Mideastern Persecuted Writers Receive International Awards

Payvand:

Writers and journalists from Iran, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and other countries have been awarded Hellman/Hammett grants in recognition of their courage in the face of political persecution.

Twenty-seven writers around the world received Hellman/Hammett awards this year. READ MORE

The Middle East and North African recipients include:

Assurbanipal Babilla (Iran), playwright and painter

Omid Memarian (Iran), journalist and Internet writer

Sina Mottalebi (Iran), journalist and Internet writer

Taqi Rahmani (Iran), author of 26 books and monographs

Ali Lmrabet (Morocco), journalist and newspaper editor

Maha Hassan (Syria), novelist and essayist

Abdallah Zouari (Tunisia), writer and high school teacher

The other Middle East and North African recipients asked to remain anonymous because of possible continuing danger to them and their families.

Hellman/Hammett grants are given annually to writers around the world who have been targets of political persecution. The grant program began in 1989 when the American playwright Lillian Hellman willed that her estate be used to assist writers in financial need as a result of expressing their views.

Ms. Hellman was prompted by her experiences during the anti-communist hysteria of the 1950s, when she and her long-time companion the writer Dashiell Hammett, were questioned by U.S. Congressional committees about their political beliefs and affiliations.

The writers honored this year have been harassed, assaulted, indicted, jailed on trumped up charges, or tortured merely for providing information from nongovernmental sources.

Short biographies of the Middle East and North African Hellman/Hammett recipients who can be safely publicized follow:

Assurbanipal Babilla (Iran), painter and playwright, was one of three resident directors with the Drama Workshop of Tehran from 1973 to 1978. He fled to the United States in 1979 after the Iranian revolution because as a member of the Assyrian minority group he felt vulnerable. Both his plays and his paintings dealt with controversial material. This put him doubly at risk from the new conservative Islamic government. Mr. Babilla currently works part-time in a coffee shop and lives in a church shelter for homeless people.

Omid Memarian (Iran), journalist, wrote about political and social issues for pro-reform newspapers. After most papers were closed by 2004, Mr. Memarian continued writing on his weblog. During an October 2004 crackdown by the judiciary aimed at silencing Internet journalists and webloggers, he was arrested, held in solitary confinement and tortured. Upon his release in December 2004, he campaigned actively against arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of detainees by the authorities.

Sina Mottalebi (Iran), journalist and Internet writer, was arrested in 2003 during the first wave of the government crackdown on webloggers. Following his release, he fled to the Netherlands. In the summer of 2004, he wrote a detailed expose of the judiciary's detention and interrogation techniques. The Iranian authorities tried to silence him by arresting his father in Tehran.

Taqi Rahmani (Iran), author of 26 books and monograms, wrote on the religious and political history of Iran, criticizing the relationship between religion and politics and its adverse effect on democratic development. Since 1981, he has spent 16 years in prison because of his writings. In 2002, he was arrested and charged with "propaganda against the regime," "insulting Islamic leaders," and "cooperation with counter-revolutionaries." He is currently in prison.