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The number of writers imprisoned China has surpassed 100, with nearly half closed to online expression.
The grim event is revealed in the 2023 Freedom to Write Index, a report compiled by Pen America released Wednesday.
With the total number of people imprisoned worldwide for exercising freedom of expression estimated at at least 339, China accounts for nearly a third of the world’s jailed writers. 107 people are behind bars for published statements in China, more than any other country on the index.
This is the first time Pen America’s number of writers detained in China has surpassed 100. Other databases, such as Reporters Without Borders’ number of journalists and media workers detained in China, passed that milestone in 2020.
The index defines “online commenter” as bloggers and people who use social media as their primary platform for expression.
James Tager, director of research at Pen America, said: “Not all people arrested for their online expression will be represented here. It is certain that the true toll of all those who are punished for their expression in China is much higher than the numbers presented here, and that is not even counting those who are censored or who censor themselves for fear of formal punishment.
People detained by the authorities for their online expression are usually arrested on suspicion of “picking up quarrels and stirring up trouble” – a charge that even a senior political delegate said is too vague and can be used arbitrarily by the police.
Among those jailed for inciting strife is the citizen journalist Jan Janwho has been in prison since 2020 after being arrested for reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan.
Several other writers in the Freedom to Write index were targeted for comments on the government’s Covid policies, such as Sun Qing, who was arrested in May 2020 after posting critical statements on WeChat and X, then known as Twitter. Sun was arrested for “inciting subversion against state power.”
Writers in Xinjiang have been treated particularly harshly. The region of northwest China is home to the Uyghur minority, a Muslim group that has been subject to severe cultural and political repression over the past decade.
Gulnisa Imin, a Uighur poet, is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence on the grounds that her poetrythe most famous of which was inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, promoting “separatism”.
In recent years, a crackdown on free expression in Hong Kong has contributed to an increase in the number of jailed writers in China. In 2020, Beijing imposed a national security law on the city, which critics say has been used to suppress dissent.
After pro-democracy protests in 2019, authorities also resumed the use of a colonial-era sedition law that had been used to target government critics. Hong Kong has plummeted in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index since 2019.
Tager said: “Hong Kong’s 2020 National Security Law and the ongoing crackdown on any dissent or dissent in the city has caused a devastating transformation for the city’s creative sector.”
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