{"id":2667,"date":"2022-04-18T13:12:41","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T10:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pen-greece.org\/?p=2667"},"modified":"2022-04-18T13:12:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T10:12:41","slug":"pen-america-freedom-to-write-index-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pen-greece.org\/en\/pen-america-freedom-to-write-index-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"PEN America: Freedom to Write Index 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n

On February 1, 2021, a military coup violently disrupted Myanmar\u2019s fragile and uncertain experiment with civilian rule. Writers and filmmakers were among those immediately imprisoned. Protesters and poets were soon shot in the streets. As this report goes to press, the world\u2019s eyes are on Russia\u2019s brutal, devastating assault on Ukraine\u2014its people, language and culture, and democracy. Putin\u2019s unbridled aggression, however, is part of a larger resurgence of authoritarianism around the globe.<\/p>\n

The past year has repeatedly seen authoritarian forces seek to reclaim powers and territories that had previously passed outside their control; the echoes of the past are heard not only in Europe, but in Myanmar, where the military\u2019s naked attempt to retrieve its lost power brought shock, horror, and then resistance; and in Afghanistan, where the Taliban\u2019s swift recapture of the country following U.S. military withdrawal seemed to\u2014almost overnight\u2014decimate the progress Afghans had painstakingly made over the last 20 years and are struggling to uphold, including with regard to women\u2019s rights, freedom of expression, cultural and artistic creativity, and the development of independent media. From Tunisia to Sudan to Nicaragua, old forces re-exerted themselves and moved to quash democratic progress. And in Hong Kong, a city with a robust history of vibrant freedoms, the reach of the Chinese government has been extended, most formally in the application of the National Security Law against writers and independent media. This has not only led to a crackdown, but also created a climate of looming fear and a sense that safety may only lie in silence, or exile. In Russia, a concerted effort to eliminate what remained of independent media and the space for dissent over recent years laid the groundwork for Putin to maintain total information control in wartime.<\/p>\n

In democracies as well, authoritarian tactics are being employed. Censorship and intimidation of dissenting voices is rife in India. In the United States, efforts to ban books and enact laws that would bar discussion of certain topics in classrooms spiked in 2021. Much of this debate centered around the freedom to contend with and openly debate the complexities of history. This, too, has echoes around the globe. Just before Russian troops began this latest incursion into Ukraine, Putin gave a speech in which he attempted to rewrite Ukraine\u2019s history to suit his own ends. For years now, Putin has held in prison the historian\u00a0Yury Dmitriev<\/a>\u00a0on specious charges of child pornography; Dmitriev\u2019s true crime was uncovering and documenting mass graves from the Stalinist era, a historical truth that contradicted Putin\u2019s attempts to whitewash and glorify the memory of Stalin. Government attempts to silence those who study, document, and debate history are typically also an attempt to exert a sole narrative over the past, one that serves the interests of the present.<\/p>\n

Yet in all of these cases, authoritarian regimes have been met with resistance. In Myanmar, widespread and sustained civil disobedience\u2014including the creative resistance of writers and artists\u2014followed the coup. Afghan women refused to be silenced and they, too, have taken to the streets. Belarusians have continued their resistance against a president holding onto power despite an election he seemed to think he could steal without a fight. And today, Putin must contend not only with the fierce resistance of the Ukrainian people, but also Russians inside the country and around the world who persist in speaking the truth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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