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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Lu is an online commentator who has published extensively on democratic issues calling for constitutional reforms since 2013. He was detained multiple times since 2018 for his commentary. On February 18, 2022, Lu was taken away from his residence for social media posts and placed in detention. In November 2022,…
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After a 90 minute secret trial, Lu was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2006 for leaking state secrets. Lu is a prominent sociologist and research professor, and his conviction is linked to research articles he sent to a Hong Kong reporter.
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Lu Maw Naing was arrested with four other employees of the Unity newspaper after it published an exposé about an alleged secret chemical weapons factory. The ‘Unity Five’ were sentenced to seven years in prison in 2014, but were released in 2016 by a presidential amnesty.
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Cultural figure Alcántara has been detained countless times for his activism. In November 2020, he was arrested and began a hunger and thirst strike until his December release, when he was placed on house arrest. Amid nationwide protests in July 2021, Alcántara was detained and moved to a high-security prison.…
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Author and blogger, Luo Changping was arrested in October 2021 for “defaming martyrs” after posting on Weibo a critical review of a film depicting a battle in the Korean War between the Chinese and U.S. militaries. His account with 2.2 million followers was taken down. On May 9, 2022, Luo…
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Luo, a student of Ilham Tohti, was arrested for his involvement with Tohti’s website Uyghurbiz, which promotes mutual ethnic understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. He was sentenced in a 2014 secret trial and has been held incommunicado since 2018.
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Poet and legal practitioner Lwin Aung, also known as Nayi, was arrested on March 12, 2021 in Myeik, shortly before he was supposed to represent Maung Yu Pyi in court. He was later released at the end of 2021.
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.