China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey remain world's top jailers of writers

World 09:13 PM - 2021-05-02

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For the second year in a row, China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey topped PEN America’s list of the world’s worst jailers of writers and public intellectuals. 

 

In PEN America’s annual census of detained writers worldwide, the Freedom to Write Index, the literary and free expression group found that in 2020, at least 273 writers, academics, and public intellectuals in 35 countries—in all geographic regions around the world—were in prison or unjustly held in detention in connection with their writing, their work, or related activism. That represents a nine percent increase over the prior year, signaling a serious deterioration for the climate for free expression globally.

 

“Writers have played an essential role during the past year, analyzing and critiquing government responses to the pandemic, documenting personal experiences amid authoritarian crackdowns, and shocking us into recognition about the state of our world,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of free expression at risk programs at PEN America and a lead author on this year’s study. “But by playing such an essential role, writers continue to find themselves under siege, targeted by governments and authoritarian leaders who see their truth-telling amid a year of reckoning as a threat to power. The rise in detentions, imprisonment, and incarceration of writers this past year should be a shock to the system, a wakeup call that basic free expression rights are in serious jeopardy.”

 

The top three jailers of writers—China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—still accounted for a majority of cases, 50 percent, though that number is down from 59 percent in 2019. Meanwhile, numbers increased in Iran, Vietnam, and Egypt, and expanded dramatically in Belarus, which accounted for zero cases in the 2019 Index, but now ranks as the fifth worst jailer of writers and intellectuals. Belarus has 18 documented cases in the 2020 Index—or some 7 percent of the total—as a result of a brutal post-election crackdown on mass protests that has also targeted writers, translators, artists, and other cultural figures. Belarus is the only new country to make it into this year’s top ten list of the world’s worst jailers of writers and public intellectuals.

 

Furthermore, while the 2020 Index includes 182 writers who were counted in the 2019 tally, that means nearly a third of those imprisoned in the prior year were newly detained. In this year’s PEN America Freedom to Write Index, the organization found that the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened free expression in many countries, putting added pressures on human rights and democracy. Governments, PEN America finds, are using the pandemic to further restrict speech, with laws criminalizing “false information” or “rumors” about the pandemic being used to target dissent. Some governments have even used the virus as an excuse to outright criminalize criticizing the government itself. 

 

 

PUKmedia / PEN America