Sedan september är den palestinska poeten Dareen Tatour fristadsförfattare i Sverige. Tatour har i flera år levt med hot och trakasserier från israeliska myndigheter. I sina dikter, publicerade i sociala medier, har hon uttryckt sitt stöd till palestinierna, vilket ledde till att åklagaren på vaga grunder åtalade henne för anstiftan till våld. I drygt två år har hon suttit fängslad eller i husarrest.
Rättsprocesserna har avlöst varandra. Svenska PEN har deltagit i kampanjer och krävt hennes frigivning. I följande brev tackar hon för allt stöd hon fått från PEN och ICORN.
Excuse me for my simple English, which you may find in it a lot of errors, so it matters to me that I receive my feelings and my great thanks to you. I am writing to you, perhaps because you are the only ones who have been able to give me safety after all the war and conflicts that I lived before my arrival in Sweden. So, suddenly I found myself carrying my pen and sending this message to you, or to be more precise, I write to you my feelings that I live on this particular day or maybe I just write because I wanted to write for those who deserve to write for them, or maybe they are words to try to say thank you. Words are the only way I have these days to express to you how much I am thankful and grateful for what you have done for me and are still doing. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said this for the first time that I feel human and treated humanely.
Today is 11-10-2020, which is the anniversary of my arrest in 2015, and I am writing to you and admit that I am crying, not as a weakness but rather affected by everything that happens to me. The moment in which I live harsh memories after I started my story at 3:30 in the morning, this day in which I had slept thinking of writing a new poem and only dreaming of my future as a poet, photographer and writer, I am thinking and waiting for my new poetry book to be published. Suddenly, without knowing the reason, I turn tonight from a dreaming poet to a prisoner accused of terrorism to transfer from the space of my dreams to a black prison full of injustice and darkness, I live in a gray cell for days and days, during which I suffer torment that still kills me. Memories that I lived and will remain stuck in myself and in every moment I live today, even if a year has passed since my release and my release from prison.
I am writing to you standing and meditating on the new life that I live today, thanks to you, from the balcony of a house overlooking the trees, and I hear from it the sounds of birds, I write and I feel very cold here, but I enjoy this cold, in prison they tortured me through the cold, they put me for long hours in a very cold cell, yes I remember that harsh cold, but now I enjoy this cold in Sweden that enters to all my body details and gives me different new memories. I write with a lot of contradictions in which I live between the memory of the past and my three-year prison life and the beautiful trees that surround me this moment. I write and there is a wide smile appearing in my face and a tear flashing in my eyes at the same moment. Yes, I am writing to you crying and laughing at the same moment. I'm just writing to say thank you because you know how to make life in a heart that's almost dying. I will remain indebted to you throughout my life for this opportunity that you have given me for a new beginning and a life that is completely like me and like my dreams.
Thanks for giving me life again
Dareen