Support Tal al-Mallouhi

It's National Women's Day, and PEN International's English PEN is asking you to take action by first reading this poem by Tal al-Mallouhi, "a young poet who was only 19 years old when she was arrested in her home city of Homs more than two years ago, in December 2009. She was sentenced to five years in prison in February 2011, convicted of spying for a foreign country. She is still in prison, with little access to her family – a situation aggravated by the recent conflict."

Then,

Take Action

To mark International Women’s Day, on Thursday 8 March, we are encouraging our members to set aside a few minutes to take action on behalf of women writers around the world.

Share Tal’s poem: To raise and maintain awareness of Tal’s case, please help us to get her poem, ‘You Will Remain An Example’ , published as widely as possible – in newspapers, on notice boards, on websites, blogs and social networks. (Please do let us know the details of any publications in the comments box below.)

Send Tal a poem: If you would like to send a message of support and a poem to Tal please email cat@englishpen.org for more details and the address of the prison where she is detained.