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
ImprisonedWang Yi
PoetChinaAsia-PacificIn January 2020, preacher and poet Wang Yi was sentenced to nine years in prison for inciting subversion of state power after being held incommunicado with his wife since March 2019. He was initially detained in December 2018 during a crackdown on house church leaders. Wang has faced ongoing harassment…
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ReleasedWang Yuwen
Online Commentator, PoetChinaAsia-PacificPoet 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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MurderedWarsame Shire Awale
Creative artist, Dramatist, Poet, Singer/SongwriterSomaliaSub-Saharan AfricaAwale, a Somali poet, playwright, and journalist, was shot in Mogadishu in October 2012 after receiving threats for his work and critical views on Al-Shabaab, a militant islamist group based in Somalia. Despite the circumstances surrounding his death, no one has been arrested or prosecuted for his killing, and investigations…
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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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AcquittedWojciech Sadurski
Literary writer, ScholarPolandEurope and Central AsiaScholar and writer Sadurski faces three defamation suits for tweets he shared in 2018 criticizing Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) and the public broadcaster TVP. In his tweets, he called the PiS an “organized criminal group.” If convicted, he faces jail time or a fine. In 2021, Sadurski…
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Continued HarassmentWong Kel-kwan
Creative artistChina/Hong KongAsia-PacificWong, 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…
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ImprisonedXiang Jinfeng
Online CommentatorChinaAsia-PacificXiang is a blogger who created a WeChat group where has been posting politically sensitive commentary and expressing concerns about citizens’ rights since 2017. In 2019, he was stopped at the airport, prevented from leaving the country, and his passport was annulled. Xiang was taken into custody three years later…
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DetainedXiaolong Ji
Activist, Online CommentatorChinaAsia-PacificXiaolong is an activist and online commentator. He was detained by the police for posting an open letter on Twitter to the Shanghai government in August 2022, accusing them of causing the Covid-19 humanitarian crisis in Shanghai. He was indicted by the court for “spreading false information that harms the…
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ReleasedXie Fengxia
Activist, Literary writer, PoetChinaAsia-PacificXie spent 4.5 years in prison for subverting state power after publicly supporting the Umbrella Movement. He was released in March 2019 but has since faced continuous harassment. In April 2020, Xie was detained again for posting a poem commemorating Lin Zhao, a dissident from the Cultural Revolution. Xie was…
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.