Flora Brovina | Status: Released | Kosovo
Born in 1949, Flora Brovina is a Kosovar-Albanian pediatrician, poet, and women’s rights activist. She was arrested on 20 April 1999, during the Kosovo War, and held in captivity in Serbia while NATO… More
Ayşe Nur Zarakolu | Status: Deceased | Turkey
Founder of Turkey’s Freedom to Publish Committee, Ayşe Nur Zarakolu was a political essayist, the director of Belge Publishing House, and the only woman publishing director in Turkey at… More
Jack Mapanje | Status: Released | Malawi
Jack Mapanje is a poet and storyteller of exile narratives and political power structures. He was detained without charge or trial for over three years until his release in… More
Shahla Lahiji | Status: Released | Iran
The first woman to run a publishing house in Iran, Shahla Lahiji is one of 19 Iranian writers and intellectuals prosecuted in Tehran for participating in an academic and… More
Nizametdin Akhmetov | Status: Released | Russia
Nizametdin Akhmetov, a Bashkir poet, was sent to a labor camp at age 18. After 20 years of imprisonment in labor camps and psychiatric hospitals, Akhmetov was released on… More
Matsemela Manaka | Status: Deceased | South Africa
Matsemela Manaka was a writer, director, actor, poet and cultural theorist. His career in playwriting was spurred much in part by the Soweto uprising in 1976. Manaka received the… More
Edip Polat | Status: Released | Turkey
Edip Polat is a Kurdish writer and biologist from southeastern Turkey. He is the author of five books about Kurdish issues, and has been jailed three times for advocating… More
Nizar Nayouf | Status: In Exile | Syria
Nizar Nayouf is a writer, sociologist, and human rights activist who, at the time of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, was serving a 10-year prison sentence with… More
Indamiro Restano Diaz | Status: Released | Cuba
Journalist, poet, and activist Indamiro Restano Diaz has been hailed as “the father of independent journalism” in Cuba for his pioneering leadership roles in multiple free press organizations. He… More
Deyda Hydara | Status: Murdered | Gambia
A newspaper publisher and press freedom champion, Deyda Hydara was gunned down in December 2004 for challenging increasingly restrictive press laws in the Gambia. More
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