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List of people imprisoned for editing Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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There are five known cases of Wikipedia editors being imprisoned for contributing to the free-content online encyclopedia.
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Clockwise from top-left: Bassel Khartabil Safadi (pictured in 2010), Mark Bernstein (pictured in 2013), Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-Sofiani (pictured in 2016)
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Belarus
Mark Bernstein (Марк Израйлевич Бернштейн), a Belarusian editor of the Russian Wikipedia, was detained on 11 March 2022 for violating the Russian 2022 war censorship laws by editing Wikipedia articles about the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and sentenced to 15 days detention and three years of restricted freedom.[1][2][3] He is currently living under restricted freedom, a parole-like sentence.
Pavel Pernikaŭ (Павел Аляксандравіч Пернікаў),[a] a Belarusian editor of the Belarusian Wikipedia, was sentenced on 7 April 2022 to two years in a penal colony for online postings "discrediting the Republic of Belarus" including two edits to Wikipedia about political repression in Belarus.[4][5][6] According to Viasna Human Rights Centre, Pernikov was released on August 28, 2023.
Saudi Arabia
Osama Khalid (أسامة خالد), a Saudi Arabian former administrator of the Arabic Wikipedia, was sentenced to five years imprisonment in September 2020 for "swaying public opinion" and "violating public morals" by making edits "critical about the persecution of political activists in the country."[7] Khalid's sentence was increased to 32 years in September 2022 as part of a campaign to lengthen the sentences of political detainees, according to Democracy for the Arab World Now and SMEX, a Lebanese non-governmental organization.[8][9] He is still incarcerated as of August 2025.
Ziyad al-Sofiani (زياد السفياني), also a former administrator of the Arabic Wikipedia, was likewise charged with "swaying public opinion" and "violating public morals" by making edits "critical about the persecution of political activists in the country." He was sentenced in September 2020 to eight years in prison[7][8][9] and was released in March 2025.[10]
Syria
Bassel Khartabil (باسل خرطبيل) was a contributor to a number of open-source projects including Wikipedia; his arrest in 2012 was likely connected to his online activity. He was executed at Adra Prison near Damascus in 2015.[11] Several organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation, established the Bassel Khartabil Free Culture Fellowship in his honor in 2017, for an initial period of three years.[12] In August 2017, Khartabil's wife and friends reported they had seen a copy of official documents confirming he had been executed after his transfer from Adra prison in 2015.[13]
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See also
Notes
- Also spelt Pavel Pernikov when transliterated from Павел Перников
References
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