Writers At Risk
PEN’s bedrock work is long-term advocacy on behalf of individual writers who are being persecuted because of their work. This page features our highest priority cases. With the help of our members and supporters, we are carrying out campaigns to win their release and ensure they are safe and can write and publish freely.
Take a moment to share information about these writers and take action on their behalf. This is only a small sampling of writers under threat around the world.
Aung Than & Zeya Aung | Status: Released | Myanmar
Aung Than is a member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Zeya Aung is a student at Pegu University. Together they wrote a book of poems called… More
Mamadali Mahmudov | Status: Released | Uzbekistan
Mamadali Mahmudov is a renowned Uzbek writer and opposition activist who was released in 2013 after serving a 14-year sentence on charges related to a series of explosions in… More
Aung Myint | Status: Released | Myanmar
Aung Myint (also known as Phya Pon Ni Loan Oo) is a journalist, poet, and head of the information department of the National League for Democracy (NLD). Aung started… More
Zaw Thet Htwe | Status: Released | Myanmar
Zaw Thet Htwe, respected journalist and political advocate, worked as an editor and journalist at First Eleven Sports News, a popular sports journal Burma. After Cyclone Nargis struck on… More
Muhammad Bekjanov | Status: Released | Uzbekistan
A prominent Uzbek journalist in the period immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Muhammad Bekjanov came to be recognized as a leading voice in the struggle for… More
Ruslan Sharipov | Status: In Exile | Uzbekistan
Ruslan Sharipov was one of several dozen students chosen to participate in a government-sponsored exchange program with U.S. universities in the fall of 1999. When Uzbek authorities canceled that… More
Ragip Zarakolu | Status: In Exile | Turkey
Ragip Zarakolu, director and owner of Belge Publishing House and a longtime activist against censorship, is on trial for "aiding and abetting an illegal organization" under Turkey's sweeping anti-terror… More
Alert Us
Are you an artist at risk or know someone who is?
PEN America On 
The Philippines will reimpose a stricter coronavirus lockdown in and around the capital for two weeks from Tuesday, President Rodrigo Duterte announced, as the country struggles to contain infections that have jumped to more than 100,000 cases. https://bit.ly/2Xq8apQ
Join PEN America & @usc_uschina on 8/5 for a discussion of PEN America's upcoming report on how Chinese censors have spread their influence across filmmaking in the U.S. — incl. recommendations for how Hollywood can chart a better path forward: https://bit.ly/30tYkFH.