On this snowy New Year’s Eve morning, a team of famous PEN America members gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library to protest the 11-year sentence of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo for the crime of subversion.
As you can see by this exclusive GalleyCat video, the list of speakers at this dramatic event included: E.L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, A.M. Homes, and Edward Albee.
Here’s more from the release: “There are currently almost 1,000 writers on PEN’s list of writers and journalists in danger because of their work. Leading the list is Liu Xiaobo, one of China’s most prominent writers and a past president and member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, which is doing on-the-ground PEN advocacy in China. Liu was convicted of ‘inciting subversion of state power’ for co-authoring ‘Charter 08,’ a petition calling for political and human rights reforms in China, and for seven sentences in five articles he published on the internet that are critical of Chinese authorities.”