MONITORING OF VIOLATIONS
PEN International was the first organization to consistently document violations and
attacks on writers. In 1960 PEN set up the Writers in Prison Committee at its headquarters
in London to monitor attacks, to provide advice, and to coordinate PEN member advocacy
on their behalf. Once a year PEN International publishes a case list of individual writers
around the world who are detained or otherwise persecuted for their peaceful political
activities or for the practice of their profession.15
Freemuse, established in 1999, initially focused on the censorship of music and
musicians, and then expanded its work to all art forms in 2011. Freemuse publishes
annually a report ‘The state of artistic freedom’16 with documentation of violations around
the world. Freemuse has over the years even published a series of country reports and
article compilations on violations of artistic freedom.
ARTISTIC FREEDOM – THE LANDSCAPE
The artistic freedom landscape has gradually changed since 2011; from consisting of
relatively few key civil society organizations (CSOs) promoting and defending artistic
freedom and inconsistent donor policies to a landscape, which might now be described as
a sector. This diverse landscape consists of a mixture of organizations and institutions
that directly or indirectly support artistic freedom from, for example, an informed arts
standpoint. They take a professional human rights/free speech standpoint, and work for
social innovation and development aims, for academic research purposes, and from the
legal sector.
What this means is that there are many differing responses to the same phenomenon.
As such, it is important to recognize that each of these disciplines will have the expertise,
deep understanding, and in some cases rigorous methodologies that have been developed
over the years. They will also have a sound knowledge of relevant changes and trends in
their spheres. In this sector, the key organizations/individuals, donors, policy makers and
relevant UN organizations have continuous interaction and have developed a common
understanding and promotion of the concept of artistic freedom, and in many cases have
developed informal relations along the way.
Academic studies on artistic freedom are few and far between but are becoming
increasingly available. The University of Hildesheim, through its project ‘Arts Rights Justice’
provides the best overview of reports and studies.17
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https://pen-international.org/who-we-are/case-lists
https://freemuse.org/
https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/arts-rights-justice-library/tag/artistic-freedom/