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.
Aung San Suu Kyi | Status: Detained | Myanmar
Aung San Suu Kyi is a writer and pro-democracy activist and daughter of Burma’s independence hero Aung San. More
Avijit Roy | Status: Murdered | Bangladesh
On February 26, 2015, Bangladeshi-American blogger Avijit Roy and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya were brutally attacked by assailants wielding machetes outside of the Dhaka Boi Mela book fair.… More
Eskinder Nega | Status: Continued Harassment | Ethiopia
Eskinder Nega, a journalist and dissident blogger who is one of Ethiopia’s leading advocates for press freedom and freedom of expression, served almost 7 years of an 18-year sentence… More
Alaa Abd El Fattah | Status: Imprisoned | Egypt
Alaa Abd El Fattah is an Egyptian activist, software developer, and blogger. After being sentenced to a month of jail in absentia, he received a five years sentence in… More
Mamadali Mahmudov | Status: Deceased | 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
Multiple Journalists | Status: Detained | Eritrea
Yousif Mohammed Ali, Matheos Habteab, Dawit Habtemichael, Medhanie Haile, Temesegen Ghebereyesus, Amanuel Asrat, Sahle Tseazagab (Wedi-Itay), Dawit Isaak, Fesshaye "Joshua" Yohannes , & Said Abdelkadir All of these journalists… More
Pavel Sheremet | Status: Murdered | Ukraine
Pavel Sheremet, a Belarusian-born Russian journalist who worked in Belarus and Ukraine, died in a car explosion in Kyiv on July 20, 2016. The Ukraine Prosecutor’s Office said the… More
Kirill Serebrennikov | Status: Convicted | Russia
Kirill Serebrennikov, a prominent Russian theater director, was put under house arrest on August 23 on charges of fraud. More
Ahmed Naji | Status: Displaced/In Exile | Egypt
Ahmed Naji was temporarily released from prison in Egypt on December 22, 2016, after his two-year prison sentence for “violating public modesty” was suspended by an appeals court on… More
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