Central Asian PEN Centre

Central Asian PEN Centre

Microregion 4, house #7 office 24
Bishkek
Kyrgyzstan
Mail – penasia@mail.ru , dalmira@mail.ru

President – Dalmira Tilepbergenova
Vice-President – Topchugul Shaidullaeva
Secretary – Vera Iversen

• The International Central Asia PEN Centre (СAPC) is an international NPO with no ties to any country’s government.  Its members are writers, editors, translators, researchers, publishers, poets, historians, actors, musicians, artists, etc. Its long term goal, in the spirit of the International PEN Charter is to promote freedom of expression as a crucial element of a healthy and vibrant civil society in Central Asia, and to work towards becoming a strong, independent voice defending civil liberties from within Central Asia.
  
• Our short-term goals are:  to strengthen commitment among those who support the defense of  freedom of expression for all, focussing on Central Asia where people are suffering from poverty and neglect of human rights ; to protect the civil and legal rights of the imprisoned, harassed and banned Central Asian writers and artists and to organize campaigns for drawing international attention to the plight of the Central Asian writers under the problem to poverty and human rights of Central Asia.

• The concrete aims we are planning to reach this year are: to go online with a bilingual website in July;  to organize a women writers meeting in collaboration with Rita Dahl, Finnish PEN under the working title “Women and Terrorism”; to organize a campaign for the “Writers in Prison Day ” in Bishkek with the support and cooperation of other Asian PEN Centers;  to organize a meeting with the Central Asian and Caucasus writers group “Issyk-Kul – Kaspi”.

• We will be glad to be in contact and work with all PEN centers who can and wish to collaborate with us.

Read and listen to the poem in...

Kyrgyz

Kazakh