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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Poet and filmmaker Korolev was a vocal opponent of the war who made films about imprisoned activists. In July 2022, a criminal case was opened against him for online posts. He was arrested and subjected to a lengthy trial. He was sentenced to three years in a general colony in…
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Reuters reporter Wa Lone was arrested in December 2017 with his colleague Kyaw Soe Oo after they covered a massacre in Rakhine State. They received seven-year prison sentences in 2018 for allegedly obtaining state secrets, but were released via an amnesty in May 2019.
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Known for his blogging to expose police brutality, Abbas was detained in May 2018 on charges of terrorism and dissemination of false news until he was conditionally released in December 2018. In April 2020, Abbas was briefly detained for posting images to his Facebook page.
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Osman was arrested without charge in 2018 and is currently detained in one of the many Uyghur re-education camps. There is no known date set for his trial; others in similar situations never face trial.
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A writer and member of PEN Myanmar, Wai Moe Naing rose to prominence as an anti-coup protest leader in Monywa for his role in organizing daily demonstrations. On April 15, 2021, he was beaten, arrested, and detained, and was handed down sentences in both August and October 2022. On April…
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Al-Khair was the first activist prosecuted under a new Saudi Arabian law that introduced overly broad definitions of terrorism, such that it applies to speech. In June 2014, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which was increased to 15 when he refused to apologize.
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Wang, a well-known activist and online commentator, was detained ahead of the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen protests in May 2021, likely because of his critical tweets; the formal charge against him is “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” He was sentenced to three years in prison on May 19, 2023.
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Wang Fang, who also goes by the pen name Fang Fang, kept an online diary during Wuhan’s 11-week lockdown. She views herself as a witness rather than a critic or defender of her government’s actions, but faces immense backlash for her public writing.
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.