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.
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A poet and Tibetan intellectual, Lhundup has written works criticizing Chinese rule in Tibet. He was arrested in 2019 and detained incommunicado for 2 years. In October 2021, he was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment in a closed door trial without the presence of his family. He was released in…
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Slim was a renowned writer, columnist, and documentary filmmaker. He was the co-owner of the publishing house Dar al-Jadeed. In the days leading up to his assassination, Slim published several anti-government Facebook posts. He was found dead on February 4, 2021 after being shot five times. His killing is believed…
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Kallykhanova is a columnist and owner of a news site Makan. She advocates for Karakalpak autonomy and is critical of the Uzbek central government. She disappeared in June 2022 after she published a piece opposing changes to the Uzbek constitution. After months of detention, she was found guilty of “conspiracy…
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After the arrest of fellow rapper Kea Sokun, Long Puthera was detained in September 2020 for his song about income inequality. Found guilty of “incitement,” he was sentenced to 5 months in prison but was released in December 2020 after having spent several months in pretrial detention.
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Al-Hathloul, a women’s rights advocate, was detained in a sweep of arrests in May 2018 and held for 1,000 days in prison, during which time she was reportedly tortured and assaulted. In December 2020, she was found “guilty” of broad terrorism charges and sentenced to nearly six years in prison.…
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In 2016, Lü was sentenced to 11 years in prison on national security grounds for publishing critical articles overseas and meeting with other activists. His daughter reports that his health has deteriorated while in prison, but he has been denied medical parole.
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In November 2018, Lu was secretly arrested in Xinjiang while meeting with local photographers. Conditionally released nearly a year later, Lu is forced to live in Shanghai under surveillance though he has lived in New York with his wife since 2005.
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.