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Support Ashraf Fayadh
Ashraf Fayadh is a fellow-artist who is in prison in Saudi Arabia for apostasy since 2013. An artist curator and poet, he has been cut off from the artistic community, facing, to date, three sentences (including the death sentence) each followed by legal appeals. It has been a very rough and lonely ride for him, including periods of solitary confinement.
Living and working in Saudi Arabia (although of Palestinian origins), Ashraf is a member of the artist collective, Edge of Arabia, and curated the extremely well-regarded exhibition, Rhizoma, of young Saudi artists at the Venice Biennale in 2013.
We know that if Ashram starts to get short letters from other artists or people in the arts world, connecting him to the arts worked outside, his outlook and hope will rise. We have seen already that the number of world-wide public readings of his poetry in January 2016 was a world of difference to his feeling of isolation.
No need for long letters or poems. Short, personal messages along with sketches, photos or news about the art scene will keep his spirits up. Writers all over the world do this for other writers in the PEN Writers in Prison initiative. Why can’t we, artists and cultural managers do it? Yes, we can! Just do it!