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 HarassmentSiddharth Varadarajan
Editor, Journalist, Literary writer, Online CommentatorIndiaAsia-PacificVaradarajan is an economist, journalist, and author of many books including Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy. He was targeted by Pegasus spyware multiple times since 2017 for his work. In 2021, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the government could not pursue sedition charges against Varadarajan for his criticism of…
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Continued HarassmentWasim Akram Tyagi
Journalist, Online CommentatorIndiaAsia-PacificIn July 2024, alongside his brother journalist Zakir Ali Tyagi, Wasim Akram Tyagi reported on the death of a Muslim resident of Shamli district and implied that authorities might have been attempting to shield the alleged perpetrators by not categorizing the death expliictly as a murder. As a result, he…
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Continued HarassmentZakir Ali Tyagi
Journalist, Online CommentatorIndiaAsia-PacificTyagi is a Muslim journalist and online commentator with over 75k followers on Facebook. He was first detained in 2017 for 42 days over two Facbook posts. He was arrested again in August 2020 on charges of cow slaughter, that could lead to up to 10 years in prison. While…
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Continued HarassmentAnand Mangnale
Editor, Journalist, Literary writer, Online CommentatorIndiaAsia-PacificAnand Mangnale is a journalist, author, and co-founder of Our Democracy, an online crowdfunding platform promoting transparency and accountability in political funding in India. In August 2023, he was targeted by a state-sponsored cyberattack using Pegasus. In May 2024, he was summoned by the police along with colleague Pavan Kulkarni…
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On TrialRahul Pandita
Journalist, Literary writerIndiaAsia-PacificOn September 16, 2017, Harpreet Singh Sidhu filed a defamation suit against journalist and best-selling author Rahul Pandita. While it was initially dismissed by a lower court in Mohali, an appellate court overturned the decision and ordered Pandita to pay INR 7.5 million on March 5, 2024. However on May…
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On TrialRavi Nair
Journalist, Online CommentatorIndiaAsia-PacificRavi Nair is an online commentator and frequent contributor to news websites like The Wire and NewsClick. On July 26, 2023, New Delhi police issued an arrest warrant against Nair, requiring him to appear in a Gandhinagar court, after he had published an investigation into India’s third-largest conglomerate, the Adani…
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Continued HarassmentSheikh Showkat Hussain
Activist, Literary writer, Online Commentator, ScholarIndiaAsia-PacificSheikh Showkat Hussain is a political analyst and scholar who has authored several books on human rights and Kashmir. On October 10, 2023, Delhi Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena authorized the prosecution of Hussain in connection with a speech he gave at a protest on October 21, 2010 advocating for Kashmir’s…
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Conditional ReleaseArun Ferreira
Creative artist, Literary writer, Singer/SongwriterIndiaAsia-PacificIn August 2018, Ferreira was arrested and detained on politically motivated charges of incitement to violence along with other leftist writer-activists in a coordinated raid. His charge sheet was seized, and his requests for bail had been repeatedly rejected, despite a court order to resolve the charges against him. In…
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Recorded HarassmentAbdur Rahim
Poet, ScholarIndiaAsia-PacificRahim is one of the “Miya” (Bengali-language Muslim) poets charged in July 2019 after the online publication of a poem by Hafiz Ahmed that authorities claimed promoted sectarian enmity in the state of Assam. On July 17, 2019, all ten poets were granted anticipatory bail.
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.