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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In 2018, popular satirist Aslan, known as Porçay on YouTube, was charged with encouraging the use of drugs for writing a satirical rap song, parodying another song. In February 2021, Aslan was sentenced to four years and two months in prison but remained out of custody pending appeal. His sentence…
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Hasan, who has published books and articles aimed at the promotion of equal civil and political rights for Uyghurs, was arrested in April 2016 and reportedly sentenced to fifteen years in prison. No updates regarding charges leveled against Hasan have been made public since his arrest.
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Omoyele Sowore, a political activist and journalist, was arrested and detained by police on December 2020 during a candlelight procession he had organized against bad governance in Nigeria. He was denied bail over alleged breaches of COVID-19 policies. On January 12, he was granted bail on the condition he remain…
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A poet, author, and former high school teacher, Abdurehim was arrested in September 2022 on unknown charges and has been in detention ever since. His family has no updates on his location or current condition.
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Osama Khaled was a high ranking Wikipedia volunteer administrator with privileged access to edit protected pages. He was detained in 2020 and sentenced to 5 years of prison which was increased to 32 years upon appeal. It was reported that Khaled and colleague Ziyad Al-Sofiani updated had Loujain Al-Hathloul’s wiki…
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Fleeing into exile in 2018, the well-known sociologist and writer Vargas was arressted immediately upon his return to Nicaragua in November 2022. Detained for nearly three months, Vargas was among 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners forcibly expelled, stripped of their citizenship, and deported to the United States in February 2023.
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Zunun, a staff member at Uyghur-run Kashgar Publishing House, was detained in a sweep of arrests for his role in the publication of books deemed “problematic” for their “improper” political content. He had been retired for ten years at the time of his arrest.
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.