Although Charlie Hebdo will no longer feature caricatures of Mohammed, the French satirical magazine is still at the center of controversy. PEN has decided to give its ‘freedom of expression courage’ award to the magazine (site of a mass-killing by Islamist extremists in January); a decision that not all members of PEN are happy about. 145 writers have objected to the award, including star novelists Joyce Carol Oates, Junot Díaz, Russell Banks, Rick Moody, and Peter Carey. In a letter protesting the award, they write “It is clear and inarguable that the murder of a dozen people in the Charlie Hebdo offices is sickening and tragic. What is neither clear nor inarguable is the decision to confer an award for courageous freedom of expression on Charlie Hebdo or what criteria exactly were used to make that decision.”
The letter reads “there is a critical difference between staunchly supporting expression that violates the acceptable, and enthusiastically rewarding such expression.” The writers are concerned that “PEN is not simply conveying support for freedom of expression, but also valorizing selectively offensive material.” PEN, however, says the choice of Charlie Hebdo “was not to ostracize or insult Muslims but rather to reject forcefully the efforts of a small minority of radical extremists to place broad categories of speech off limits.”
