#388 Erkenningsnummer P708816
july 8, 2015 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2
Up to code
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BUSiNESS \ p6
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Beyond borders
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Strap on your spurs
The government is looking at ways to give municipalities more control over dilapidated properties, as the list for social housing grows longer
The Beaufort triennial along the Flemish coast has revamped its format, with group shows and a moveable feast of installations
11 July is Flemish Community Day, which commemorates a defining 1302 battle between France and the County of Flanders with activities aplenty
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The taste of freedom
© Toon Lambrechts
PEN Flanders offers exiled writers a temporary home, and a voice Toon Lambrechts More articles by Toon \ flanderstoday.eu
In many parts of the world, expressing your opinion can be a dangerous thing. For many years, PEN Flanders has been campaigning for freedom of expression and offering exiled writers a safe haven. We talk to journalist Maxim Efimov, who is wanted by the Russian state and has spent the last six months in Antwerp.
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s there a more perfect place to meet with a writer than in a city’s landmark bookshop? At the Groene Waterman in Antwerp, shelves are stuffed full of books stacked back to back, each of them a gentle invitation to visitors to browse their pages. And the diversity of work for sale here shows how lush the fruits of free speech can be. Sven Peeters is a regular at the Groene Waterman. “Literature has always been one of my great loves,” he tells me.
“Also, I have always been active as a volunteer in several organisations out of a personal sense of social justice. When I discovered the activities of PEN Flanders, everything came together. Social involvement, meeting other cultures and, of course, literature.” Peeters helps manage the foreign writers in residence programme at PEN Flanders, which is part of PEN International. Since 1921, PEN International has been defending the right of authors to freely write whatever they want. “What Amnesty International does for human rights, PEN does for the writers’ rights,” Peeters explains, adding that the word “writers” is intended in the broadest sense. “PEN stands for poets, essayists and novelists, but the association also works for journalists, cartoonists and bloggers. And, as a word and symbol, ‘pen’ sounds very good of course.”
Other, more light-hearted motives also played a part in Peeters’ commitment to PEN Flanders. “Like many others in Antwerp, I’m a bit of a chauvinist,” he laughs. “I like to show people around here and let them feel at ease in my city. Everyone is welcome here.” The work of PEN is based on two cornerstone philosophies, he says. The first is to promote international understanding and intercultural exchanges between writers around the world. The second is to take a stand against censorship and the curtailing of freedom of expression. “That means that we welcome two kinds of writers here in Antwerp,” he says. “You’ve got foreign authors who have a project in Flanders – a book in which the story takes place here, or the publication of a Dutch translation of their work. The other group are the writers who are persecuted because continued on page 5