Opening Night: Free the Word!

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On the opening night of the festival the freedom of speech and the power of the word are highlighted. The opening speech will be held by Dutch writer and journalist Ian Buruma. With the award ceremony of the prestigious Oxfam Novib/PEN Awards for Freedom of Expression PEN and Oxfam Novib honour international writers, journalists and film makers who, sometimes risking their own lives, seek the truth and make it known. The three winners are announced in January and one of them will take delivery of the prize.

The award winning ceremony is followed by a debate on social media in the struggle against repression, with among others Dutch writers Marente de Moor and Frank Westerman. Social media form an increasingly influential stage for the cultivation of the free word. Through their own sites, facebook pages and blogs writers, journalists and other citizens can give their opinions outside official channels, expose evils and fight forms of repression and corruption. How can we, as citizens of a growing 'Global Community' guarantee this freedom of expression? How can we prevent governments from curbing that freedom? Meanwhile in many places worldwide internet papers are controlles and bloggers prosecuted and detained.  

The Alderman for Culture of the Municipality of The Hague Marjolein de Jong welcomes the audience. Arabist Petra Stienen presents the evening and leads the discussion. With music by the Uighur Trio Mäshräp. 

The programme is in English, and organised in cooperation with PEN International, PEN Nederland and Oxfam Novib.

Information

Date and time Thursday 16 January 2014 from 20:00 to 22:00 hrs
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

Line-up

Petra Stienen

(Roermond, NL, 1965) studied Arabic and Middle East studies. Her second book was published in 2012: Het andere Arabische geluid (The Other Arab Voice), about voices of humanity and hope during the hectic transition period in the new Middle East. Her first book Dromen van een Arabische lente (Dreaming of an Arab Spring, 2008) was about the life and work of a human-rights diplomat in the Arab world. In both books she goes in search of the kind of stories that get little attention in Western media. Currently, Stienen is a publicist and independent consutant. She writes for NRC Handelsblad and De Volkskrant newspapers, has a column in the women's monthly magazine Opzij, and reguarly appears as a commentator on radio and television programmes and in debates at home and abroad.
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Trio Mäshräp

A mäshräp is a family gathering with a lot of food, song and poetry. The Abas family, originally from Uyghur in western China (East Turkestan), forms the core of the Ensemble Mäshräp. The family moved to the Netherlands some ten years ago. Their repertoire consists of ballads, folk songs and cassical music from the region. The Uyghurs have a very old and particularly rich culture. The music is a subtle mix of western, Arab and Asian ingredients. The age old songs (sometimes dating back to the Middle Ages) ) are dedicated to love, worldy wisdoms and traditional feast days. Particularly the On-iki muqam classical song and dance suites have become well-known in the region in the course of the centuries. The soloist and the percussionist can allow themselves to freely improvise on the melodic lines. At the opening night of the festival you will hear the Trio Mäshräp, with Gulendem Abas (soloist, tambourine), Kamil Abas (rawap, drum and ghidjek) and Jawdet Yadikar (ney, dutar).
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Oksana Chelysheva

(Russia, 1968) is a journalist and human rights defender. Since 2003 she has been covering the situation in the North Caucasus being the editor of the Russian-Chechen Information Agency established by the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. After the organization was banned in Russia, being one of the first victims of the anti-extremism legislation, the work has continued by moving the legal entity of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society to Finland. In 2008 Chelysheva had to stay in Finland, due to the never-ending threats. She has been contributing to Novaya Gazeta, Svobodnaya Pressa, kasparov.ru as a journalist covering a broad range of HR problems starting from the right of the people for the cultural and architectural heritage, to the situation in the armed conflict-affected North Caucasus as well as politically motivated reprisals against NGOs and activists of the movements in opposition to the Kremlin. Chelysheva is the author of the book “I have been followed in the streets” published in Finland by INTO in 2013 and a co-author of the “International Tribunal for Chechnya” legal study published in 2009 by Sputnik Oy in Finland. In 2014, at the Writers Unlimited Festival in The Hague, she was awarded the prestigious Oxfam Novib PEN Award for Freedom of Expression.
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Manon Uphoff

(The Netherlands, 1962) is a Dutch writer, screenwriter and visual artist. She made her debut in 1995 with the collection of short stories Begeerte (Desire), which was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize, the Anton Wachter Prize and the ECI Prize. The title story was awarded the Rabobank Spring Prize for Literature. Her first novel Gemis (1997) was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize. Her most recent book, Vallen is als vliegen (Falling is Like Flying, 2019), was shortlisted for both the 2019 Bookspot Literature Prize and the 2020 Libris Literature Prize. The novel was named the best Dutch-language novel of 2019 by NRC Handelsblad and Humo. Uphoff was editor of the literary magazine De Revisor and board member and president of PEN Netherlands. As a screenwriter, she wrote the feature film screenplay Een Groot Geweld (Topkapi Films).
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Frank Westerman

(Emmen, NL, 1964) studied tropical agricultural engineering and was a correspondent for the Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad newspapers in Belgrade and Moskow. He wrote about his time there in 1994's De Brug over de Tara (The Bridge over the River Tara). Together with journalist Bart Rijs he wrote 1997's  Srebrenica, Het zwartste scenario (Srebrenica, the Blackest Scenario). Ingenieurs van de ziel (Engineers of the Soul) was published in 2002, an inquiry into the foundations of the Soviet system and the role of writers. De Graanrepubliek (The Grain Republic), about the struggle between rich gentlemen farmers and communist workers in Groningen, was published earlier. Westerman's novel El Negro en ik (El Negro and Me), inspired by a preserved South African in a Spanish museum, was published in 2004 and won the Gouden Uil prize. His revised and augmented 2015 edition of De Slag om Srebrenica (The Battle for Srebrenica) won the Prinsjes Book Prize for best political book. Een woord een woord (One Word One Word) appeared in 2016, in which he tests the strength of free speech under the pressure of terrorist threats. As a child, he experienced the Molukkan train hijacking at close quarters; as a correspondent, he witnessed Chechen terror in Russia. Drawing on these gripping experiences, he describes a series of hostage dramas. In Zeven dieren bijten terug (Seven Animals Bite Back), Frank Westerman encounters seven magnificent creatures in the wake of Willem Barentsz. Along the way, the reader becomes captivated by the wondrous tale of seven polar animals and what they have to tell us at our latitude.
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Marente de Moor

(The Hague, 1972) made her mark with the novels she wrote so far. In 2007 De Moor made her debut with De overtreder (The offender). In 2011 she won the AKO Literature Prize with De Nederlandse maagd (The Dutch virgin), in which an 18-year-old goes in search of her father's war past in 1936. Roundhay, tuinscene (2013) tells about Louis Le Prince, who made a short film long before Edison and Lumière. De Moor studied at St Petersburg's drama school, worked in Russia as a correspondent and wrote articles and columns for De Groene Amsterdammer. In 1999 her columns were compiled under the title Petersburgse vertellingen (Petersburg stories). Her novel Foon (2018), set at an abandoned house in the woods around Saint Petersburg, was awarded the Jan Wolkers Prize for best nature book and the F. Bordewijk Prize.
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Ian Buruma

(The Hague, NL, 1951) is a sinologist, japanologist, journalist and writer. Asian culture, democracy, religion, politics, Islamic fundamentalism, and the aftermath of World War II are returning subjects in his vast body of work. His essays have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, NRC and The New York Review of Books. Buruma grew up in The Hague, the child of a British mother and a Dutch father. His book Their Promised Land: My grandparents in times of love and war tells the story of his London-born, German-Jewish grandparents. He has been a professor of democracy, human rights and journalism in New York since 2003. He received the Erasmus Prize in 2008.
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Farah Karimi

(Iran, 1960) is a member of the Senate of the Dutch Parliament (Eerste Kamer) since June 2019 for GroenLinks. From 2008 to 2018 she chaired the Executive Board of Oxfam Novib. Karimi is highly experienced in the field of international cooperation and human rights, and she is a strategic delevopment coach for leadership and organisational change. She came to Europe as a political refugee in 1983. She studied in the Netherlands and was a member of the Dutch House of Representatives for GroenLinks (Green Left) from 1998 till 2006. In 2007 she helped to establish the Afghan parliament as a consultant with the UN branch UNDP. As an administrator, she was involved with the advisory board of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, among other projects. She chairs the Board of Stichting Writers Unlimited since 2018. Karimi has written thee books: Slagveld Afghanistan (Battlefield Afghanistan, 2006), with co-author Chris Keulemans Het geheim van het vuur (The Secret of Fire, 2007) and In naam van de vrijheid: hoe de wereld na 9/11 steeds onvrijer is geworden (In the name of freedom: how our world has become increasingly unfree after 9/11, 2021).
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Laura McVeigh

is the Executive Director of PEN International. Laura has senior management experience in journalism, publishing, human rights, on international issues and within the charity sector. Prior to joining PEN International she was Global Girls Fund Director.
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Marjolein de Jong

(Emmen, Netherlands, 1959) until May 2014 was Deputy Mayor and The Hague's alderman for Culture, City Centre and International Affairs as well as the City Centre district. She has had a long career in tourism and the restaurant and catering industry, which took her to Limburg, Spain and back to the Netherlands. Marjolein has been living in The Hague since 1999 and has been a member of The Hague Municipal Council since 2002. In 2005 she became leader of the D66 party in the Municipal Council.
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