Writers at Risk Database
PEN America champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. The bedrock work of the global PEN network is advocacy and assistance on behalf of individuals persecuted for their use of the written word or other forms of expression. PEN America’s Writers at Risk Database is a searchable catalog of the writers, journalists, academics, public intellectuals and others under threat around the world. The database includes historical cases PEN America has worked on from 1987 onwards; non-active cases are color-coded black. PEN America is grateful to the John Templeton Foundation for support that enabled the establishment of the Writers at Risk Database and to PEN International for their collaboration in assembling this database.
Filters
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Status
Continued HarassmentAi Weiwei
Activist, Creative artistChinaAsia-PacificAi has been beaten, detained, and harassed by the government for over 10 years. Previously subject to a travel ban, Ai left China in 2015 to focus his activism on Europe’s refugee crisis; though the Chinese state continues to pressure the censorship of his work. Ai encounters censorship and resistance…
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Displaced/In ExileBei Dao
Literary writer, PoetChinaAsia-PacificAmong the most acclaimed poets of his generation, Dao was accused of inciting the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and exiled from China, causing him to move to seven different countries. Since 2007, he has been a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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ImprisonedCao Peizhi
Activist, Online CommentatorChinaAsia-PacificCao is an activist and founder of Warm House, a WeChat blog group discussing democracy issues in China. In July 2022, Cao was detained on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” because his blog validated foreign “propaganda” and carried insulting remarks about party and state leaders. One year later,…
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DetainedChai Xiaoming
Journalist, Online CommentatorChinaAsia-PacificChai was detained on March 21, 2019 for publishing a politically sensitive article on Red Reference, a magazine where he worked as an editor. He was held for six months under residential surveillance before being formally arrested in September 2019. PEN has received reports that a secret trial took place…
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ImprisonedChen Jieren
Journalist, Online CommentatorChinaAsia-PacificIn retribution for his blog posts discussing fraud and corruption committed by a local party official and other government criticism, Chen Jieren was held in criminal detention for retaliatory charges of bribery and racketeering before a trial in late 2019. In April 2020, he was fined over 7 million yuan…
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ReleasedChen Qiushi
Online CommentatorChinaAsia-PacificA citizen journalist who reported on the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, Chen documented videos of hospitals, funeral homes, and empty streets in Wuhan at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in January 2020. On February 6, he was forcibly disappeared and detained. Over 600 days later, in late September…
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ImprisonedChen Shuqing
Activist, Literary writerChinaAsia-PacificChen, a pro-democracy activist and writer, was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison in 2016 after being found guilty of “inciting to subvert state power.” Since the start of his imprisonment, he has lost four teeth and suffers from high blood pressure.
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Conditional ReleaseChen Wei
Activist, Literary writerChinaAsia-PacificChen was detained in 2011 for essays in which he supported a civil society and criticized the Chinese political system. In February 2020, Chen was released upon completion of his nine-year prison sentence though he is subject to two years deprivation of political rights.
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ReleasedChen Xi
Activist, Literary writerChinaAsia-PacificOn December 26, 2011, Chen was sentenced to 10 years in prison at a trial that lasted less than three hours for “inciting subversion of state power.” His conviction is based on quotations from over 30 of his articles published on overseas Chinese-language websites. On November 28, 2021, Xi was…
Writers at Risk Database Key:
STATUS box that is red: Active case
STATUS box that is black: Inactive case
Funder
PEN America is deeply grateful to the John Templeton Foundation for its generous support of the Freedom to Write Index and Writers at Risk Database.
Partner
PEN America thanks the PEN International Secretariat and the Writers in Prison Committee for their extensive contributions to and collaboration on compiling the cases included in this database.