

• Mohammed Benchicou, a crusading newspaper publisher jailed in Algeria on charges he illegally brought money into the country. PEN says he's the first person in Algeria jailed on such charges.

• Mohamed Hashem, an Egyptian novelist and publisher whose books have been confiscated by civil and religious authorities.

Sawyer ended the evening by urging everyone to "remember that tomorrow morning, a lot of people will get up and pick up a pen and write in fear, and hope that we care."

For more on PEN and its international writers festival next week, visit pen.org.