{"id":6705,"date":"2021-04-22T07:58:45","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T07:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/?p=6705"},"modified":"2022-04-21T09:42:33","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T09:42:33","slug":"freedom-to-write-index-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/2021\/04\/22\/freedom-to-write-index-2020.html","title":{"rendered":"Freedom to Write Index 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since its launch last year, PEN America\u2019s annual<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Freedom to Write Index<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has helped to inform the greater public about threats to writers around the world, shedding light on the individuals who have been silenced and detained for their words and which countries present the largest threats to writers and public intellectuals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pen.org\/report\/freedom-to-write-index-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noindex noopener\"><b>READ PEN America\u2019s<\/b><b><i> Freedom to Write Index 2020<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Key findings regarding free expression in Belarus from this year\u2019s report:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>Belarus<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which accounted for zero cases in the 2019 Index, now ranks as the fifth worst jailer of writers and intellectuals, with 18 documented cases in 2020, as a result of a brutal post-election crackdown on mass protests that has targeted translators, artists, and other cultural figures.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Belarus is the only new country to make it into this year\u2019s top ten list of the world\u2019s worst jailers of writers and public intellectuals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We highlight the cases of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pen.org\/report\/freedom-to-write-index-2020\/?popup=ihar-bancer#sidebar-ihar-bancer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noindex noopener\"><b>Ihar Bancer<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><b>Dmitry Strosev<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><b>Olga Shparaga<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and <\/span><b>Mikola Dziadok<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, among several other urgent cases of cultural repression and injustice against writers and public intellectuals in Belarus.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other findings of this year\u2019s report include:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the second year in a row, <\/span><b>China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> topped PEN America\u2019s list of the world\u2019s worst jailers of writers and public intellectuals.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2020, at least 273 writers, academics, and public intellectuals in 35 countries were in prison or unjustly held in detention in connection with their writing, their work, or related activism. This represents <\/span><b>a 9 percent increase over the prior year<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, signaling a serious deterioration for the climate for free expression globally.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened free expression in many countries, as governments are using the pandemic to further restrict speech, with policies criminalizing \u201cfalse information\u201d or \u201crumors\u201d about the pandemic\u2014with some even using the virus as an excuse to criminalize criticizing the government itself.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meanwhile, <\/span><b>numbers increased in Iran, Vietnam, and Egypt, and expanded dramatically in Belarus<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, comprising some 7 percent of the total as a result of a brutal post-election crackdown on mass protests and cultural resistance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>India <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">continues to be the only democracy to place in the top ten rankings of countries that jail writers and public intellectuals, with additional writers detained in 2020.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Among the dissidents targeted include our <\/span><b>2020 PEN\/Barbey Freedom to Write honoree Xu Zhiyong in China<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">; <\/span><b>late<\/b> <b>Bangladeshi political commentator and writer Mushtaq Ahmed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">; and <\/span><b>Kakwenza Rukirabashaja, a Ugandan novelist<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> detained, interrogated, and tortured under charges purportedly related to the pandemic.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Though the report only counts writers jailed during calendar year 2020, <\/span><b>Myanmar nonetheless was in the top ten (tied with Eritrea)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, signaling that even pre-coup, the country remained a restrictive environment for writers and public intellectuals.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alongside the Index, PEN America is also proud to present updates to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pen.org\/writers-at-risk-database\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noindex noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writers at Risk database<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which contains details of each of the writers in our 2020 Index along with hundreds of other cases of writers, journalists, artists, and intellectuals under threat around the world, including historical cases that PEN America has worked on from 1987 onwards. This database offers researchers, rights advocates, and the public a wealth of actionable evidence of ongoing global threats to free expression. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pen.org\/writers-at-risk-database\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noindex noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Explore the Writers at Risk Database here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We hope you will explore the Freedom to Write Index and the Writers at Risk Database, and as always, we thank you for your support.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writers are vital for bearing witness to the truths of our time. In the past year especially, writers have been crucial for informing the rest of the world about what is transpiring in their home countries during the COVID-19 pandemic\u2014and helping us imagine alternate visions for the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4255,1,4093],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultural-right","category-news","category-creative-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6705"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10472,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6705\/revisions\/10472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}