Kirill Serebrennikov
Playwright and theater director Serebrennikov was placed on house arrest in 2017 for embezzlement and convicted in June 2020. The court handed him a three-year suspended sentence and fine… More
Nizametdin Akhmetov
Poet and the first PEN Freedom to Write honoree, Akhmetov was arrested in 1966 on fabricated charges of theft for association with a movement advocating for the return of… More
Oleg Sentsov
After being arrested in Crimea, Ukrainian filmmaker was Sentsov given a 20-year sentence on terrorism charges in August 2015. Following five years in a Russian jail—including a hunger strike… More
Kitzito Mihigo
A musician, Mihigo was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly plotting to kill President Paul Kagame and for inciting hate against the government. He was… More
Waleed Abu Al-Khair
Al-Khair was the first activist prosecuted under a new Saudi Arabian law that introduced overly broad definitions of terrorism, such that it applies to speech. In June 2014, he… More
Raif Badawi
Badawi was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam” and “founding a liberal website,” Free Saudi Liberals. While detained, he… More
Ashraf Fayadh
Fayadh, a poet and artist, was jailed on charges of apostasy for writing about humanistic themes in his poetry collection Instructions Within, which explores Fayadh’s experience as a Palestinian… More
Jamal Khashoggi
After the exiled Saudi columnist's brutal murder in Istanbul in October 2018, journalists and advocacy groups mobilized worldwide to ensure that he would not be forgotten. However, the Saudi… More
Turad Al-Amri
Political commentator Al-Amri has been missing since November 2016 after tweeting out to protest a clampdown on Saudi media, which included blocking the online newspaper he worked for. Authorities… More
Stanislav Dmitrievsky
In December 2012, a petition was filed against writer Dmitrievsky alleging his study on Chechnya was “extremist” in nature. In 2013, after expert evaluation of the study, the petition… More
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