The index includes any instance where a writer was targeted because of their work, and jailed for more than 48 hours during 2021. The Freedom to Write Index is based on PEN’s internal research as well as news reports, data from other rights groups and information provided by the relatives of people who are detained. More than 10,183 people are in detention, according to estimates by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, an advocacy group that tracks arrests and killings. The writers represent only a fraction of those imprisoned by Myanmar’s junta, which has arrested those suspected of opposing its rule – from student protesters to teachers and doctors who have refused to work in junta-controlled facilities.
Reports of mistreatment and torture in Myanmar’s detention facilities are widespread. Others have been forced to self-censor due to the security risks. Many have continued to write while in hiding or temporary exile, sharing work on Facebook or private apps where they feel it is safe to do so, said Karlekar. Of the 26 detained in Myanmar in 2021, the majority are held in prisons but have not yet been charged, according to PEN. “In Myanmar and in countries across the globe, writers and public intellectuals are being imprisoned for the ‘crime’ of exercising their freedom of expression and, in many cases, for using the power of the written word to fight back against authoritarianism,” she said.Īfter the coup in Myanmar in February 2021, many poets and authors used their writing to express outrage and grief at military atrocities and inspire dissent. Karin Deutsch Karlekar, the director of PEN America’s “free expression at risk” programmes, described the figures as intolerably high.
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Many of those held in Saudi Arabia and China are serving long-term sentences and had been arrested in previous years.Īcross the world, at least 277 writers in 36 countries were jailed last year in connection with their writing or for exercising free expression, PEN said. According to PEN’s study, in total, Myanmar detains the third-highest number of writers and public intellectuals globally (26), behind only Saudi Arabia (29) and China (85).