London: Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize 2024 at a ceremony at the British Library in London, alongside Egyptian author Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who received the Writer of Courage 2024 title from English PEN.
In her acceptance speech, Roy pledged to bring attention to the ongoing plight of Palestinians and expressed her support for political prisoners in India. She announced her intention to donate her share of the prize money to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. Roy underscored the significance of Abd el-Fattah’s message, saying, “We are listening, Alaa. Closely.”
Roy spoke about the severe oppression faced by Palestinians, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, denouncing Israel’s military actions as genocidal and referring to an official death toll of 42,000, primarily affecting women and children. She called for global awareness and action against these atrocities.
Reflecting on historical injustices, Roy criticized past U.S. foreign policy decisions that have worsened the current situation. She disputed the narrative that frames the conflict as equally aggressive, insisting that Israel’s occupation is the fundamental cause of the violence.
In closing, Roy challenged the audience to contemplate the moral consequences of inaction and to acknowledge the humanity of those suffering under occupation. She urged a reconsideration of their governments’ complicity in supporting oppressive regimes and stressed the urgent need to address Palestinian rights and the larger context of state-sponsored violence.
Roy shared the PEN Pinter Prize 2024 with Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British-Egyptian writer and activist imprisoned in Egypt for over five years for advocating freedom of expression. His writings while incarcerated, including social media posts, were compiled in the 2021 book You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, drawing international attention to the dangers faced by dissenters under brutal regimes.
Abd el-Fattah’s lawyer, Khaled Ali, reported that while he was expected to complete his sentence on September 29, 2024, authorities intend to extend his detention until January 3, 2027, effectively disregarding the time he served from September 2019 to January 2022 as pretrial detention. Arrested on September 28, 2019, for raising awareness about a fellow prisoner’s death, he faced several charges, including membership in a terrorist group and spreading false information. After two years in pretrial detention, he was sentenced by the Emergency State Security Court to five years in prison.
During the award ceremony, Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of the Egyptian news outlet Mada Masr, accepted the award on Abd el-Fattah’s behalf, highlighting his courage in pursuing the truth.
In a bid to protest her son’s continued detention, Laila Soueif, Abd el-Fattah’s mother, has begun a hunger strike, calling the extension of his sentence a violation of Egyptian law. She stated, “I consider this a kidnapping as well as unlawful detention,” emphasizing the injustice of her son’s imprisonment. The family has called on the new Labour government in the UK to advocate for Abd el-Fattah’s release, and Soueif is scheduled to meet with British Foreign Minister David Lammy on October 19 in London to discuss her son’s situation.
