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
Status
Yunkai is a journalist and blogger who wrote on allegations of government corruption and forgery. He was arrested in April 2023 for an article he published, and was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
Status
A historian who researched Stalinist atrocities and head of the Karelia branch of the human rights organization Memorial, Dmitriev was imprisoned on baseless charges of sexual assault. On September 29, 2020, prosecutors appealed his prior acquittals in a backdoor trial, resulting in a 13 year sentence. In December 2021, this…
Status
In August 2020, Stylski, lyricist and leader of a black-listed band ‘Daj Dorogu,’ attended a peaceful rally in Brest with a loud-speaker and Belarusian flag. He was later detained and released three times during the month in relation to his participation in protests. After Stylski fled Belarus in August 2021,…
Status
A blogger and former journalist, Yutong is also a pro-democracy online activist who has faced multiple instances of harassment in China dating back to 2010. After she had circulated a banned book Li Peng’s Diary, police searched her home and confiscated her documents before arresting her. Upon her release she…
Status
A columnist and essayist, Yuyu was arrested and charged with espionage in April 2023. He wrote for the New York Times Chinese-language website between 2012 and 2014. He was branded as “anti-socialist” for an essay he wrote.
Status
In April 2019, Godbout was charged with producing and distributing child pornography for a passage from his novel Hansel et Gretel, a retelling of the fairytale, in which a father sexually assaults his daughter. Tried in September 2020, Godbout was acquitted of the charges.
Status
Mohammadi was arrested in 2019 for teaching the Kurdish language and detained for seven months, including a period in solitary confinement. In February 2021, an appeals court upheld a five-year prison sentence for “forming a group against national security.” Mohammadi was taken to Sanandaj Correctional Center in January 2022 to…
Status
Rahnavard has been under unofficial house arrest since February 2011 for her and her husband’s political activism in support of anti-government protests and women’s rights. No charges have been pressed against them and no official legal proceedings have begun. Activists in 2023 raised concerns about the couple’s health, suggesting possible…
Status
Writer, professor, and outspoken activist for the women’s rights movement, Osuli was released by the Taliban after two months of detention in April 2023. Prior to his detention, Osuli published two books, one about a prominent anti-Taliban military commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and one on the 2020 Doha Agreement.
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.