Deniz Yücel causes Zoff at PEN: A club, its ideals and the free word

You can of course express it ironically, as Deniz Yücel does in his Twitter account, not least because it is about himself, his position as chairman of the German PEN center, which he has only held since October last year: ” Since there is not so much going on in the world at the moment, there is something going on at PEN Germany.”

In fact, at first glance the whole thing has a certain relevance in these times of war, but at second glance it seems like the affair of an association that is primarily concerned with itself. On a podium at lit.cologne in Cologne, Yücel considered setting up a no-fly zone over Ukraine and indicated that NATO should perhaps take direct military action against Putin and his troops.

Yücel had been asked by the moderator: “Should the airspace over Ukraine be closed?”, to which he replied: “It would be a good idea, wouldn’t it?” , because the Ukrainians are so keen to get us all involved in this war now.”

It’s about completely different things, says Yücel

As a result, four former presidents, namely Johanno Strasser, Josef Haslinger, Gert Heidenreich and Christoph Hein, along with Yücel’s predecessor Regula Venske and probably various other PEN members, wrote a letter demanding Deniz Yücel’s resignation.

According to the letter, with these “public military-strategic statements” he violated the charter of the international PEN, a charter that feels “committed to the ideal of a humanity living in peace”.

In a reply letter, which, like the letter from the PEN officials, is available to “Deutschlandfunk”, Deniz Yücel is said to have rejected his resignation as President and wrote that he had spoken “in the interests of a peaceful humanity” and that he continued to do so “as necessary ‘ believe that ‘to also support Ukraine militarily.’

Now you can discuss Yücel’s remarks – but that he from his club, which defends freedom of expression all over the world as the highest good, naturally has the power of free speech at the top of his agenda, that he is because of this asked to resign after all debatable statements?

bullying allegations

Yücel, whose main job is a journalist for “Welt” and had to spend a year in a Turkish prison because the Erdogan regime did not like his words about the conditions in Turkey, then wrote on Twitter that “in this dispute ( also/actually) about completely different things”.

About what, you could read on Monday in a text by PEN member Petra Reski in the “FAZ”. Reski is only concerned with the demands for resignation by the ex-chairman of the writers’ association at the very end. Rather, she quotes Yücel’s tweets from the past year, “which caused astonishment”; she writes about “accidentally” sent e-mails that are supposed to reveal that the presidium headed by Yücel wants to get rid of other members in a targeted manner; and Reski also talks about “bullying” and “deviousness” on the Yücel side

So there is really something going on at PEN, this association of “poets, essayists and novelists” based in Darmstadt, which was founded in England in 1921 and has also existed in Germany since 1924. It seems there has been rumbling since Yücel took office.

This is surprising, since he had only just been elected and, for the first time in many, many years, had given PEN a certain stature and greater public attention for its concerns.

By Editor

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