Sampsonia Way is a street known for its City of Asylum residency houses – where art and writing come together to play an active role in the neighborhood. Writers like Wole Soyinka, Sapphire and Salman Rushdie have all had their pictures taken in front of the Poem House where Huang Xiang, an exiled poet from China, lived for almost three ...

Telecoms regulators of the United Arab Emirates recently blocked all encrypted email and data communications over Blackberry’s, to the chagrin of many users. The action reduced the high-end devices to little more than mobile phones capable of only SMS and voice calls. Demands for Research In Motion (RIM) to open its encrypted network are not new. Almost two years ago ...

Graphic: © ICORN.org This year, the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN, celebrates 50 years of defending freedom of expression around the world with a year-long campaign - Because Writers Speak their Minds. As part of this campaign, the Committee looks back on 50 emblematic cases illustrating how and why they have worked. One case on this list is ...

This article is an excerpt from Lucy Popescu‘s Silenced Voices. An extended version of this article was originally published in the Literary Review. Human rights groups around the world have welcomed the news that the Cuban government has agreed to release a number of political prisoners. The amnesty includes 22 writers, journalists and librarians arrested and sentenced during the ‘Black Spring’ ...

Graphic: © ExpressionForum.org Since 2005, the International Cities of Refugee Network has been aiding writers in danger by providing them with safe places to live and material support. ICORN is an association of cities around the world who share a common mission: to preserve freedom of expression and to respond to politically motivated threats and persecution writers face in their home countries. Sampsonia ...

In this video created by Rattapallax magazine exclusively for Sampsonia Way, the poet Edward Hirsch talks about Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s deep and lasting influence on him. Neruda went into exile in 1949 after the Radical Party President Gabriel González Videla outlawed communism and issued a warrant for Neruda’s arrest. After being in exile for nearly 30 years and winning ...

From left to right: Khet Mar, Whan Than, Linn Thit Nway Oo, George Wilson, Than Htay The Mexican War streets have a particular smell: a faint odor of burning wood, pepper, and spices. This smell so permeated my childhood, I didn’t notice it until I moved away for college. Coming back home, I would drink in the smoky aroma that settles ...

Vakhtang Komakhidze was an investigative journalist in Georgia with a nose for a story and a record of annoying the authorities. His revelations of official corruption ended in the death threats which forced him to seek asylum in Switzerland. Robin Oisín Llewellyn talked to him about the limits of media freedom in Georgia. Having described the brutality reporters faced under Eduard ...

The 1994 Rwandan genocide left an estimated 800,000 Rwandans dead over a 100-day period, while millions more, like this man, were disfigured and raped. Photo: © http://www.indybay.org/ The Rwandan government has made remarkable strides in infrastructure, the economy, healthcare, and gender equity in political representation, but their continued attack on independent thought and criticism is disheartening – and dangerous. As the ...

Translated by Thar Tet Toe Photos by Than Htay Maung This month we have dedicated our coverage to Burma and it’s repressive and secretive regime. Because publishing is so tightly controlled there and the government regulates communication, it is difficult to have access to stories of daily life in Burma, a perspective offered here by City of Asylum writer-in-residence Khet Mar. Khet ...