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 dissident writer and political activist, Thien spent a total of 27 years in prison between 1960 and 1991. While in prison, he composed over 400 poems, which were published while he was still jailed. Following his release, Thien moved to the United States, where he died in 2012.
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A former police officer, Vinh founded a popular blog dedicated to criticism of the government and circumvention of its internet firewall. In 2014, he was arrested for “baseless” and “distortionary” blog posts and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released in 2019.
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Nguyen Lan Thang has written commentary on current events in Vietnam and around the world, history, and philosophy via his blog on Radio Free Asia since at least 2013. He was arrested on suspicion of spreading “anti-state propaganda” in July 2022. On April 12, 2023, he was sentenced to six…
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‘Mother Mushroom’ has faced aggressive state harassment for her blogging on political and environmental issues. In 2017, she was sentenced to ten years in prison under Article 88 but was released after two years in state custody into exile with her family in the U.S.
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Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy was sentenced to three years in prison for her role as an editorial assistant to Nguyen Huu Vinh, who published articles on his blogs that openly criticized the Vietnamese government. She was released in 2017.
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Nguyen is a blogger, writing about civil rights and free speech online, and a member of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam. He was detained on May 23, 2020 under Article 117 for spreading materials opposing the state, and on January 5, 2021, he was sentenced to 11 years in…
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Nguyen Van Lam was sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of “making, storing and spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117. Nguyen had been using his Facebook account with 5k followers to post criticism of the…
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.