NEW YORK (AP) Exiled Chinese author Yu Jie joined other writers including Salman Rushdie on the 20th observance of World Press Freedom Day in appealing to China to live up to its own constitution and laws guaranteeing freedom of expression, and calling on the public to put pressure on governments that crack down on writers.

Yu and other writers and activists were on a PEN International panel Friday highlighting a report on trends of the last five years in China's crackdown on free expression. It also marked the 20th anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly's designation of May 3 as World Press Freedom Day.

Other writers who signed onto the appeal included Mario Vargas Llosa, J.M. Coetzee, Marjane Satrapi, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, Andrei Bitov and Tomas Transtromer.

Yu came to the U.S. in January after receiving asylum. He was detained several times in China last year and said he was beaten so badly that he passed out. He has said he thinks Chinese authorities will not allow him back because he has accused them of torture.

"The Chinese Communist Party's secret police hooded me and kidnapped me," said Yu, who wrote a critical biography of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, titled "China's Best Actor."

"And they bent back my fingers one by one and said that as my fingers typed 10 million characters in articles on the computer opposing the Chinese Communist Party, all 10 of my fingers should be broken. They said that they only needed to make a phone call to their senior, and then they could dig a hole and bury me alive in half an hour," he said Friday.

"In numerous nightmares, I have dreamed of the torture I experienced. That is China," Yu said.

Calls to China's U.N. Mission seeking comment Friday were not returned. In January 2012, when Yu left China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said he was unaware of Yu and reports of his departure.

"These regimes do not like being highlighted," Rushdie said. He said that when PEN focuses on a writer who has been imprisoned, 90 percent of them are freed within six months.

Is the effort worth it? "The people in trouble think this is important," Rushdie said, adding that he knew this from his own ordeal.

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World Press Freedom Day: Authors say protests help