Jailed Chinese Writer to Receive PEN/Goldsmith Award

April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Yang Tongyan, a Chinese writer serving a 12-year prison term for posting anti-government articles on the Internet, will receive this year's PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.

The $10,000 award, announced today in a press release, is made annually to an imprisoned or persecuted writer in jeopardy because of health or other reasons. It is underwritten by Goldsmith, a historian, author and philanthropist, and presented by the American chapter of PEN, an international organization that monitors persecution of writers.
``I was particularly pleased that the advisory committee selected someone from China,'' Goldsmith said in a telephone interview. ``With the Olympics and the economic conference following them, this is a unique chance to focus on human rights there, and on the secrecy in which they've conducted these repressions.''

The advisory committee includes representatives from other human rights organizations, as well as Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corp.
Yang, an essayist, poet and novelist who suffers from diabetes and arthritis, was arrested in December 2005 for ``subverting state authority.'' The following May, the Zhenjiang Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

For the full report go to the Bloomberg site here.