Turkish novelist Aslı Erdoğan to receive Simone de Beauvoir Prize for Women’s Freedom
PARIS
Turkish novelist Aslı Erdoğan has been awarded this year’s Simone de Beauvoir Prize for Women’s Freedom, prominent French feminist magazine “Emma” has announced.
The jury of the Simone de Beauvoir Prize decided unanimously to award Erdoğan, who will receive the award on Jan. 10, 2018 at the Latin America House in Paris.
The Simone de Beauvoir Prize is an international human rights prize awarded since 2008 to individuals or groups fighting for gender equality and opposing breaches of human rights. It is named after the French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, particularly well-known for her 1949 women’s rights treatise “The Second Sex.”
Previously, Erdoğan received Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize in the German city of Osnabrück on Sept. 22.
Erdoğan, who spent 132 days in jail after being arrested last summer, gave a speech before the ceremony, expressing her happiness at being in Germany for the ceremony but highlighting that “180 writers in Turkey are still in jail and unable to go abroad.”
She had been arrested on charges of carrying out “terror propaganda” in a probe into the now-closed daily Özgür Gündem, which Ankara condemned as a mouthpiece for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Erdoğan was released in December 2016 but because her charges are ongoing she was given a travel ban, hindering her from participating in numerous award ceremonies abroad.
The travel ban was lifted by a court order on June 22 and the authorities finally returned Erdoğan’s passport more than two months after her travel ban was lifted, her lawyer stated on Sept. 8.
