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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A retired military officer and prolific essayist, Kim has written about government corruption, human rights, and social injustice. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2016 under Article 79, accusing him of overthrowing the people’s administration. Arrested in 2009 under a similar charge and released in 2015, Kim…
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Tran Duc Thach was arrested on April 23, 2020 and charged with “activities aimed at overthrowing the People’s Government” for his Facebook posts on government corruption and human rights abuses. In December 15, 2020, he was ultimately sentenced to 12 years in prison for subversion, which was upheld in his…
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Tran Hoang Tuan was indicted and arrested under investigation for his alleged anti-state propaganda in August 2021. Many believe his arrest was directly related to his criticism of the state’s responses to COVID-19. Tran was sentenced to 8 years in prison and 3 years of probation for writing articles that…
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Thuc was arrested in 2009 and sentenced in a flawed trial to 16 years in connection with a book advocating for governance reforms. He has been subject to inhumane conditions in prison, and has endured multiple hunger strikes in protest of his lengthy prison sentence.
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Since 2006, Tran Khai Thanh Thuy faced violent threats and multiple brief detentions. In 2010, she was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for assault after being attacked by police. She was unexpectedly flown to the U.S. in 2011 and abruptly released into exile.
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In 2017, dissident blogger Tran Thi Nga was arrested on charges of spreading propaganda and ultimately imprisoned in highly abusive conditions. As part of an agreement to cut her nine-year sentence short, she went into exile in the United States in January 2020.
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Binh was convicted in 2012 and sentenced to five years in prison for the content of his songs, which advocate for human rights and denounce social injustice and abuse of power. One of his songs, “Courage in the Dark Prison,” expressed support for an imprisoned blogger.
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.