Geng Xiaonan

Publisher and political activist Geng, and her husband Qin Zhen, were detained in September 2020 on charges of “running an illegal business” operation following Geng’s public support of writer-scholar… More

Amin El-Mahdy

El-Mahdy, a writer and publisher, was arrested on September 9, 2020 because of a Facebook post calling the Egyptian President “a murderer, traitor, coward, and thief.” He was released… More

Dmitry Strosev

Dmitry Strotsev

Dmitry Strotsev publishes poetry as a preserver of the “Minsk school of poetry” and has written poetry about the August 2020 Belarusian election and subsequent violence against protesters. On… More

Julian Assange

Assange, publisher of WikiLeaks, was imprisoned in the U.K. in 2019 for violating bail terms. He faces imminent extradition to the U.S. where he has been indicted on multiple… More

Writers at Risk Database

Mehmet Osman Kavala

A noted philanthropist and publisher focusing on promoting intercultural understanding, Kavala was setting up a cultural center for Syrian refugees when he was detained on terrorism charges in late… More

Ayşe Nur Zarakolu

Ayşe Nur Zarakolu

Founder of the Freedom to Publish Commission, Zarakolu was a pioneering female figure in Türkiye's literary world. A political essayist herself, she was arrested over 30 times for her… More

Ragıp Zarakolu

Zarakolu is a veteran free expression activist and publisher against book bans, resulting in a catalog of indictments against him dating back to the early 1970s. He has lived… More

Abd Al-Akram Al-Sakka

On July 15, 2011, Abd Al-Akram Al-Sakka was arrested from his home without a warrant. His whereabouts and the conditions of his detention are unknown. Al-Sakka was last seen… More

Sulaiman Al-Saikhan Al-Nasser

A banker and prominent analyst who was arrested in a wave of detentions targeting Saudi intellectual and reformist circles in mid-November 2019, Al-Nasser was released later that month after… More

Writers at Risk Database

Shahla Lahiji

A pioneering publisher, Lahiji was arrested in 2000 upon her return from a conference. She was charged with spreading anti-state propaganda for criticizing Iran’s policies toward women. She was… More