Washington D.C. – Pen America, May 12, 2026
PEN America is sounding the alarm on a deepening global crackdown on free expression, reporting in its Freedom to Write Index – released today – that more than 400 writers are behind bars for the first time since the Index launched in 2019.
In 2025, a total of 401 writers were jailed across 44 countries – up from 375 writers in 40 countries the year before. Over the past seven years, the number of jailed writers worldwide has risen by 68 percent, underscoring a steady and alarming escalation in the suppression of dissent.
China remains the world’s leading jailer of writers, with 119 cases – making it the only country to exceed 100 writers held behind bars. The sharpest increase came from Iran, where authorities carried out 17 new arrests, driving numbers back toward the peak levels seen during the 2022 ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests. The spike signals a renewed and aggressive campaign to silence critical voices.
“In a year of surging arrests of writers worldwide, Iranian authorities stand out for their especially fierce campaign against independent voices,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, PEN America’s director of writers at risk. “Poets, translators, scholars, singer-songwriters, online commentators, human rights advocates, and columnists are all being ensnared in Iran’s jails as the government moves to stifle debate and dissent.”
The escalating suppression in Iran intensified in the aftermath of the June 2025 war with Israel, sweeping up both newly targeted writers and long-persecuted dissident voices. Among those arrested were online commentator Hossein Ronaghi, who was detained in June; a group of scholars and translators detained in November, including economists Parviz Sedaghat and Mohammad Maljoo, sociologist Mahsa Asadollanejad, and writer and translator Shirin Karimi; and human rights defenders and authors Narges Mohammadi and Sepideh Gholian, who were violently re-arrested while speaking at a memorial service in December.
