Abdulmajeed Al-Buluwi

A freelance political analyst, Al-Buluwi was arrested on November 16, 2019 as part of a wave of arrests of Saudi writers and bloggers. However, after media coverage and international… More

Writers at Risk Database

Fuad Al-Farhan

On November 21, 2019, Saudi blogger Fuad Al-Farhan was arrested, his house was raided, and his devices seized. Following a brief detention lasting a matter of days, Al-Farhan was… More

Abdulaziz Al-Hais

Al-Hais, who had written about the Arab Spring and the roles that intellectuals play in the Middle East, was arrested from his home in November 2019 as part of… 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

Bader Al-Rashed

On November 16, 2019, Al-Rashed was one of ten writers and journalists arrested by Saudi officials. He had previously written about regional security issues. He was released later that… 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

Writers at Risk Database

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

Writers at Risk Database

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

Writers at Risk Database

Alexey Kungurov

Siberian blogger Kungurov, who spent two years in prison for "justification of terrorism" from 2016-18, was arrested again in November 2019 for 15 days. He was accused of arousing… More

Roman Sushchenko

A Ukrainian journalist and artist who reported on Russian propaganda, Sushchenko was arrested in Moscow in September 2016 and sentenced to 12 years in prison for "spying." He was… More