The challenges to the rules-based international order that were coming into view during the preparation of the previous case list have been consolidated and entrenched in countries in all regions of the world. Many governments no longer feel the need to pay even lip service to human rights, and some have left international bodies and mechanisms, undermining the checks and balances that have been in place for the past 80 years. This 2026 Case List illustrates how persecution of writers continues and takes new forms that can spread like wildfire among states seeking to repress dissent and opposition. Yet it also shows that international solidarity, support, campaigning and advocacy remains crucial – as shown by the releases, acquittals and legal reforms documented despite the increasingly challenging global context.    

Internal and international conflicts, the majority taking place in Africa, continued unabated, often fuelled by geopolitical fault lines linked to competition for resources – whether for the fossil fuel industry or for critical minerals essential for the transition to renewable energy or for technological or military purposes. As in previous years, such conflict all but destroyed cultural life in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Palestine, Sudan, and Ukraine, and curtailed it in other places where gang violence runs rampant, such as Ecuador and Haiti. At the same time, cuts to international aid, most notably by the United States of America, but also by Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, devastated the provision of humanitarian support, which impacted education and cultural life, often with women and girls suffering the worst impacts, as in Afghanistan. 

On the other hand, the fact that protests around the world continued at a high level, driven both by opposition to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and dissatisfaction with corruption and economic and social conditions, shows that people have not been fully cowed into silence. Many of these protests were characterized by the leadership of young activists from the Gen Z generation who used digital platforms to organize and share symbols of solidarity, such as the Straw Hat Pirate flag, from a popular Japanese anime. These protests led to the removal of officials, and in some cases governments, in countries such as Bulgaria, Indonesia, Madagascar, Nepal, Peru, and Serbia, as well as the concession of reforms in Kenya, Morocco, Paraguay, the Philippines, and Togo. Elections were also a flash point for protests in Cameroon, Tanzania and Uganda that were met with unlawful use of force. Governments also used internet shutdowns or social media bans to hamper these and other protests, particularly in Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, India, Iran, Indonesia and Tanzania. Some Gen Z activists faced reprisals for their activism, such as poet Mohamed Tadjadit in Algeria, who was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for his participation in the #Manich Radi movement. 

Journalists around the world, particularly in Mexico and other countries in the Americas, continued to be targeted and killed for their work, as documented by PEN International in its annual Day of the Dead campaign. Despite positive, albeit limited, developments in trials for the murders of journalists in Malta and Serbia, little progress was made in addressing impunity for past attacks in Brazil, Mexico, Norway, and Türkiye. Such a lack of accountability sends a chilling message to all writers.  

Governments and official bodies continued to engage in acts of transnational repression in 2025 in attempts to silence dissent abroad. Methods used included collusion in arrests and suspicious deaths in custody, and in absentia trials, with the linked threat of extradition, as used by the Russian Federation against Georgia-based journalist Larisa Tuptsokova and Türkiye. Removal of nationality or refusal to renew passports, threats against family members and physical attacks were also used in Nicaragua. Other writers forcibly transported across borders in previous years remained in various forms of detention, including in China and the UAE. 

Weaponisation of the judicial system to crush dissent remained a common practice. Repressive cybercrime laws and regulations that are incompatible with freedom of expression remained in force in many countries. Signs arose of a continuum of repression developing from smear campaigns and hostile rhetoric against writers and journalists (Argentina, Bangladesh, Mexico, Serbia, Türkiye, USA) and eventually to civil and criminal defamation claims (often a legacy of colonial laws) or other kinds of often trumped-up criminal charges, highlighting the increasing use of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). Journalist and author Oscar Martínez left El Salvador to avoid the risk of an arrest warrant in connection with a series of interviews with organised crime members he had published, which alleged official corruption. 

Stigmatisation was often the precursor to writers and journalists being threatened, including with rape and death, for example in Argentina, Mexico, Honduras, Israel, Mali, Peru and Serbia. Writer Rana Ayyub received death threats targeting her and her father in India in relation to her human rights reporting in India. Such threats caused some writers to leave their countries for their own safety, including Étienne Fakaba Sissoko, who left Mali after receiving threats after his release from a prison term imposed in relation to a book he wrote.  

Administrative measures, such as removal from jobs, and blocking of journalists’ access or denial of visas, were also used to curtail freedom of expression in Argentina, Bangladesh, Honduras and the USA.  Judicial harassment was documented in Argentina (where President Milei was a frequent instigator), Belarus, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Serbia, the Philippines (where the stigmatising use of ‘red-tagging’ continued) and Türkiye.  

However, in a welcome sign that, in at least some countries, the courts are the final protector of freedom of expression, writers and authors in Bangladesh, Mozambique, and the Philippines had their convictions overturned, and Malawi’s criminal defamation laws were ruled as unconstitutional. Two writers in Algeria and Egypt were released after pardons and were able to reunite with their families in other countries. However, writers and artists in Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Venezuela and Türkiye, released conditionally, faced other forms of harassment such as enforced exile, travel bans or prohibition on work. 

Prolonged detention without trial or imprisonment, sometimes coupled with poor prison conditions that put the lives of writers at risk, remained the most common form of persecution, including in Algeria, Belarus, China, Cuba, India, Iran, Israel, Nicaragua, the Russian Federation, Thailand, Türkiye, the UAE and Venezuela. The fate of poet and playwright Dawit Isaak, detained in Eritrea almost 24 years ago, remained unknown; he is one of 12 writers and journalists held in conditions amounting to enforced disappearance. Many were held on the basis of vaguely worded national security or anti-terror legislation, such as Dong Yuyu, serving a seven-year prison term after conviction of ‘espionage’ after he lunched with a Japanese diplomat. They also included journalist Ismail Alexandrani, long persecuted for his investigative work in Egypt, who was detained on fresh national security charges in 2025.  

In other countries, authorities resorted to bogus criminal charges or excessively long penalties to lock up writers, including in Egypt, Georgia, Morocco, and the Russian Federation. In Cuba, poet and academic José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez was sentenced to the maximum six-year prison term for his participation in a peaceful protest. In Belarus and Cuba, imprisoned writers were released from long prison terms after negotiations with other countries, particularly the USA, but many, such as prominent Belarus opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, were forced into exile as part of the conditions of their release. 

The spread of mis- and disinformation, increasingly generated by artificial intelligence (AI), continued to gather pace and was sometimes used in smear campaigns. Often driven by corporate actors seeking to undermine challenges to their market domination in addition to state actors challenging dissent, it affected public debate on matters of global and national importance, including human-induced climate change and the use of medical interventions that protect individual and public health, such as vaccines. With disinformation sometimes feeding into conservative campaigns that challenged progressive concepts of gender and racial equality, the year saw further increases in censorship of books and other cultural mediums such as film, especially in the USA and Canada, but also seen in Cuba, Mexico and Türkiye. Israeli forces confiscated books from a well-known Palestinian bookshop in East Jerusalem, and briefly detained its co-owners.  

Finally, as in all walks of life, identity plays a part in persecution. Only a quarter of the individual writers featured in the 2026 Case List are women. However, they were more likely to be on trial or suffer various kinds of harassment, including death threats or gender-based violence. Writers who were members of minorities such as the Baha’i minority in Iran, Uyghur and Tibetan writers in China and Kurdish writers in Türkiye also continued to face persecution for expressing those identities, including long prison terms. Writers discussing themes of gender identity, sexual orientation and sexual abuse, as well as non-binary writers, also faced repression, including censorship and harassment in Argentina, Canada, Nigeria, Peru, Türkiye, and the USA. 

In 2025, PEN International continued its decades-long close cooperation with PEN Centres, the PEN Emergency Fund (PEF) and partners to provide life-saving support to writers and their families, including emergency relocation and the provision of emergency financial aid through a one-off grant for a range of urgent needs such as safe passage, medical assistance and general support towards living expenses (see graphic). The largest number of the 84 PEF grants went to assist Palestinian writers trying to flee Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza (21), while severe restrictions on free speech in Myanmar (16), Afghanistan (7), Türkiye (6), Belarus (4), Ethiopia (2) and Nicaragua (2) meant that the grants continued to be a lifeline for persecuted writers there. Writers from 17 other countries also received support. Six additional emergency grants were provided to persecuted writers from Belarus via PEN International’s Civil Society Programme, following their release and forced exile in 2025. 

As this Case List documents, the continued high numbers of grants to writers from countries in crisis, as well as the overall number of countries of origin of the writers seeking support, is illustrative of the persecution faced by writers around the world. As conflict intensifies and the impact of humanitarian aid cuts are felt, it is likely that the need for emergency support will grow in 2026 and beyond. Urgent and sustained fundraising is essential to boost the supply of finance for these lifesaving grants.