PEN Berlin spotlight Alaa Abd el-Fattah at Frankfurt Book Fair

This Saturday at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the newly founded PEN Berlin will be hosting a panel entitled Die Ikone des Arabischen Frühlings und das Lieblingsland der deutschen Rüstungslobby (“The icon of the Arab spring and the German arms lobby’s favourite country”). Markus N. Beeko, secretary general of Amnesty International Germany, teneleven’s own Katharine Halls, and writer and PEN Berlin board member Ronya Othmann will discuss Germany’s uncomfortably warm relationship with the Sisi regime, and the work of imprisoned British-Egyptian writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah. The German translation of Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s collected writings is out in November with Wagenbach.

Alaa is an activist and writer imprisoned on trumped-up charges along with thousands of others. He has been on hunger strike for over 200 days and urgently needs international solidarity to secure his release. To learn more, visit freealaa.net, where you can also take action to help Alaa by writing to British and German politicians.

More details on the panel over at Wagenbach and PEN Berlin.

18/10/2022 by katia