In memory of absent voices

Tonight I went to an event co-hosted by Front Line Defenders, the international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders, and Irish PEN, to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer. Several well-known Irish writers, Brian Keenan, Justine McCarthy and Núala Ní Dhomhnaill, read from the works of prominent writers around the world who have been imprisoned for what their pens put on paper.

It was impressive. Some of the works were quietly indignant, one being almost a forensic account of what had led to Thai writer Somyot Pruesakasemsuk's imprisonment, some others moving, like the love letter written by Iranian writer Shiva Azar Nahari from her cell, where she is surrounded by other free-thinkers, to her husband, who is imprisoned in a different prison. And some, like Turkish writer Muharram Erbey's description of the different seasons, as experienced from behind bars, were heartbreaking.

I find it very strange to call myself a blogger. I guess I am. But for anyone like me, who can just translate their thoughts to a page and consider it 'published' without suffering for it, it's so important to remember, and pay hommage to these lone voices who speak to the world from paper because the voices that should speak these words can't reach us in any other way.