The outlook for freedom of expression in the early months of 2025 looks particularly bleak, as governments and rulers across the world ride roughshod over the rules-based international order that has largely held since the end of the Second World War, threatening borders, deepening polarisation, and jeopardising peace. Though perhaps not quite as blatant as the global impacts of the first weeks of the second Trump administration, these trends have been in the works for some time, as illustrated by PEN International’s 2025 Case List.  

2024 was another year where internal and international conflicts – which have doubled in the last five years – took a devastating toll on civic space and cultural life in countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Myanmar, Palestine, Sudan, and Ukraine, through death, destruction of infrastructure, and displacement, as well as on future generations’ right to participate in and enjoy their culture. PEN International recorded at least six writers who died in the ongoing war in Gaza, bringing the total since October 2023 to 23. In Ukraine, PEN International honoured the memory of Victoria Amelina, killed in a Russian missile strike in July 2023 while recording testimonies of witnesses and survivors for her book about the war. 

Journalists, particularly 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. Regrettably, impunity for attacks and killings of writers remained a challenge, including in Brazil, Mexico, Norway, Serbia, and Türkiye, despite some inadequate or incomplete trial proceedings. Such a lack of accountability sends an alarming message to writers in all regions. 

One noticeable development in this year’s Case List is the rise of transnational repression where governments, including Kenya, Türkiye, the United Arabs Emirates (UAE) and Uganda, have colluded with other states to deliver writers and critics visiting or living abroad into what are often black holes of detention, as happened to Egyptian-Turkish poet Abdul Rahman Youssef al-Qaradawi, detained in Lebanon and extradited to the UAE on account of his criticism of the UAE authorities. Happily, Belarusian filmmaker and journalist Andrej Hniot was eventually freed from risk of extradition to Belarus from Serbia, as was Julian Assange in the UK after he negotiated a deal with the USA to avoid extradition and prosecution for his work with Wikileaks, but their ordeals highlight the chilling effect of the increasingly long tentacles of state repression. 

Weaponization of the judicial system to crush dissent was a common theme. Strengthened cybercrime laws and regulations that risked harming freedom of expression were passed or introduced in Algeria, China, Cuba, El Salvador, Malaysia, Nicaragua, and Vietnam, while internet shutdowns to prevent free expression around elections and protests occurred in Mozambique, Comoros, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan. Insult and defamation laws – which in sub-Saharan Africa are part of a colonial legal legacy that governments are in no hurry to overturn – have long been part of the arsenal of governments or their supporters seeking to quell dissent, and this year was no different. Defamation was one of the charges brought against Professor Étienne Fakaba Sissoko in Mali who was sentenced to one year in prison for his criticism of the military government, while similar charges were used to persecute writers in Italy, Peru, the Philippines and Thailand. The Russian Federation continued to abuse its ‘LGBTQI propaganda’ law to censor discussion of same-sex relations and to persecute LGBTQI activists and organisations, while similar laws were passed in Bulgaria and Georgia. More positively, the European Union adopted a directive against strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), intended to protect journalists and media outlets from abusive litigation across its member states.  

Misuse of vaguely worded national security or anti-terror legislation to silence journalists and writers was also common in many sub-Saharan African countries (although Eswatini bucked the trend), as well as in Algeria, Belarus, China, Nicaragua, Egypt, India, Iran, Russian Federation, Türkiye, and the UAE. Mahvash Sabet, a member of Iran’s Baha’i minority who began writing poetry during her previous lengthy imprisonment, was serving a 10-year prison sentence for unfounded charges of ‘espionage’ in relation to her religious beliefs. In other countries, authorities resorted to bogus criminal charges to lock up writers, including in Cuba, Morocco, and the Russian Federation. 

Lengthy prison terms such as these are a tool that PEN International has been fighting ever since the Writers in Prison Committee was established. While Arnon Nampha is serving a cumulative sentence of almost 19 years in Thailand in relation to multiple convictions under the notorious lèse-majesté law, Kaciaryna Andrejeva (real name Bachvałava) was vindictively issued with an additional eight-year sentence after completing her previous two-year sentence for livestreaming a peaceful protest in Belarus. Other writers were detained, sometimes without trial or held after the expiration of their sentences, including in Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Israel, Morocco, the Philippines and the UAE. 

In line with the growing threat of mis- and disinformation, which the PEN Charter clearly identifies as something that writers must stand together to resist, smears and stigmatization by officials were a growing problem in a number of countries, including Argentina, Egypt, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Serbia, the Philippines (where the stigmatizing use of ‘red-tagging’ continued) and Türkiye. Sometimes beginning with censorship of books and book promotion, which expanded exponentially in the USA, and was also seen in Argentina, Mexico, the Russian Federation and Türkiye, such stigmatization was often the precursor to threats or even physical attacks; writers and journalists were threatened, including with rape and death, in Honduras, Malta, Serbia and Venezuela. 

Finally, as in all walks of life, identity plays a part in persecution. Although women made up only 29% of the 2025 Case List, they were more likely to be on trial or suffer various kinds of harassment. Indigenous writers in the Americas, such as in Canada and Mexico, also featured in the Case List, while writers who were members of minorities faced persecution for expressing those identities. In addition to Baha’i poet Mahvash Sabet in Iran, Uyghur and Tibetan writers in China faced long prison terms. For example, Professor Ilham Tohti, a member of the Uyghur minority, is serving a life sentence in connection with his activism for his community, while Kurdish writer Yavuz Ekinci faced over seven years in prison in Türkiye on bogus terrorism charges for his book Dream Divided, which is banned for publication, distribution or sale in the country. Writers discussing themes of gender identity, sexual orientation and sexual abuse also faced repression, including censorship and harassment in Argentina, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, Nigeria, Türkiye, and the USA. 

As always, the information in this Case List provides a sobering overview of what writers risk globally in speaking out, whether in their writing or in other forms of media or in public. As in previous years, PEN International worked closely with PEN Centres, the PEN Emergency Fund (PEF), and partners, to provide life-saving support to writers and their families. This included 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. In 2024, the largest number of the 87 grants made (a 17% rise over 2023) went to assist Palestinian writers trying to flee the war in Gaza (13), while the almost total repression of free speech in Afghanistan (11) and Myanmar (9) meant that the grants continued to be a lifeline for persecuted writers there. Four of the grants to Afghan writers were to women, all facing gender-based violence from the Taliban authorities. Not surprisingly, the high levels of repression in Nicaragua (5), Türkiye (5), Ethiopia (4), Belarus (3) and Cuba (3) required considerable support while conflict or civil unrest contributed to high demand from writers in Sudan (4), Bangladesh (2), Guatemala (2), Lebanon (2) Syria (2). Grants were also made to one writer from each of China, Colombia, Ecuador, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Mali, Serbia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Somalia, Togo, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. 

The ongoing hostility to LGBTQI individuals in some African countries remained of grave concern, and led to support for a writer and transgender woman from Nigeria whose ability to live a free life and build a livelihood was at risk of transphobic attacks from police and from community harassment. Support was also given to a polygender and queer writer, editor, performer, and rapper with multiple disabilities from Uganda, no longer able to support themselves from their creative work and facing economic hardship as a result, following enactment of repressive anti-LGBTQI rights legislation. 

The numbers of grants to writers from countries in crisis and the wide geographical spread of support, alongside the information in this Case List, demonstrates the vital role of this relief work and the need for increased and sustained funding to support it.