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.
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Zibakalam, a professor at the University of Tehran, was summoned to court for “threatening national security” in April 2022. His trial began on July 26, 2022. He has since been dismissed from his job after writing about the protests and was banned from teaching. He was sentenced to a year…
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Popular R&B singer Saleh received a court summons for a song he released that allegedly contained “immorality by featuring seductive dances;” Saleh claimed his arrest was political. He pled guilty and was remanded to prison before being granted bail and released in March 2017.
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A poet and translator, Heleichi received a threatening call over a Twitter post in April 2022. On October 19, 2022 he was arrested at his father’s home. The reason for his arrest, charges, and his whereabouts were unknown. On December 6, 2022, Heleichi was granted temporary bail until the end…
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Sociologist Madani was tried in 2013 on national security charges for involvement with opposition groups. After his 2016 release from prison, he was forced into internal exile. In January 2022, he was prevented from boarding a flight when leaving Iran for a sabbatical at Yale University. Five months later, in…
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Minai is an ethnic Azeri activist and online writer. He was summoned to court in 2019 for a Telegram article. In August 2023, he was arrested at home after writing an online post about local environmental issues in Lake Urmia. He was released after a brief interrogation but was rearrested…
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Scholar Djabelkhir was—without notice—charged with “offending the precepts of Islam” after writing 3 Facebook posts of “academic reflections” on the Quran and Islamic traditions in 2020. In April 2021, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison and fined 50,000 Algerian dinars. His appeal to the Supreme Court argues that…
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In March 2022, human rights activist El-Alami was summoned to authorities and interrogated about her Facebook posts. She faced several charges including “insulting a body regulated by law.” She was fined and sentenced to 2 years in prison in April. Her prison sentence was extended an additional year in September.…
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Soomro was arrested on June 10, 2020, when dozens of police officers raided his home. Authorities filed a blasphemy case under the Pakistan Penal Code for Soomro’s writings that allegedly criticized religious beliefs and Pakistan. After six days in detention, a court granted Soomro release on bail. The professor of…
Writers at Risk Database Key:
STATUS box that is red: Active case
STATUS box that is black: Inactive case
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.
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.