Qasim Sidiq

Qasim Sidiq was detained by authorities in March 2017, after which he disappeared. Nearly four years later his detention was confirmed. According to a Radio Free Asia source, Sidiq’s… More

Olga Shparaga

Olga Shparaga

On October 4, 2020, philospher and writer Shparaga was detained for one day during a protest; but five days later, she was detained at Savecki district police department when… More

Hany Babu

Hany Babu

A professor of English literature and language, Babu faces charges of “propagating” communist activities, Maoist ideologies, and plotting anti-state attacks as part of the baseless Bhima Koregaon crackdown on… More

Yang Hengjun

Yang Hengjun

Chinese-born Australian writer Yang was seized by Chinese authorities during a visit to China in January 2019. Held incommunicado and interrogated for nearly two years, he was formally charged… More

Writers at Risk Database

Fariba Adelkhah

French-Iranian anthropologist Adelkhah was detained in June 2019 while visiting Iran to conduct research. In May 2020, she was sentenced to six years on propaganda and national security charges.… More

Yury Alexeyevich Dmitriev

Yury Alexeyevich Dmitriev

A historian who researched Stalinist atrocities and head of the Karelia branch of the human rights organization Memorial, Dmitriev was imprisoned on baseless charges of sexual assault. On September… More

Zahra Mohammadi

Zahra Mohammadi

Mohammadi was arrested in 2019 for teaching the Kurdish language and detained for seven months, including a period in solitary confinement. In February 2021, an appeals court upheld a… More

Guillermo Sheridan

In July 2019, Sheridan, a scholar, columnist, public commentator, and literary critic, received a death threat in a letter delivered to his home. In January 2023, Sheridan was granted… More

Rafael Gabriel Almanza Alonso

Famed poet and Marxist intellectual Alonso has suffered political persecution for his openly anti-Castro views. Since he was first expelled from university in 1980, he has endured extreme censorship… More

Gheyret Abdurahman

Uyghur scholar Abdurahman was detained in March 2018 for over a year after translating Nobel laureate Mo Yan’s book Red Sorghum because it was deemed “politically sensitive.” Abdurahman’s arrest… More