Julian Assange to Deliver Video Remarks at L.A.’s PEN …

Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder who has been living in asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 2012, will deliver real-time video remarks at 24th Pen Literary Awards.

The event, hosted by Aisha Tyler, is scheduled for Nov. 11 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Assange has been living in the embassy to avoid possible U.S. prosecution for his role in leaking documents supplied by Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning). In The Fifth Estate, a 2013 film about the case, Benedict Cumberbatch played Assange.

Pen Center USA also announced that VICE Media will be presented with the organizations prestigious Award of Honor for its excellent writing.

Writer-director Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Twilight Saga: New Moon) will present the Freedom to Write Award to Jose Antonio Vargas, who won a Pulitzer for being part of the team at the Washington Post that covered the Virginia Tech shootings and who revealed his status as an undocumented immigrant in a powerful 2011 New York Times essay.

Amy Poehler will present Norman Lear with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Other previously announced Literary Award winners include Gretel Ehrlich; Octavio Solis; Lindsay Hill; Craig Malisow; Victoria Chang; Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis; Ben Coccio, Derek Cianfrance and Darius Marder; Judd Apatow and Lena Dunham; Wayne A. Rebhorn; Margarita Engle; and Mimi Pond. In addition, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras will receive the First Amendment Award.

Read more Julian Assange Says He is to Leave London's Ecuadorian Embassy "Soon"

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