NEW YORK: Under armed security and a cloud of conflicted opinions and emotions, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was presented a freedom of expression award from the PEN American Center.
Editor-in-chief Gerard Biard and critic-essayist Jean-Baptiste Thore accepted the Freedom of Expression Courage Award to a standing ovation following a weeklong debate — alternately thoughtful and divisive — over whether the honor was deserved.
Salman Rushdie and Neil Gaiman were among hundreds of writers, editors and others from the publishing world cheering for Hebdo at the literary and human rights organization’s gala at the American Museum of Natural History, where awards also were given to playwright Tom Stoppard, Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova and Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle.
Just as notable were those who would not, and could not, be there.
Michael Ondaatje, Peter Carey and four other writers scheduled to be table hosts withdrew because of objections to the magazine’s offensive cartoons.
More than 200 writers, among them Joyce Carol Oates and Michael Cunningham, signed an open letter criticizing PEN.
The gathering was overwhelmingly supportive of Hebdo and the award if only because so many opponents stayed home, some by choice, some citing scheduling conflicts.
Those who spoke recalled absent friends. While introducing Stoppard, actress Glenn Close paid tribute to the late Mike Nichols, who directed her in a Broadway adaptation of Stoppard’s “The Real Thing.” Ismayilova, given the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, has been imprisoned since December and was represented by fellow journalist Emin Milli. Biard and Thore came on behalf of colleagues killed in the January shooting at the magazine’s Paris offices that left 12 dead.
In accepting the award, Biard noted the magazine’s history of shocking readers with its irreverent drawings of religious figures.
“Growing up to be a citizen is to learn that some ideas, some words, some images, can be shocking,” he said. “Being shocked is a part of democratic debate. Being shot is not.”
While virtually everyone stood and clapped for Hebdo, not everyone was an admirer.
The Iranian-born novelist Porochista Khakpour, a table host, told The Associated Press that she had no plans to applaud even as she affirmed her support for PEN’s mission.
Roz Chast, the best-selling author and New Yorker cartoonist, called the Hebdo illustrations “sort of stupid.”
“But if I didn’t support their right to publish them I wouldn’t be here,” she told the AP.
The Hebdo award made the PEN gala the most controversial in recent memory, but also the best attended. More than 800 came for the event, at $1,250 a ticket, compared with around 700 a year ago.
With the presence of Hebdo officials and the recent shootings near Dallas, guests passed through metal detectors and armed police officers.
Police cars lined the street outside the museum’s main entrance.
Expression itself was the real guest of honor.
PEN president Andrew Solomon said the Hebdo award, and dispute, were reminders that the “defense of people murdered for their exercise of free speech is at the heart of what PEN stands for, so is the unfettered articulation of opposing viewpoints.”
Stoppard joked during his speech that artists had been under attack since Plato excluded them from his ideal republic and warned that: “If we can’t live up to what is expected of us, we’ll be gone. We just won’t be there anymore.
“And if you want to find us, you’ll have to come here, to the Museum of Natural History,” he said.
Charlie Hebdo receives PEN award at literary gala in NYC
Charlie Hebdo receives PEN award at literary gala in NYC
Epstein files reveal links to cash, women, power in Africa
- Documents attest to Epstein’sclose ties with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade
- They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara
PARIS: Jeffrey Epstein built close ties with powerful figures in Senegal and Ivory Coast, files released by the US government last month show, detailing the late sex offender’s influence network across Africa.
Emails, scheduled meetings, investment projects, and loans reviewed by AFP attest to the disgraced New York financier’s close relationship with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade.
They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara.
Wade and Epstein met in 2010 through Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who recently resigned as CEO of port giant DP World after mounting pressure over his close friendship with Epstein.
The pair quickly struck up a rapport.
“Thanks for coming. I think there are many things to consider... I feel confident that we will have fun,” Epstein wrote to Wade on November 15, 2010 after their first meeting in Paris.
“Have a safe trip back to your paradise Island,” Wade replied.
While Wade’s exchanges show no link to Epstein-related sex trafficking crimes, they do reveal conversations on potential business ventures in various sectors, such as finance and energy.
Nicknamed the “Minister of Heaven and Earth” for the multiple portfolios he held including international cooperation, energy, and air transport, Wade was a powerful figure in Senegal until April 2012, when his father’s bid for a third term sparked deadly riots.
Epstein saw him as “one of the most important players in africa” and invited him to meet close contacts such as Ehud Barak, then Israel’s defense minister.
He also put him in touch with Chinese businessman Desmond Shum to discuss “offshore banking.”
The US Department of Justice documents show Shum and Wade met in Beijing on May 9, 2011.
That same month, Wade planned an African tour through Senegal, Mali, and Gabon for Epstein.
‘You will not suffer’
Epstein and Wade’s relationship became even more apparent after the latter’s fortunes reversed when his father left office in 2012.
That autumn, Epstein proposed that his “friend” — under the Dakar authorities’ scrutiny over his assets — use his house in Florida.
“You and your family are welcome to use my house in palm beach, staff is there, pool etc. you will not suffer,” Epstein wrote.
“Txs a lot Brother for the advise,” Wade replied a few weeks later to another email, in which Epstein urged him to “stay mentally strong.”
Numerous files suggest Epstein became financially involved on Karim Wade’s behalf after his arrest in 2013 and his 2015 sentencing to six years in prison for corruption.
Karim Wade’s lawyer, Mohamed Seydou Diagne, sent two invoices in May 2014 and July 2015 of $500,000 to one of Epstein’s companies.
Contacted by AFP on Monday, Diagne said he “did not consider it useful to comment.”
Other archives suggest that Epstein covered at least $50,000 in fees for the US lobbying firm Nelson Mullins, hired by Wade’s entourage to secure his release.
Epstein regularly exchanged emails with Robert Crowe, a partner at the firm who kept him informed of their efforts in the US and Senegal.
In a June 16, 2016 email thread where Epstein and Crowe discussed whether then Senegalese president Macky Sall would pardon Wade, Crowe writes: “He has told my friends high up at State that he was going to do it. They have been putting pressure on him!“
Karim Wade was released from prison eight days later, on June 24, and went into exile in Qatar, which he credited for efforts toward his release.
Jeffrey Epstein was told by Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and Nina Keita.
‘A very interesting person!’
The DOJ documents show Nina Keita was close to both Epstein and Karim Wade and that she acted as a regular intermediary while Wade was in prison.
Keita also helped put Epstein in contact with her uncle, president of Ivory Coast since May 2011, and his team.
“He thought you were a very interesting person! ... they were all very happy to have you here,” she wrote on January 20, 2012, after the financier’s visit to Abidjan.
She had booked him the “ministerial suite” of the luxury Hotel Ivoire for that trip.
Ahead of the visit, Epstein had said he hoped to see “very pretty girls there, as well as interesting places.”
“You will!” Keita replied.
Emails show Keita, a former model, at least once sent photos and the phone number of a young woman to Epstein.
He then met this woman at the Ritz hotel in Paris on August 31, 2011.
“ask sadia to send pictures of her sister. i prefer under 25,” Epstein wrote to Keita after the meeting.
Now the deputy general director of Ivorian petroleum stocks company GESTOCI, Keita also appears in a February 2019 will in which Epstein requested that debts owed to him by a number of people be canceled upon his death.
AFP received no response to its requests for comment from both Keita and the Ivorian presidency, or from Karim Wade, who was contacted through his entourage.
The mere mention of a person’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply wrongdoing.
