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.
Shokjang (Druklo) | Status: Conditional Release | China/Tibet Autonomous Region
Shokjang, a Tibetan writer and intellectual, was arrested in March 2015 and sentenced to three years in prison on February 17, 2016 for writing an essay and blogpost. More
Irakli Kordzaia | Status: Displaced/In Exile | Georgia
Irakli Kordzaia is currently in exile owing to the continued use of threats, harassment, and intimidation by Georgian authorities in response to his work exposing government corruption and ethical… More
Yang Tongyan | China
A writer and member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, Yang Tongyan was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for “subversion of state power,” and died in November 2017 while… More
Natalya Sharina | Status: Convicted | Russia
Natalya Sharina, head of the Ukrainian Literature Library in Moscow, was sentenced to four years of probation on June 5, 2017, for allegedly disseminating the works of Ukrainian nationalists… More
Liu Xiaobo | China
Liu Xiaobo, a renowned literary critic, writer, political activist, and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was charged with "inciting subversion of state power," and sentenced to 11-years in prison… More
Mehdi and Hossein Rajabian | Status: Conditional Release | Iran
Iranian musician Mehdi Rajabian and his brother, writer and filmmaker Hossein Rajabian, are currently serving three-year prison sentences on charges of “insulting Islamic sanctities,” “propaganda against the state,” and… More
Faraj Ahmad Birqdar | Status: Released | Syria
Syrian poet Faraj Ahmad Birqdar spent over 13 years in jail from 1987 to 2000 due to his work on behalf of free expression and non-violent political action. He… More
Zoran Mutić | Status: Displaced/In Exile | Bosnia and Herzegovina
Translator Zoran Mutić fled Sarajevo during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, just before the siege in 1992. He was a recipient of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in… More
Svetlana Slapšak | Status: Displaced/In Exile | Serbia
Svetlana Slapsak, a Serb from Belgrade, is the author of the hugely popular novel Leon and Leonine. Slapsak has written articles criticizing Serbian nationalism and decrying injustices perpetrated by… More
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