PEN International

Uzbekistan and the International Parliament of Writers

This international institution was founded in 1993 in Strasbourg, France. The organisation has branches in Brussels, Paris and Barcelona. Woyle Soyinka was selected as its president. Outstanding writers around the world are became active members of organisation's administrative board. There are a lot of famous writers, who had been imprisoned or persecuted in the past due to their creative professions.  Followings are the organisation's main activities:
Protect exiled writers and poets, translate their works and publish them and make them known to the public
organise and conduct socio-political activities in order to achieve their release from prisons and to make their works known, morally and materially provide their families.
Organise medical treatment in order to accelerate their recovery in developed countries' hospitals
Find countries which can provide refuge or other forms of humanitarian protection for them and their families and facilitate to rescue them from dictatorial regimes and persecution

My previous life might be taken as a pattern: in 1997 I was invited to Lausanne, Switzerland together with my family due to mutual agreement between Parliament of Writers and Lausanne's municipality. My name was selected among other several writers and official authorities carefully considered it throughout the past year. According to some sources Swiss Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan even gathered information about me from various opposition and human rights activists. Finally, in May 1998, we received a visa and a ticket to fly to Switzerland. In this context, I
want to thank all people who gave correct and appropriate information about me and who have told
what they really thought about me when they were questioned by Swiss authorities. From 1998 to 2010 I was busy with fighting the influential propagandists of Karimov's dictatorship within Swiss society. Together with local artists and human rights activists we succeeded in changing the public opinion. We explained the contents of our meetings held with representatives of the local
population to inform about the real situation in Uzbekistan to different
newspapers and journals and I published a series of articles in the "Zurich
Zeitung", "La Tongue", "La Liberté", "Pladoyer". Together with the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations in Geneva, I took part in the preparation of documents dedicated to torture and ill-treatment in Uzbekistan, addressed to the General Assembly. I signed a special paper that I
was ready to testify about the contents of these documents. Of course, this kind of activities do not please the Government of Uzbekistan. Nor are rich Swiss businessmen going idle who maintain trade relations with Uzbekistan. They tried to organise my deportation from Switzerland to Uzbekistan.
 As a result, the newspaper begged my pardon two weeks later and published a long article about the true situation in Uzbekistan and about my personality. Now, I want to continue to explain my thoughts about the International Parliament of Writers, with which I continue to cooperate. Continuously, letters are being send to the Government of Uzbekistan demanding the release of Mamadali Mahmudov. I write letters to the Board of the Parliament of Writers giving witness statements about the time I spent with him in Karimov's prisons. Taking the opportunity, I want to speak about the poet Alihon. He is forgotten by most of people. He is originally from Kokand and published three or four books. He was a member of the Union of Writers of Uzbekistan. He published critical articles about different subjects in the Uzbek press. In 1993 and the following
years he was detained among mentally ill prisoners in the Sangorod prison. Then, he fell under an amnesty and was released. However, as he could not flee, he was imprisoned a second time. Unfortunately, we can not receive any news about him. We are expecting help and cooperation from those people who know Alihon. Due to financial problems nowadays Parliament of Writers stopped its activity and I would like to say that thanks to that organisation Yodgor Obid and myself were granted creative refugee status in safe countries.

Safar Bekjon,
Lausanne,
Switzerland