Saddened to Announce Death of Honor and Courage Among Writers

In another grievous blow to the tradition of freedom of expression in 21st century Western Democracies, we are saddened to announce the death of honor in former writers Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi.

In "declining to attend" the PEN gala honoring slain French journalists at Charlie Hébdo, the snubbing writers join fashionable Garry Trudeau and Vice Chancellor Patrick Johnston of Queens University in supporting censorship by Islamists in the name of "free speech but only in so far as it doesn't offend anyone".

It is to be noted in the wake of the massacre of Charlie Hébdo writers and cartoonists in Paris that the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword" is a metaphor, not a military fact. 

As a result, numerous writers, bloggers, cartoonists, journalists, free thinkers, secularists, and "apostates"  have been shot, decapitated, hacked to death, imprisoned or sentenced to death for a difference of opinion, a joke, a heretical belief or some other thought crime by people with guns and swords and explosive belts, and clubs, most of whom, ironically, have never read the writers they are murdering. 

Burial will take place in the press and on social media.

The cause of death is not know, though cowardice or a dangerous addiction to fashion have been named as suspects.