Eskinder Nega | Status: Detained | Ethiopia
Eskinder Nega, a journalist and dissident blogger who is one of Ethiopia’s leading advocates for press freedom and freedom of expression, served almost 7 years of an 18-year sentence… More
Mamadali Mahmudov | Status: Deceased | Uzbekistan
Mamadali Mahmudov is a renowned Uzbek writer and opposition activist who was released in 2013 after serving a 14-year sentence on charges related to a series of explosions in… More
Ahmed Naji | Status: In Exile | Egypt
Ahmed Naji was temporarily released from prison in Egypt on December 22, 2016, after his two-year prison sentence for “violating public modesty” was suspended by an appeals court on… More
Mohammed Benchicou | Status: Released | Algeria
Mohammed Benchicou is the former director of Le Matin, a private daily newspaper that maintained an independent, critical editorial line toward the Algerian government. On August 23, 2003, Benchicou was… More
Liu Jingsheng | Status: Released | China
Liu Jingsheng is a peaceful opposition activist and a former co-editor of Tansuo (Explorations), a journal he founded in the late 1970s along with Wei Jingsheng. More
PEN America Joins Belarusian PEN Center in Call to End Persecution of Writer and Activist Paviel Sieviaryniec
The harassment of renowned writer Paviel Sievaryniec and his fellow activists in Belarus has gone on for too long, and his arrest this week is proof of the continuous threat to… More
Nasser Zarafshan | Status: Released | Iran
Nasser Zarafshan, a prominent writer and attorney, was released on March 15, 2007, after serving a five-year prison sentence on politically motivated charges. More
Yang Tongyan | Status: Death in Custody | China
A writer and member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, Yang Tongyan was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for “subversion of state power,” and died in November 2017 while… More
Ali Al-Domaini | Status: Conditional Release | Saudi Arabia
Ali Al-Domaini is a poet and writer whose publications include three collections of poetry and one novel in Arabic. As a political activist, he has campaigned for a move… More
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Gather with others on the journey to prison abolition to talk about how you can begin realizing a home, a country, and a world without prisons right where you are. Join @scalawagmag and PEN America TODAY for Realizing Abolition. https://scalawagmagazine.org/2021/06/realizing-abolition-event/
