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.
PEN America examines threats to free expression in our annual Freedom to Write Index, a year-end count of imprisoned writers worldwide. Explore our Writers at Risk Database for updated tracking of cases of writers, journalists, artists, academics, and public intellectuals around the world facing myriad threats for their writing and expression. Read the most recent PEN International case list here.
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.
Dolma Kyab | Status: Released | China/Tibet Autonomous Region
Dolma Kyab is a writer and teacher in his native Tibet, born in 1976. After protests and riots broke out in Lhasa in March 2008, Dolma Kyab was reportedly… More
Bernardo Arévalo Padrón | Status: Released | Cuba
Bernardo Arévalo Padrón was arrested in August 1997 and charged with "insulting and contemptuous behavior" towards then-President Fidel Castro, for which he was sentenced to six years in prison.… More
Nurmuhemmet Yasin | Status: Imprisoned | China/Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
In 2013, a number of reports were received indicating that Nurmuhemmet Yasin had passed away from a severe illness sometime in 2011 while being held at Shaya prison in… More
Tohti Tunyaz | Status: Released | China/Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Tohti Tunyaz (pen name: Muzart) is an ethnic Uyghur historian and writer. He was released from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Prison No. 3 in the provincial capital of Urumqi… More
Zhang Jianhong (pen name: Li Hong) | Status: Deceased | China
Zhang Jianhong passed away on December 31, 2010, at a hospital in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. He was diagnosed with muscle atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known… More
Ven. Ngawang Phulchung | Status: Released | China/Tibet Autonomous Region
Ven. Ngawang Phulchung is the senior monk from Drepung monastery near Lhasa. He has also been singled out as the leader of the Drepung printing group, which secretly produced… More
Tal Al-Mallouhi | Status: Disappeared | Syria
Tal Al-Mallouhi is a student, blogger, and poet from Homs, Syria, serving a five-year sentence for "divulging information to a foreign state." No evidence was disclosed to justify… More
Michel Kilo | Status: Deceased | Syria
Prominent writer and journalist Michel Kilo contributes to the leading Lebanese daily Al-Nahar and the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi. Initially, Kilo was arrested on May 14, 2006 when he… More
Aref Dalila | Status: Released | Syria
Dr. Aref Dalila, born in 1942, is a writer and former economics professor and Dean of the Faculty of Economics at Damascus University. He was an advocate of political… More
J. S. Tissainayagam | Status: Released | Sri Lanka
J. S. Tissainayagam is a Tamil journalist for the Sunday Times whose articles have also been published in the magazine North-Eastern Monthly. He was also editor of the news… More
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