Writers at Risk Database

Liu Xia

After her husband Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for calling for political reforms in China, poet Lu Xia was held incommunicado under extralegal house arrest.… More

Writers at Risk Database

Ai Weiwei

Ai has been beaten, detained, and harassed by the government for over 10 years. Previously subject to a travel ban, Ai left China in 2015 to focus his activism… More

Writers at Risk Database

Gao Yu

Gao Yu has been imprisoned three times for her dissident reporting, most recently in 2014, when she was sentenced to seven years for revealing state secrets. In November 2015,… More

Zhao Baahuu Soliyoot Shulegchin, or Cao Yuan Nu Huo

Zhao was released from detention but remains confined to house arrest as of October 2019 after publishing poems entitled “Dark Night Journey” and “Mongolian Grassland” that criticized China’s treatment… More

Chen Jieren

In retribution for his blog posts discussing fraud and corruption committed by a local party official and other government criticism, Chen Jieren was held in criminal detention for retaliatory… More

Sophia Huang Xueqin

Huang was detained in October 2019 after publicly supporting sexual assault survivors and creating a platform to promote survivor solidarity. She was released in early 2020, but police kept… More