• Home
  • About SW
  • Get Involved!
  • Contact
Subscribe by RSS or Email
Sampsonia Way Magazine
banner
  • Features
  • Literary Voices
    • Author Interviews
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Non-Fiction
  • Interviews
  • Fearless, Ink.
    • Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador)
    • Israel Centeno (Venezuela)
    • Hamdy el Gazzar (Egypt)
    • Tarik Günersel (Turkey)
    • Khet Mar (Burma)
    • Tienchi Martin-Liao (China)
    • Mesfin Negash (Ethiopia)
    • Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo (Cuba)
    • Bina Shah (Pakistan)
    • Than Win Htut (Burma)
  • SW Daily
  • Multimedia
    • Videos
    • Slide Shows
    • Infographics
  • About SW
    • Mission
    • Contact
    • Staff
    • Contributors
    • Interns
    • Partners
    • Jobs
    • Internship Program
    • Get Involved!
  • Donate!
  • You are here: Home / Archives for prisoner of conscience

    • Maajid Nawaz, Founder of Quilliam
      Notes from a Former Jihadist
      by Bina Shah / June 26, 2012

      Writer and Sampsonia Way columnist Bina Shah profiles Maajid Nawaz, a former member of the extremist Islamist group Hizb ul Tahrir who now promotes democracy in Pakistan.

      Read more...

    • Hamza Kashgari
      Saudi Writer Could Face Death Penalty for “Blasphemous” Tweets
      by Eoin Koepfinger / February 24, 2012

      Hamza Kashgari on trial in Saudi Arabia for a series of controversial tweets he posted to Twitter that reference the Prophet Muhammad. If found guilty, he could face the death penalty.

      Read more...

    • li_tie-300x224
      Chinese Writer and Activist Sentenced for “Subversive Thoughts”
      by Brody Engelhard / February 9, 2012

      Li Tie was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “subversion of the state authority.” As proof the court cited several articles written by the Maoist writer, including his recent article, “Human Beings’ Heaven Is Human Dignity,” which called for democratic political reform.

      Read more...

    • Min Ko Naing
      Burma’s Political Prisoners: They Are Free, but What About Us?
      by Ko Ko Thett / January 21, 2012

      January 13 was the third wholesale amnesty and commutation of sentences under the new government yet an estimated one thousand prisoners of conscience remain in Burmese jails.

      Read more...

    • Pen Seasons Greetings
      PEN International: Send a Postcard to a Writer in Prison
      by Joshua Barnes / January 10, 2012

      Every year from November to February English PEN releases a list of writers in prison, and provides addresses or email addresses for each of them. This part of the program Season’s Greetings, which calls on people to send a card to one of the many writers in prison that PEN supports.

      Read more...

    • Video: Interview of Newly-freed Burmese Dissident Comedian Zarganar
      by Sampsonia Way / October 18, 2011

      Recently Reporters Without Borders posted a video interview with the comedian and blogger Zarganar, who was freed from Myitkyina prison on 12 October under a government amnesty.

      Read more...

    • Maikel Nabil Sanad: Egypt's First Post-Revolution Prisoner of Conscience
      Egyptian Blogger Passes 40th Day of Hunger Strike
      by Index On Censorship / October 8, 2011

      Maikel Nabil Sanad is entering his 42nd day of hunger strike in protest against a three-year sentence imposed by a military court for criticizing the army.

      Read more...

    • In Jail For Reading a Poem Against Bahrain’s Government
      by Sampsonia Way / June 23, 2011

      After facing brutal torture, Ayat al-Qarmezi from Bahrain was sentenced on June 20 to one year in prison for reading her anti-regime poem at a pro-democracy rally at Manama’s Pearl Square back in February 2011.

      Read more...

    • Follow Us
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Tumblr
    • Pinterest
    • RSS

    Subscribe to SW

    Get Sampsonia Way's top stories and updates delivered every weekend safely to your inbox.

    FEATURES

    Sampsonia Way's companion guide to City of Asylum’s Exiled Voice of China and Tibet literary event, featuring standout pieces from its three year coverage of exiled and persecuted writers. READ

    City of Asylum/Pittsburgh presents:

    Learn more

    • Recent
    • Popular
    • Comments
    • Topics
    • Signs of My Protestation by Sourav Biswash
      Bangladeshi Cartoonist Arifur Rahman on Calling a Cat “Mohammad”
      by Olivia Stransky / May 17, 2013
    • Liao Yiwu, The New York Review of Books
      Slideshow: Exiled Voices of China
      by Sampsonia Way / May 16, 2013
    • Cartoon by Ilian Savkov, used with permission of the artist.
      Art to Die For: Cartoonists at Risk and Their Defenders
      by Olivia Stransky / May 15, 2013
    • Writer's Block
      Don’t Ask The Writer
      by Bina Shah / May 14, 2013
    • For a Song and a Hundred Songs
      Excerpt: Liao Yiwu’s For a Song and a Hundred Songs
      by Sampsonia Way / May 14, 2013
    • Masjid Aqsa mosque
      Pakistan’s Ahmadis: Victims of Identity Theft
      by Bina Shah / April 30, 2013
    • A series of logos for the Asa7be Sarcasm Society based in Egypt. Photo: Asa7be Sarcasm Society via Facebook.
      Egyptian Sarcasm Society
      by Hamdy El-Gazzar / April 22, 2013
    • Ko Lay
      Ko Lay (Inn Wa Gone Yi): A Commander of Poetry
      by Khet Mar / March 21, 2013
    • Detail of Egyptian painter Mahmoud Said's 'Banat Bahari' (Damsels of the Delta). Photo: Courtesy of Hamdy el-Gazar.
      For the Beauties, Poetry is Written (Arabic Text)
      by Hamdy El-Gazzar / April 8, 2013
    • Sri Lankan writer Sonali Samarasinghe outside of the House. Photo: Josh Barnes.
      “The Hotbed of Imminent Danger”: Sri Lankan Writer Sonali Samarasinghe
      by Rachel Webber / March 25, 2013
    • KTShamim: Well written and brave article. Lets not forget though that despite al
    • Naila: I have to say i am very impressed by your article and the bold step yo
    • alina tomas: Once again, OLPL tells it like it is. Wake up world! and see under th
    • fabio: È difficile trovare persone competenti su questo argomento, ma sembra
    • Farhan: There is no such thing as god or religion and no one is going to wake
    Africa Arab Spring Books Burma Cave Canem censorship China City of Asylum Cuba democracy Egypt Ethiopia exile fiction freedom of expression freedom of speech free speech free speech roundup Hamdy el-Gazzar homeslider Horacio Castellanos Moya human rights India Interview Iran Israel Centeno journalism Khet Mar literature media Mexico Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Pakistan Pittsburgh poetry political prisoner politics press freedom Sampsonia Way social media Syria Tienchi Martin-Liao Venezuela writer writers

    LIKE US ON FACEBOOK

    GET ON THE FREE SPEECH WALL!

    Featured Video

    From The Writer's Block video series: A short Q&A with Guatemalan writer Eduardo Halfon. Read our extended interview with Halfon. View all videos in The Writer's Block series.

    World Class Web Hosting® provided as a public service by pair Networks®. Learn more at www.pair.com.

    Latest Tweets

    Follow SW on Twitter
    Back to top
    About Sampsonia Way
    Sampsonia Way is an online magazine sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh that seeks to protect and advocate for writers who may be endangered, to educate the public about threats to writers and literary expression, and to create a community in which endangered writers thrive and literary culture is a valued part of life.
    Learn More

    Mission
    Contact
    Staff
    Contributors
    Interns
    Internships
    Partners
    Cities of Asylum

    Connect
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Tumblr
    Sponsors
    Donate

    Support our efforts to defend and celebrate freedom of expression worldwide.

    DONATE NOW!

    © 2013 Sampsonia Way Magazine | A Publication of City of Asylum/Pittsburgh

    Powered by Free Speech