Associations
Venske resigns from Pen – criticism of Israel statement
Regula Venske, then president of the German branch of the Pen authors’ association, stands in the garden of St. Elisabeth Church. photo
© Annette Riedl/dpa
She had been general secretary of Pen International for just over a year. But after a statement on the Middle East conflict, the author breaks with the association. She is horrified, says Venske.
Because of the different positions of the Pen authors’ association on the Middle East conflict, the Hamburg writer Regula Venske has resigned from her position as Secretary General of Pen International. Pen Germany announced on Monday in Darmstadt that she had asked Pen President Burhan Sönmez to relieve her of her position with immediate effect.
The reason for her resignation were statements by the London Secretariat on current events in the Middle East at the beginning of October. “It was with horror that I read the broadcast, whose lack of empathy for the Israeli victims of the Hamas massacre on October 7th left me deeply shocked and depressed.”
She also feels that she has little influence when it comes to press releases at Pen International. Also that the processes for recording a pen Venske finds it unacceptable that Israel has been delayed for a long time.
According to its own information, Pen Germany had issued its own press release about the conflict, in which the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel was condemned, the victims of the war were remembered and the efforts to find a unifying word were put in the foreground. Venske was President of the Pen Center Germany from 2017 to 2021. Since autumn 2022 she has been Secretary General at Pen International.