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PRESS
RELEASE FROM THE SWEDISH PEN CENTRE, MONDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
2006
Tucholsky Scholarship goes to Nasser Zarafshan
The
Swedish PEN Centre has decided to award the Iranian writer and
lawyer Nasser Zarafshan the 2006 Tucholsky Scholarship. The
scholarship is awarded on a yearly basis to a writer or publisher
who is/has been persecuted, threatened or imprisoned on account
of his or her writing.
Mr Zarafshan is at present serving a five-year term in Evin
Prison, Tehran. In 2002 he was sentenced to a three-year term
for disclosing state secrets, two years for possession of arms,
and fifty lashes for possession of alcohol. As a lawyer he defended
a number of the writers and intellectuals who were tried for
a series of political assassinations in Iran in 1998.
The Swedish PEN Centre has followed Nasser Zarafshan's case
closely via the work done by the Writers in Prison Committee
of International PEN. Mr Zarafshan is an honorary member of
the Swedish PEN Centre.
The Tucholsky Scholarship consists of 150 000 Swedish Crowns,
the original idea of which is to make it possible for the recipient
of the scholarship to spend some time in Sweden writing and
resting from the trauma of imprisonment and persecution.
The Tucholsky Scholarship was created in the 1980's to honour
the German writer Kurt Tucholsky, who took refuge in Sweden
from Nazi Germany in the 1930's. Mr Tucholsky committed suicide
in Sweden in 1935 while waiting to receive his permanent residency
in Sweden. The Swedish PEN Centre sees the Scholarship as a
means of honouring freedom of expression and a way to give support
and aid to writers suffering from persecution.
Adam Zagajevski, Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasrin, Svetlana Alexievich,
Faraj Sarkoohi and Flora Brovina are a few of the writers who
have previously been awarded the Tucholsky Scholarship.
Further
information:
Ms Maria Modig +46-(0) 736- 24 18 60
Mr Morteza Saghafian +46-(0)704-47 46 58
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