Newly Translated: Poems to Read for Ashraf Fayadh on January 14
There will be two readings for Ashraf in Edinburgh, one at the Department for Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh:
https://www.facebook.com/events/575671979265276/
and one at the Scottish Poetry Library (which I will be chairing):
https://www.facebook.com/events/742843795847346/
On January 14, there will be readings held to stand shoulder to shoulder with Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh held around the world:
It was the international literature festival Berlin (ilb) that initiated the call “to participate in a worldwide reading of selected poems and other texts in support of” Fayadh, who has been sentenced to death by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. An appeal was filed on his behalf in December.
Fayadh has been in prison in Saudi Arabia since January 2014 on flimsy charges attaching to his supposed apostasy, evidence for which is supposedly found in his poetry collection Instructions Within (2008). According to The Guardian, the appeal argues his initial arrest was unlawful as it was ordered not by state prosecutors, but by the religious police. Additionally, “The allegation of apostasy made by Shaheen bin Ali Abu Mismar, who is alleged to have had a personal dispute with the…
View original post 136 more words
Sarah Irving 