Writers and artists are especially vulnerable to censorship, harassment, imprisonment and even death, because of what they do. They represent the liberating gift of the human imagination and give voice to thoughts, ideas, debate and critique, disseminated to a wide audience. They also tend to be the first to speak out and resist when free speech is threatened. Julian Burnside QC speaks to a panel of writers who are all too familiar with the fight for free expression, including Xu Zhiyuan, described by artist Ai Weiwei as ‘the most important Chinese intellectual of his generation’, Indian authors Samanth Subramanian (This Divided Island) and Deepti Kapoor (A Bad Character), and North Korean dissident Yeonmi Park (In Order to Live). Introduced by ICORN ambassador Anna Funder.
|
Yeonmi Park (International)
Human rights activist and North Korean defector Yeonmi Park is fast becoming the face and voice of her oppressed people, as well as an inspiration for freedom-loving individuals throughout the world. In the fall of 2014 she was a featured speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum and The One Young World Summit in Dublin, where her passionate, deeply personal speech about the brutality of the North Korean regime became an international phenomenon. Since then, she’s been named one of the Top 100 Global Women by the BBC and profiled in numerous media outlets. Yeonmi’s memoir, In Order To Live, was published by Penguin in 2015. |
