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The internationally renowned writers, Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy, have lent their voices to a call for equally famous authors including Turkey’s Orhan Pamuk to boycott a festival of writing that takes place in Sri Lanka next week.
They say that by attending the Galle Literary Festival, the writers will legitimise what they say is Colombo’s squashing of free expression. However the festival founder has criticised the boycott call, describing the event as a force for good. Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky have signed this boycott call launched by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders or RSF along with Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, a group of exiles. Disturbing A week before the Galle Literary Festival starts in southern Sri Lanka, RSF says it is “disturbing” that literature is being celebrated in a country where, it says, journalists, writers and dissident voices are victimised by the government.
Monday marks one year since the disappearance of a pro-opposition cartoonist and writer, Prageeth Eknaligoda; and two years ago an outspoken newspaper editor was assassinated. There’s been no progress in investigating the cases. Dozens of Sri Lankan journalists have been beaten up, fled into exile or had death threats. Nobel Prize winner And RSF says that if the guest authors stay away they will be supporting those in Sri Lanka who cannot speak out. Among the festival speakers are the Nobel prize-winning Turkish novelist and free-speech campaigner Orhan Pamuk; China’s Jung Chang; and Nigeria’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The festival founder, Geoffrey Dobbs, described the boycott call as “badly informed and negative”. He said the festival, now in its fifth year, encouraged pluralism and free expression and that guest writers should come and judge things and speak out if they wanted to.
A Sri Lankan website which highlights human rights issues, Groundviews, agreed, saying that if there were to be a boycott, India’s Arundhati Roy might just as well shun this week’s Jaipur Literature Festival over Delhi’s actions in Kashmir. The website said that the Galle festival helped to keep Sri Lanka country in the media spotlight. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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guest writers should come and judge things and speak out if they wanted to
India's frustration with Sri Lanka over Tamils