Worldwide readings will take place on Thursday 14 January in support of Ashraf Fayadh, the 35-year-old Palestinian-born poet, artist and curator who has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for allegedly renouncing Islam. The impetus for the reading has come from Germany, and there will also be readings in Austria, Spain, Bolivia, Bosnia, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Italy, Lebanon, Mauritius, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the UK (at Lancaster central library, in York, Cardiff, and at the Mosaic Rooms in London) - and the US.  

Readers at the Lancaster event, from 7-9pm, will be Paul Farley, Jo Baker, Yvonne Battle-Felton, Carol Birch, Carole Coates, Andy Darby, Carys Davies, Sarah Hymas, Pauline Keith, Angela Martin and Saleel Nurbhai. In York the reading has been organised jointly by York Spoken Word, Say Owt! Slam, and The Speakers' Corner, starting at 7.30pm at Dusk in New Street. The London event, backed by English PEN, includes Ruth Padel, AL Kennedy, and Selma Dabbagh, and is from 6-6.30pm. There will also be an event at the Welsh assembly in Cardiff, organised by Wales PEN Cymru.

Rights groups and international organisations have strongly condemned the sentence, while over 1,000 poets and writers, including Paul Muldoon and Carol Ann Duffy, are among those who have signed petitions on his behalf.

Fayadh was originally sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes for apostasy by a court in Abha in Saudi Arabia in May 2014. He has denied the charges, which arose from a book of his poetry and a complaint lodged by a man who accused him of making blasphemous remarks during an argument in a cafe.