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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Wang, known as Noah’s Ark, is a former associate professor at Hubei University of Technology who created multiple WeChat groups since 2018 including “Shanghai People’s Rights Defending” and “Chinese People’s Rights Defending,” in which he posted commentary calling the Chinese Communist Party to fight corruption. He was arrested in May…
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Wang, a U.S. national, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2014 on business-related charges for publishing two political gossip magazines. He was released in March 2019 upon the expiry of his sentence.
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In January 2020, preacher and poet Wang was sentenced to nine years in prison for inciting subversion of state power after being held incommunicado with his wife since March 2019. He has faced harassment since 2008.
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Poet Wang Zang was taken by police from his home in Chuxiong City in May 2020 and charged in July with “incitement to subvert state power.” Evidence against him includes his poetry and essays. His family has reportedly been harassed and detained to compel him to confess. In November 2022,…
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Poet, playwright, radio actor, and singer-songwriter Awale was shot near his house in Mogadishu in October 2012. He had received threats for comments he made about gunmen targeting civilians, and was working for a radio station critical of Al-Shabaab when he was killed.
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Scholar and writer Sadurski faces three defamation suits for tweets he sent in 2018 criticizing Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and public broadcaster TVP, calling the PiS an “organized criminal group.” If convicted, he faces jail time or a fine.
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Wong, better known by his pen name Zunzi, is a Hong Kong pro-democracy political cartoonist. He was subject to multiple incidents of censorship throughout the years dating back to 1998, when the island returned to Chinese rule. In May 2023, Ming Pao newspaper announced that Zunzi’s satire column was shut…
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.