Iranian writer awarded Ossietzky medal

Mansour Koushan

The 2010 Carl von Ossietzky medal, awarded annually to a writer who champions human rights and freedom of speech, has been awarded to Iranian writer and dramatist, Mansour Koushan.

Radio Zamaneh was informed that Koushan, who is currently the editor-in –chief of “Jong-e Zaman” literary publication, will receive the medal on November 15 in the House of Literature in Oslo.

Carl von Ossietzky was a German journalist and pacifist who blew the whistle on secret rearmament of Germany under the Weimar Republic and was an outspoken critic of the Nazi party.

Ossietzky was the editor of Weltbühe which was banned after the Nazis came to power in Germany. Ossietzky was arrested and sent to concentration camp where is health was broken after three years of incarceration and torture which led to his eventual death. He was rewarded the 1935 Nobel Prize for Peace after which Hitler forbade Germans from accepting any Nobel Prize.

In the 1998, while the Islamic Republic oversaw what came to be called the chain murders of writers and intellectuals in the country, Mansour Koushan, a prominent member of the Iranian Writers Association, attended the fiftieth anniversary of the international charter of Human Rights in Norway.

Koushan, who was editor of Takapoo publication at the time, had seen several of his plays banned by the government.

In 2000, Koushan settled in south of Norway as writer in residence of the city of Stavanger.

In the past years, he has staged several plays and founded the literary publication, Jong-e Zaman.

He is the author of several novels, short stories, poetry collections and screenplays.