China has retained its position as the country with the highest number of writers in prison for a seventh consecutive year, according to a new report by Pen America. The 2023 Freedom to Write index reveals that 107 individuals are behind bars in China for their published work, marking the first time the tally has surpassed 100. This accounts for nearly one-third of the global total of at least 339 jailed writers.
Nearly half of those imprisoned in China were detained for online expression, often under the vague charge of 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble'. James Tager, Pen America's research director, noted that the actual number of those punished for expression is likely much higher, excluding those censored or self-censoring out of fear.
Notable cases include citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, jailed since 2020 for reporting on the early Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, and Sun Qing, arrested in May 2020 for criticising government pandemic policies on social media. In Xinjiang, Uyghur poet Gulnisa Imin is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence on charges of promoting 'separatism' through her poetry.
The report also highlights the impact of Hong Kong's national security law, imposed in 2020, which has led to a further crackdown on free expression. Tager described the law as triggering a 'devastating transformation' for the city's creative sector, with colonial-era sedition laws revived to target dissent since the 2019 protests.
