Sibel Edmonds-Recipient of PEN/Newman First Amendment Award

[kpete]

Translator Fired from FBI for Blowing Whistle on Intelligence Failures to Receive 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award

New York, New York, March 29, 2006—PEN American Center has named Sibel Edmonds, a translator who was fired from her job at the FBI after complaining of intelligence failures and poor performance in her unit, as the recipient of this year’s prestigious PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award. Ms. Edmonds will receive the $20,000 prize at PEN’s annual Gala on April 18, 2006 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Shortly after 9/11, Edmonds was hired as an FBI Language Specialist for Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani. In her work, Edmonds discovered poorly translated documents relevant to the 9-11 attacks and reported these to her supervisors. She also expressed concerns about a co-worker’s relationship with a foreign intelligence officer, and reported being told to work slowly to give the appearance that her department was overworked, despite the large backlog of documents needing translation. Edmonds followed all appropriate procedures for registering her concerns. However, instead of acting on her information, the FBI fired Edmonds in March 2002, claiming she had “committed security violations and had disrupted the translation unit.”

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Siems noted that this year’s PEN/Newman’s Own Award comes amid a spate of news reports of government retaliation against employees who expose wrongdoing or dissent from official policy. “Sibel Edmonds’ Kafkaesque ordeal underscores how easily government powers, especially powers wielded in the name of national security, can be abused to keep the public in the dark about official failings. PEN is deeply troubled by Sibel Edmonds’ story and by the growing number of reports of efforts by the administration to silence government employees.”

This is the 14th anniversary of the PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award, which was established by actor Paul Newman and author A. E. Hotchner to honor a U.S. resident who has fought courageously, despite adversity, to safeguard the First Amendment right to freedom of expression as it applies to the written word. The judges for the 2006 award were author and Princeton University professor K. Anthony Appiah; Robert Corn-Revere, Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP; Nan Graham, Editor-in-Chief of Scribner, a Simon and Schuster Company; Judith Krug, Director, Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association; and acclaimed novelist Roxana Robinson.

http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/633/prmID/172

[tanyev]

1. Kick for Sibel!

[wiggs]

2. Some real irony there...gagged whistleblower gets free speech award

Perhaps people can post here with any reporting they see on the award and/or Sibel.