As Threats Escalate Against Narges Mohammadi, PEN America Calls For Her Immediate Release from Iranian Prison
“Mohammadi’s life was already at serious risk in Qarchak prison, due to the prison authorities’ dismissive, even malicious treatment of her fragile health,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of… More
UN Special Rapporteur on Iran Urged to Raise Imprisonment of Writers Arash Ganji and Reza Khandan Mahabadi, Being Held in Teheran on Wrongful Convictions
“Arash Ganji and Reza Khandan Mahabadi are in prison for their unequivocal commitment to writing and expression in Iran,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write… More
PEN America Condemns Arrest of Iranian Writers and Translators, Another Attack on the Iranian Writers Associaton
"While the official justification for their arrest has not been announced, it is obvious that Iranian authorities have targeted Mohtadi and Asadollahi because of their vital contributions through writing,… More
Truth-Telling And Its Dire Consequences: PEN America Hosts Conversation with Writers Targeted by Authoritarians Around the Globe
The difficult plight of writers living under authoritarian rule has been well-documented over decades, with some enduring impossibly harsh treatment for their truth-telling and resistance to repression. More
PEN America 2021 Freedom to Write Index: Myanmar Joins China and Saudi Arabia as World’s Top Jailers of Writers
During 2021, Myanmar accounted for the single-largest increase of writers and public intellectuals newly jailed for exercising free expression, due to the military junta’s crackdown on influential voices. More
PEN America Statement on the Death of Reza Baraheni: A Legacy of “Courage and Defiance”
PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said: "The international writing community has lost a giant of free expression and human rights with the death of former PEN Canada president, author,… More
Nasrullah Lashani
Lashani, a Kurdish freelance journalist and political commentator, was released early from prison in 2019 but was re-arrested in June 2020 while trying to cross into Türkiye from Iraq… More
Nima Ghasemi
Ghasemi, a philosophy scholar who holds a PhD from Shahid Beheshti University, was arrested in February 2021 and taken to Evin Prison where he was kept in solitary confinement… More
Qasem Bahrami Sheyda Hamedani
Poet and musician Qasem Bahrami was detained in September 2021 on unknown charges, most likely due to his original poems and online readings of verses that criticize the government.… More
Toomaj Salehi
Rapper Toomaj was briefly arrested in September 2021. Denied legal representation, in January 2022 he was given a 6-month suspended sentence for “insulting leadership” and “propaganda.” He was arrested… More
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