Calling PEN

As a former President of the PEN Center USA (western US branch of PEN), I am calling for that organization to stand up against Borders/Waldenbooks. The chain has “chosen not to carry the April-May issue of the magazine Free Inquiry due to the Muhammad cartoons contained therein.” As the leading writers’ organization involved in the defense of free expression (cf. Salman Rushdie), PEN should be in the forefront of the fight against this kind of de facto censorship by bookstore chains.