"Atena Farghadani is a prisoner of conscience," Amnesty International said.
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In 2013, Amnesty International declared her a Prisoner of Conscience.
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Amnesty International has described Rajab as a "prisoner of conscience".
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Amnesty International has designated her as a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International called him a "prisoner of conscience" after his detention.
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They worked with Amnesty International, which declared him a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International has declared one young woman, Akmaral Tobylova, a prisoner of conscience.
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He becomes a heroic prisoner of conscience and enjoys corresponding with female pen pals.
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Arpaio's conviction on his refusal to obey existing immigration laws was a prisoner of conscience.
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She has won numerous awards from human rights groups, which consider her a prisoner of conscience.
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At the time, Amnesty International listed him as a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release.
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Pompeo said her father - a Uighur scholar - is serving a life sentence as a prisoner of conscience.
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A prisoner of conscience, however, is usually left alone by his fellow-inmates; a tacit distinction is made.
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Pornographer, polemicist, prisoner of conscience: it was not exactly the C.V. one would expect of an encyclopedia editor.
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Designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, she faces up to 10 years in jail if found guilty.
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He is not a wrongfully convicted man, a prisoner of conscience or the victim of overly punitive sentencing laws.
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Despite years of mistaken reports, Zeya Thaw is the only hip-hop artist ever incarcerated as a prisoner of conscience.
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International rights organizations including Amnesty International have described him as a prisoner of conscience and have campaigned for his release.
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"Ruslan is a prisoner of conscience, punished for peacefully expressing views – which he is perfectly entitled to do," the organization said.
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Amnesty International says he is a prisoner of conscience, targeted for the "peaceful exercise of his rights to freedoms of belief, expression and association".
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Vice President Mike Pence has taken up the case of the pastor, as have several American senators, describing him as a prisoner of conscience.
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"He is a prisoner of conscience, who has been swept up in Egypt's ruthless purge of critics and opponents," it added in a statement.
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De Lima, a justice minister in a former administration, has won numerous awards from human rights groups, who consider her a prisoner of conscience.
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"Taiwan has democratic freedoms and Lee has the right to share his ideas," Xiao told Reuters by phone, describing Lee as a "prisoner of conscience".
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In January, 22010, a little more than a year after Aung San Suu Kyi's final release from house arrest, another female prisoner of conscience was freed.
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Organizations like Amnesty International should recognize him as a prisoner of conscience, as the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Freedom House and others have done.
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Human rights group Amnesty International welcomed the release of the prisoner of conscience, but noted that Aliyev has paid dearly for his frontline human rights work.
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Amnesty International has described her as a prisoner of conscience, and Human Rights Watch has cited her hunger strike in its repeated calls to repeal the law.
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"In Vietnam there is no such thing as a 'prisoner of conscience', and there's no such thing as people being arrested for 'freely expressing opinion,'" Hang said.
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World Review When my husband, the Venezuelan opposition leader and prisoner of conscience Leopoldo López, proposed to me in 2006, he told me that marrying him meant marrying Venezuela.
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Azerbaijani human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev was released from prison Monday, making him the latest prisoner of conscience to be released from prison this month in the Caucasus country.
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"Nazanin is still a prisoner of conscience, still unfairly jailed after a sham trial, and still being subjected to the torment of separation from her home and family," Allen added.
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Last year, a ministry spokeswoman said there was no such thing as a prisoner of conscience in Vietnam, following the jailing of human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai last April.
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Ngugi is affording us a glimpse into how a prisoner of conscience, by stubbornly reiterating his convictions, keeps faith with the ideals that those in power want him to betray.
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Amnesty International, which has repeatedly called for his release, has said that he is a prisoner of conscience and that he suffers from "serious mental health issues" do to his time in jail.
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Amnesty International says Taheri is a prisoner of conscience and has condemned Iran's use of capital punishment "for vaguely worded or overly broad offences, or acts that should not be criminalized at all".
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Ms. Sharmila's strike raised the profile of the campaign to oppose the law, and Amnesty International has called her a prisoner of conscience, but the government has not budged on repealing the legislation.
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"As a prisoner of conscience, he should never have been forced to spend a single minute behind bars — let alone five and a half years," said Najia Bounaim of Amnesty's North Africa division.
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Called a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International, de Lima believes the real reason she has been locked up is to stop her asking questions about the thousands of killings that critics say have stained Duterte's presidency.
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"The authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Pastor Evan Mawarire, as he is a prisoner of conscience imprisoned solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights," Amnesty deputy regional director for South Africa Muleya Mwananyanda said in a statement.
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"Prisoner of conscience Intigam Aliyev has paid dearly for his frontline human rights work – the only 'crime' he committed was to defend his fellow citizens' freedoms," said Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International.
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Logging onto the web in China over the last nine years since Liu's imprisonment, you also would not have seen any reports of strong and persistent calls by global leaders for China to free their most prominent prisoner of conscience.
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As advocates for Raif through the prisoner of conscience projects of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, we once again condemn his brutal and unjust imprisonment at the hands of the Saudi government.
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It's about how a child's blog can end up having lifelong repercussions; it's about whether the Trump administration's hard line on immigrants and refugees will extend to someone whom human rights groups around the world have described as a prisoner of conscience.
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In 103, after Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then the mayor of Istanbul, was jailed for a speech in which he read out a religiously themed poem, the human-rights group termed him a "prisoner of conscience" and wrote to the government demanding his release.
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Environmentalist and prisoner of conscience Yevgeny Vitishko spent almost two years in prison for apparently damaging a fence in the run-up to the Games, when in reality his intention to report the environmental cost of the Games' construction was behind his sentencing.
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The Trump administration has called for Quinones' release on several occasions, most recently last month "He is a prisoner of conscience and should be immediately and unconditionally released," Amnesty International, a human rights group, said on Thursday, announcing a campaign for his release.
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Gibney, whose previous documentary subjects include Enron and Theranos, fully understands that before Khodorkovsky was a prisoner of conscience, he was an oligarch who swindled a nation and left it impoverished, resentful, and ripe for a strongman promising to make it great again.
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"I will see him as a very important symbol, (but) people like him fail to get attention from common folk, and given his plight as an unknown prisoner of conscience, there is little to say," one person identified as L said in the article.
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His dignified, calm and persistent calls for freedom for China's people made Mr Liu one of the global giants of moral dissent, who belongs with Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela—and like them was a prisoner of conscience and a winner of the Nobel peace prize.
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Amnesty International considered him to be a prisoner of conscience.
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In the year 1999 he was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.Amnesty International, 3 June 1999, Turkey: Akin Birdal adopted as prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, News Service: 107/99.
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Amnesty International objected to her detention and designated her a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release.
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Amnesty International has named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release.
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Some understand the term political prisoner narrowly, equating it with the term prisoner of conscience (POC).
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On June 15, 2020, Amnesty International recognized the Russian politician Nikolai Platoshkin as a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release. He was still missing in 2015.
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Cuban journalist named prisoner of conscience, amnesty.org, 30. 1. 2013 He was released on April 9, 2013, having never been formally charged.
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Like Thet Win Aung, Pyone Cho spent his entire adult life advocating for democracy, spending 20 years as a prisoner of conscience.
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Azeri blogger detained, oil major presses case. Retrieved on August 10, 2009. which employs him. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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The Human Rights Foundation. Retrieved on July 21, 2007. Also see re: Francisco Usón—Political Prisoner and Prisoner of Conscience. Human Rights Foundation.
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She was a prisoner of conscience for seven years and In 1978 she named as the "Prisoner of the Year " by Amnesty International.
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The Human Rights Foundation. Retrieved on July 21, 2007. Also see re: Francisco Usón—Political Prisoner and Prisoner of Conscience. Human Rights Foundation.
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He was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Although Eritrea has no post of vice president, nonetheless some sources have listed Sherifo as the vice president, and continue to do so (2006)."Country Profile: Eritrea: Politics: Main political figures" Economist Intelligence Unit 1 June 2006 Amnesty International has named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release.
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Following the trial, Amnesty International declared him to be a prisoner of conscience, "jailed solely for his peaceful activities in defence of human rights".
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Hossain has been detained and imprisoned twice by military rulers of Bangladesh and has been described by Senator Edward Kennedy as a 'prisoner of conscience'.
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Ivonne Malleza Galano is a Cuban democracy activist who was imprisoned in 2011 by the Cuban government. Amnesty International designated her a prisoner of conscience.
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His arrest drew international attention, with the European Union describing him as a "human rights defender", and Amnesty International designating him a prisoner of conscience.
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His trial led Amnesty International to declare him a prisoner of conscience, and made him a hero to the American and European anti-war movements.
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In August 1990, Amnesty International adopted Jabarin as a prisoner of conscience. In November 1994, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his detention arbitrary.
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His wartime injuries left him permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head.Purdum, Todd. "Prisoner of Conscience" , Vanity Fair, February 2007. Retrieved January 19, 2008.
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Kulakov was born in Kokand, Uzbekistan. He was the fifth out of six children born to Anna and Mikhail Kulakov, prisoner of conscience and gulag survivor.
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Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for exercising his rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly", and called for his immediate release.
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Pasko page in the Sakharov center (Moscow) After several re-trials, the Court of the Pacific Fleet ultimately acquitted Pasko on all counts except espionage, sentencing him to four years of imprisonment for treason on December 25, 2001. He was recognized as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.Grigory Pasko, a prisoner of conscience In 2003, he was released from detention. Eighteen months later, he was allowed to travel abroad.
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Thai activist and magazine editor Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, who was sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment for lèse- majesté in 2013, is a designated prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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Alejandro Gonzalez Raga is a Cuban journalist. He was jailed from 2003 until released to exile in Spain in 2008. Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International criticised the verdict and declared Yee a prisoner of conscience, citing Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that enshrines the principle to freedom of expression.
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Keyvan Rafiee () is a former prisoner of conscience and was arrested six times for his activities starting in 2003. He is the founder of Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI).
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Sapardurdy Khadzhiev is a Turkmenistani human rights activist currently serving a prison sentence in Turkmenbashi. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and named him a 2011 "priority case".
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Nilar Thein (, ) is a Burmese democracy activist and political prisoner imprisoned from 2008 to 2012 at Thayet prison in Burma's Magway Region. Amnesty International considered her a prisoner of conscience.
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The US State Department considers Michá a political prisoner, and has objected to his continued imprisonment. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience, and has called for his immediate release.
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The US State Department considers Ndong a political prisoner, and has objected to his continued imprisonment. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience, and has called for his immediate release.
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The US State Department considers Faustino a political prisoner, and has objected to his continued imprisonment. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience, and has called for his immediate release.
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Since 1998 Paval Sieviaryniec became known for his essays and his work as a publicist. Since June 7, 2020 he is under arrest. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience.
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Since 2007, Abune Antonios has been considered by the United States to be a religious prisoner of conscience. The president of the Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches condemned the excommunication.
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Dawit Isaak (born 28 October 1964) is a Swedish-Eritrean playwright, journalist and writer, who has been held in prison in Eritrea since 2001 without trial and is considered a traitor by the Eritrean government. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and has called for his immediate and unconditional release. For years, he was the only Swedish citizen held as a prisoner of conscience (he is now joined by the Swedish citizen and publicist Gui Minhai).
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In 2012, Amnesty International designated Savda a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression". The group called for his immediate and unconditional release.
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Amnesty International designated U Sein Than a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate and unconditional release. U Sein Than has a wife, Daw Saw Sandar, and a daughter, Nay Nwe.
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In the book, Kantůrková spells out seven rules for life as a prisoner of conscience: # Never let them catch you out. # Name no names. # Dictate your statement yourself. # Stay calm and smiling.
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Htay Kywe (, ) is a repeatedly-imprisoned Burmese pro-democracy activist who was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. BBC News describes him as a key member of the 8888 Generation movement.
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Atena Farghadani (; born 29 January 1987) is an Iranian artist and political activist, who was imprisoned for 18 months. Amnesty International considers her a prisoner of conscience. She was released on 3 May 2016.
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According to Amnesty International, he was a prisoner of conscience, held by Bhutan "for the peaceful expression of his political beliefs, in particular his campaign against government policies unfairly affecting members of the Nepali-speaking community in southern Bhutan."Amnesty International, "Amnesty International welcomes release of prisoner of conscience", press release, 1999-12-21, accessed 2009-01-16. He was sentenced in 1993 to life imprisonment. Amnesty International and U.S. Department of State considered him as a political prisoner and could win his release from jail.
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Grigory Mikhailovich Pasko (Григо́рий Миха́йлович Пасько, born 19 May 1962, Kreshchenovka, Ukraine) is a military Russian journalist, Amnesty International-designated prisoner of conscience, and founding editor of Ecology and Law, an environmental and citizens' rights magazine.
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She was re-arrested on 22 August 2014 on similar charges to those for which she was acquitted, and remanded in judicial custody for 15 days. Amnesty International has declared her as a prisoner of conscience.
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Faustin Ndikumana (b. 1970) is a Burundian economist and anti-corruption activist. In February 2012, he was detained for two weeks on charges of making "false declarations", leading Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience and named him a 2011 "priority case". In 2019 the Gambian newspaper The Trumpet reported that Manneh had died in captivity at some point in mid-2008.
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The trials were heavily criticised by foreign human rights monitoring groups. Hamadi Jebali remained in prison until 2006,1 and Jebali was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. In 2011, he became the nation's prime minister.
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Following his conviction, Amnesty International named Aguayo a prisoner of conscience, arguing that he had taken "reasonable steps to secure release from the army" and that he was "imprisoned solely for his conscientious objection to participating in war".
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James Rupert Russell Mawdsley is a traditionalist Catholic priest of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP). Prior to seminary, he was a prisoner of conscience in Burma. He is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Australia.
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Bolat Atabaev is a Kazakh theater director who in 2012 was charged with "inciting social discord" for his role in the 2011 Mangystau riots. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience. He was released on 3 July 2012.
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He was arrested again in 2000 and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience. He was released in July 2005. He explained his gratitude to Amnesty International members who helped him.
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Amnesty International responded by declaring Mohamud a prisoner of conscience, detained "for exercising his right to freedom of expression". On 18 July, the Somaliland government pardoned Mohamud, apparently in response to international pressure, and he returned to his home in Hargeisa.
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Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience. As the church hierarchy disapproved of his activism, Desmond resigned from the priesthood in 1973. He later married human rights activist Snoeks Desmond, with whom he had three sons, but remained a Catholic.
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Amnesty International declared him as a prisoner of conscience. He received the 2003 Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Award. He was released after 14 months of jail, possibly because the Cuban government feared the international backlash if he had died in jail.
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Charles Ntakirutinka is a former Transportation Minister in the post-genocide Rwandan government, who was later imprisoned on charges of creating civil disorder as well as planning assassinations. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and a 2011 "priority case".
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The organization stated that she appeared to be "held solely for her humanitarian work and for the peaceful expression of her views", and designated her a prisoner of conscience. She was released after a court hearing on 20 January 2013.
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For his political views and activities, and especially during the lawyers movement against General Zia ul Haq, Minto faced arrests and detentions several times. He was considered a 'prisoner of conscience' by the Amnesty International organization during his prison time.
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Omar Pernet Hernández is a Cuban librarian, human rights activist, and a former political prisoner. He was imprisoned during the Black Spring in 2003 and released to exile in Spain in 2008. Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience.
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In 2011, he was arrested again and held under a series of eight short-term detention orders; UK-based Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience. He was released on December 26, 2013, but rearrested on May 23, 2017.
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Reza Alijani () is an Iranian journalist, writer and nationalist-religious activist. Alijani has been described as "Neo-Shariatist" and a leading post- Islamist intellectual figure. Alijani has spent years in jail since 1980s. Amnesty International has designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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The six PPGE members were given sentences of one to five years apiece. The US State Department considers Ebele a political prisoner, and objected to his continued imprisonment. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release.
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Chew Boon Lay: A Family Traces its History. Singapore: The Compiler. In 1985, he founded Wordmaker Design Pte Ltd] a communications and branding firm, and served as its Managing Director until 2000. KC Chew is also a former Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience.
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Eduard Lobau (born 1 December 1988 in Vilnius) is a Belarusian activist with the nation's democracy movement, specifically the group Young Front. He was imprisoned by the government of Belarus for his protest activities. Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience.
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Al-Jamri was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and fined BD5.7 million (US$15 million). British politician George Galloway, Human Rights Watch, International Pen and Amnesty International led campaigns in solidarity with al-Jamri. The latter also named him a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. Human Rights Watch condemned the arrest as part of China's most severe crackdown on activists in a decade, and called for an immediate response from the international community.
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Jean-Claude Kavumbagu is a Burundian Internet journalist who has been arrested on multiple occasions for issues related to his reporting. In 2011, he was charged with treason in a high-profile trial and named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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From 8 August to 29 September, he joined other imprisoned activists in a hunger strike. Just before the trial, Amnesty International issued a report that expressed concerns that he was not getting a fair trial, and may be a prisoner of conscience.
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The six PPGE members were given sentences of one to five years apiece. The US State Department considers Mangue a political prisoner and has objected to his continued imprisonment. Amnesty International granted him "prisoner of conscience" status and has called for his immediate release.
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Teterissa, and a group of 19 traditional Moluccan dancers, unfurled a secessionist flag of the banned South Moluccan Republic in front of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on June 29, 2007, in Ambon, the capital of Maluku. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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He was then transferred to Mazrah Tora prison and put on trial. Represented by Sadiq Khan, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.Nawaz (2012): p. 257. During the trial, he was adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience,Nawaz (2012): pp. 250–57.
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Freedom House, 2014-06-17. Retrieved 2014-07-29. Human Rights Watch called on Tajikistan to present credible evidence against the scholar or release him immediately. Amnesty International called Sodiqov a "prisoner of conscience" and claimed that charges laid against him were "politically motivated".
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Annakurban Amanklychev is a human rights activist notable for serving a prison sentence (2006-2013) in the dictatorial regime of Turkmenistan on charges, widely believed to be fabricated. Amnesty International had considered him a prisoner of conscience and named him a 2011 "priority case".
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In August 2014, Maseko wrote to US President Barack Obama from prison, seeking his intervention ahead of the 2014 United States–Africa Leaders Summit. Maseko was released from prison on 30 July 2015. He had been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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Nelson Aguiar Ramírez is a Cuban dissident. He was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in jail during the Black Spring in 2003. Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience. He is president of the unofficial Partido Ortodoxo de Cuba (Cuban Orthodox Party).
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In September 2016 Inter TV channel - often accused of being pro-Russia - was put to fire during a protest. Amnesty International has appealed for the release of Ukrainian journalist and declared him a prisoner of conscience. The website Myrotvorets has published personal information about journalists.
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Jean-Marie Seroney (25 July 1927 – 6 December 1982) was a Kenyan human rights advocate, a legislator, and an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. He was detained as a prisoner of conscience for 1, 155 days. Seroney served as the Member of the Legislative Council for Nandi Constituency from 1961 to 1963 and Member of Parliament (MP) for Nandi North from 1963 to 1966 before becoming the Member for the newly formed Tinderet Constituency from 1966 to 1975. As a legislator, he worked hard to introduce bills that would remove or at least check the excessive powers vested in the president as a result of the numerous amendments to the Constitution.
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For his efforts in the field of human rights advocacy, Momeni was awarded the 2009 Homo Homini Award by People in Need. He shared the prize with Majid Tavakoli, another student activist leader. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his release.
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Ma Thida (; born ca. 1966) is a Burmese surgeon, writer, human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience. She has published under the pseudonym Suragamika which means "brave traveler". In Myanmar, Thida is best known as a leading intellectual, whose books deal with the country's political situation.
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In 1961 she was the subject of parliamentary questions after she was force-fed while on hunger strike in Gateside prison. She also worked for the human-rights organisation Amnesty International for 24 years up to 1994 and was the organisation's first prisoner of conscience in Britain.
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Rasul Jafarov (; born August 17, 1984) is a lawyer and prominent human rights defender in Azerbaijan. In April 2015, he was sentenced to six and a half years’ imprisonment. He was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He received a pardon in March 2016.
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FEMEN is a feminist protest group founded in Ukraine in 2008 The organization became internationally known for organizing topless protests against sex tourism, religious institutions, sexism and homophobia Amnesty International has appealed for the release of Ukrainian journalist Ruslan Kotsababy and declared him a prisoner of conscience.
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For his detention, he was listed as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.Biyografi.net - Biography of Mümtaz Soysal In 1974, he became the first former prisoner of conscience to serve on the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International. He served on the organization’s board until 1976, becoming its vice chairman.
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Somyot Prueksakasemsuk () is a Thai activist and magazine editor who in 2013 was sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment for lese majeste against King Bhumibol Adulyadej. His sentence drew protest from the European Union and from numerous human rights groups, including Amnesty International, which designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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This included Nguyen Van Oai, a former prisoner of conscience, who was detained under Article 257 of the Vietnamese Penal Code. Hoa was later sentenced to seven years prison in a one day trial charged under Article 88 of the Vietnamese Penal Code for "conducting propaganda against the state".
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From 1982-1994, Khalifa was held without trial at various state security prisons, including the infamous Tadmur Prison. The National Academy of Sciences reported that he was imprisoned for suspected involvement in the prohibited Party for Communist Action. Amnesty International considered Khalifa to be a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International designated Belousov a prisoner of conscience. IFEX stated that there was “no video evidence” linking Belousov to any act of violence. The Committee of Concerned Scientists wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin in support of Belousov, and Russia's Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Belousov as a political prisoner.
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Soltani was incarcerated for political offences in 2005 and 2009. He received an 18-year prison sentence in 2012 and was banned for an additional 20 years from practicing law. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and called him "one of the bravest human rights defenders in Iran".
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Héctor Fernando Maseda Gutiérrez is a Cuban nuclear engineer and a journalist. The Fidel Castro regime arrested him during the 2003 "Black Spring" and sentenced him to 20 years in jail. He was released in February, 2011. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release.
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In a crackdown on his party, Jilani was arrested in 1973. Bhutto then attempted to bribe Jilani with offers of high positions—all to no avail. He was frequently arrested, but all charges against him were repeatedly dismissed by the courts. Amnesty International adopted him as a "prisoner of conscience" in 1974.
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He was subsequently arrested at the urging of the orthodox Sunni Adhaalath Party, which also organized a counter- demonstration on 23 December to protect Islam. Rasheed was released on 10 January following protests by groups such as Amnesty International (which named him a prisoner of conscience) and Reporters Without Borders on his behalf.
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Fidel Suárez Cruz is a Cuban farmer from Pinar del Río. He became an independent librarian and a member of the pro-democracy Party for Human Rights in Cuba. He was arrested during the 2003 crackdown on dissidents and summarily sentenced to jail. Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience.
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Agadir: procès en appel This led to him being referred to by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. Morocco accuses him of being an agent for the Polisario Front, which he denies, as he admits he supports the goal of the liberation movement, of holding a United Nations backed referendum on independence.
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160px Alexander Otroschenkov (Аляксандр Атрошчанкаў, Александр Отрощенков, also transliterated as Alyaksandr Atroshchankau or Aleksandr Atroshchenko) is a Belarusian political activist and journalist. In 2011 he was sentenced to four years in prison after he covered a protest rally as a journalist. He was listed by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.
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Ko Ko Gyi (, born 18 December 1961) is a Burmese politician and leading democracy activist. For his protests against the military government, he spent over 17 years in prison on multiple occasions between 1989 and 2012.1989, 1991–2005, 2006–2007, 2007–2012. See (). He was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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In November 2001 Desautels, dressed in a funeral shroud and carrying a symbolic foam coffin, trespassed onto federal property at Fort Benning outside Columbus, Georgia as part of a protest against the US Army School of the Americas. As a result, Desautels served a six-month prison sentence as a "prisoner of conscience".
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She attended sequel of meetings with Ministers and various stakeholders to discuss education bill and reform at Yangon, after which she was arrested. Her courage was praised by former American President George W. Bush. She received the Citizen of Burma Award for 2015. Amnesty International has declared her a prisoner of conscience.
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Alfredo Domínguez Batista (born November 15, 1961) is a Cuban dissident. Amnesty International has declared him as a prisoner of conscience. He is a member of the Christian Liberation Movement and was involved in the Varela project. He was arrested during the Black Spring in 2003 and sentenced to 14 years in jail.
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Mohsin was tied up and left locked in another room. Sethi was then held for almost a month without charge. He was kept incommunicado at a detention center in Lahore. Amnesty International stated its belief that his arrest was connected with his investigations into government corruption, and designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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Jaengraew has since been detained by authorities on multiple occasions for standing up to the junta, and demanding policies and measures that uphold democratic ideals and human rights. Along with several other student activists arrested for peaceful protest in Thailand, Jaengraew is considered a prisoner of conscience and human rights defender by Amnesty International.
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BELARUS: PUBLIC APPEAL: PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE: ALYAKSANDR KAZULIN, Amnesty International, 5 January 2007, Index number: EUR 49/001/2007 (retrieved October 5, 2017) On 26 February 2008, he was allowed to attend his wife's funeral, after threatening to starve himself if he was not released. On 16 August 2008, he was released from prison altogether.
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Omar Moisés Ruiz Hernández (born November 16, 1947Profile at Payolibro.com) is a Cuban journalist. Amnesty International declared him as an international prisoner of conscience after he was imprisoned in 2003 during a crackdown on dissidents. He worked for dissident press agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro (Decoro Working Group) before sentenced to 18 years in prison.
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Altamirano and other CAUS leaders were arrested. He was accused of participating in a CIA destabilization plot. Altamirano was arrested along with other Communist Party and CAUS leaders on October 21, 1981 and sentenced to seven months imprisonment for violating the Public Order Law. He was recognized as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China describes him as a political prisoner.Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Political Prisoner Database:Shi Tao . Reporters Without Borders launched a petition calling for his release, while the Committee to Protect Journalists described itself as "outraged" by the arrest.
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Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience. Bayramli's arrest came in a year of growing tension between Azerbaijan and Iran. Iran accused Azerbaijan of assisting in the assassination of nuclear scientists, and withdrew its ambassador following complaints by Iranian religious leaders over Azerbaijan's hosting of Eurovision 2012. Both countries accused the other of interfering in their domestic affairs.
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On 22 February 2012 he was charged in the Specialized Criminal Court with "support of demonstrations, presence at the location of a demonstration, and communications with the foreign media in a manner that harmed the reputation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." A trial date was set for April 2012. Al-Johani is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience .
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Dr. Kamal al-Labwani (; born October 10, 1957 in Zabadani, Syria) is a Syrian doctor and artist, considered one of the most prominent members of the Syrian opposition movement. He was released from Adra Prison, near Damascus on November 15, 2011, according to state media. Before his release, Amnesty International called him a prisoner of conscience.
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His medicines were not given to him. Even after stroke Marynich was not released from prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure he was released from jail one year later, on April 14, 2006, shortly after Alexander Lukashenko started his controversial third term in office. Amnesty International declared that it considered him a prisoner of conscience.
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Samir Feriani is a Tunisian official (sources variously described him as a police officer or a senior Interior Ministry employee). A whistleblower, he was arrested in May 2011 and came to be known as the "first 'Prisoner of Conscience' in the post revolutionary Tunisia". He was released in September 2011, and acquitted of most charges in March 2012.
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Many students escaped. Thousands of students were arrested, though 19 were eventually imprisoned, including Thongchai. Various organizations, including Amnesty International, advocated for his release as a prisoner of conscience. He was released on 16 September 1978 and allowed to return to finish his education at Thammasat on the condition that he was not involved in further political activities.
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Tajul Muluk (born c. 1971 as Ali Murtadha) is a Shia religious leader of Madura Island, Indonesia. In December 2011, his pesantren was burned down in an arson attack by anti-Shiite protesters. In March 2012, he was charged with blasphemy; the following month he was arrested, leading Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience.
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For the whole term he had about 150 days of ShIZO (Penalty Insulator). In 1978, Amnesty International took Marynovych under his protection as a prisoner of conscience. From April 1984, Marynovych was exiled to the village of Saralzhin in the Oiyl District of Aktobe region of Kazakhstan, where he worked as a carpenter. He married Lyuba Kheina.
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Imprisoned multiple times for her publications, she was designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and her legacy continued to face legal challenge in Turkey after her death. She has received multiple awards and honors for her work and the Human Rights Association of Turkey ( İHD) bestows the Ayşe Zarakolu Freedom of Thought prize in her honor.
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This high sanctions compromised the continued publication of the newspaper.Nueva multa contra el director del diario marroquí 'Al Massae' El Mundo, 1 December 2008 In June 2011, Rachid Niny was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for "disinformation" following his criticism of Moroccan intelligence agencies. The sentence led Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience.
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Antonio Díaz Sánchez on the left Antonio Ramon Díaz Sánchez (born July 14, 1962) is a Cuban dissident. He participated in the gathering of signatures for the Varela project and was a member of the Christian Liberation Movement. Antonio Díaz Sánchez was imprisoned during the 2003 crackdown on dissidents. Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience.
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Blas Giraldo Reyes Rodríguez (born August 7, 1955) is a Cuban librarian and a member of Varela project. He was imprisoned in 2003 during a crackdown on dissidents and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Amnesty International has declared him as a prisoner of conscience. His wife, Isel Acosta, is a member of Ladies in White.
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Hkun Htun Oo (, ; born 11 September 1943 ; is a chairman of Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) and a politician who was imprisoned in 2005 for treason, defamation, and inciting dissatisfaction toward the Burmese government. His sentence was protested by numerous Western governments and the human rights group Amnesty International, which named him a prisoner of conscience.
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On 9 February 2010, the Democratic Voice of Burma reported that Hkun Htun Oo was "losing hair and weight," dropping from around 160 lbs. to around 120 lbs., and on 10 February 2011, that his health was "deteriorating". Amnesty International named Hkun Htun Oo as a prisoner of conscience, and as of May 2011, continued to publicize his case.
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Sannikov was a candidate at the 2010 presidential election in Belarus, and had the second highest percentage of the popular votes after incumbent Alexander Lukashenko. He was incarcerated in a Minsk KGB facility for peacefully protesting at a demonstration after the elections. Sannikov was beaten by police, tortured, and held incommunicado for two months. Amnesty International labeled him a prisoner of conscience.
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René de Jesús Gómez Manzano (born 19 December 1943 in Havana) is a Cuban dissident known for his essay "The Homeland Belongs to All", which he co-wrote with Marta Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca, and Felix Bonne, as well as his repeated imprisonment by the Cuban government. Amnesty International has named him to be a prisoner of conscience three times.
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Amnesty International again designated him a prisoner of conscience and lobbied for his release. He was released on 9 February 2007. Having been banned from practicing law, he stated that he relied on aid from "compatriots in exile". He told reporters that he nonetheless intended to remain in Cuba and continue his activism, stating, "Change will come sooner than later".
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He took an arts degree in Economics in prison. Amnesty International December 1976 Volume VI Number 12, Newsletter Altogether he was imprisoned for 14 years and spent 2 years of his life underground in various parts of the country including Kathmandu valley. He was declared Prisoner of Conscience for 3 years while imprisoned in Nakhu Jail by Amnesty International, Ontario Section of Canada.
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Félix Navarro Rodríguez (born c. 1955) is a Cuban farmer, teacher, and dissident from Perico, Matanzas Province. On 18 March 2003, he was arrested as part of the Black Spring, a general crackdown by the Cuban government on pro- democracy groups. He was sentenced to fifty years in prison at Guantánamo, leading Amnesty International to name him a prisoner of conscience.
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He went home downtown where he was with his family. On December 20, 2010, at the election night Michalevic was arrested by KGB agents in his apartment in Minsk. He was charged for organizing of mass riots. On 11 January 2011, Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience. January 11, 2011 Michalevic called from the KGB jail to his wife.
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On April 16, 1992 police officers dumped a plastic bag holding his frozen body in front of his relatives home. The government claimed he had died on April 13 from pneumonia. His body was found to have had broken bones and other injuries that may have resulted from torture. He may have been the longest serving prisoner of conscience in the world.
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At that time he performed a duty of financial spokesman for the Union. Wanted after 13 December 1981, he lived in hiding. He was arrested, detained and imprisoned numerous times for his activity in the independent trade union in the years 1983-1988. He was called a prisoner of conscience by the Amnesty International between 29 May 1984 and 21 August 1984.
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Anastasia Nukzarievna Shevchenko (; born 23 October 1979) is a Russian public figure and civil activist. She is the first person in Russia to have a criminal case brought against her on charges of participating in an "undesirable" organisation under Russian Federation law. As of 8 April 2019, she remains under investigation. She is recognised as a political prisoner and a prisoner of conscience.
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He and a number of other opposition politicians were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act during Operation Lalang in October 1987 for inciting "racial tension" in Malaysia. Karpal was released for several hours in March 1988 in response to a habeas corpus application before being rearrested and imprisoned until January 1989. Amnesty International called him a prisoner of conscience.
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Aye Aung (, ; also known as Ko Aye Aung) is a Burmese democracy activist who was imprisoned from September 1998 to July 2012. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience. Aye Aung is the son of Thaung Sein and San Myint. He studied physics at Dagon University, where he became active in the pro-democracy group All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU).
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Solomon along with 15 other ministers were arrested by the ruling front and detained in unknown location ever since. The ministers were criticizing the border war of the then president, Isaia and signed an open letter. He was fired along with other opposing members and was detained on 18 September 2001. He was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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Father Manuel Yergatian (1954–2004) was a Turkish Armenian priest, who was arrested in Turkey for the alleged possession of maps that indicated Armenian territory within modern-day Turkey and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience, concluding that the evidence against him was baseless.The Armenian Genocide: Documentation, 1991, p. 224Tessa, Hofmann.
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Alisher Karamatov is a currently-imprisoned Uzbekistani rural development activist. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and named him a 2011 "priority case". Before his arrest, Karmatov was an activist with the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan in Guliston, Sirdaryo Province. On 29 April 2006, Karmatov was arrested along with fellow activist Azam Farmonov and charged with extortion.
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Azam Farmonov is an Uzbekistani rural development activist who spent 11 years in prison following conviction for extortion in 2006. Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience and in 2011 named him a "priority case". Farmonov has a wife, Ozoda Yakubova, and two children. His father-in- law, Talib Yakubov, is the Vice President of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan.
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Amnesty International has called him a prisoner of conscience. He had published an article on a prostitution ring operated by female Awami League leader. Matiur Rahman Chowdhury, editor of Manab Zamin, was also accused in the case over the prostitution report. The cases were filled by Saifuzzaman Shikhor, a Member of Parliament and former Assistant Personal Secretary of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
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Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. On 6 March 2012, former U.S. Representative Joseph Cao organized a Vietnamese-American lobbying effort for Que, Nguyen Van Ly, Dieu Cay, and other Vietnamese political prisoners, calling on the administration of President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress to take a stronger stand on their behalf.
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A prolific writer and scholar, Palijo served as a Supreme Court lawyer. He was jailed under political charges for more than 11 years especially during the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in Pakistan. Most of his prisoner life, he was kept on Kot Lakhpat jail, Punjab during 1980. He declared as "Prisoner of Conscience" by Amnesty International in 1981.
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Alexander Aan (born 1981) is an Indonesian atheist and ex-Muslim of Minang descent. He was imprisoned in 2012 for posting comments and images to Facebook that were judged to be "disseminating information aimed at inciting religious hatred or hostility" by the Muaro Sijunjung district court. The sentence sparked national debate and caused Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International declared him as a prisoner of conscience. In 2007, International Society for Human Rights reported that he was in an acutely critical condition, having lost 60% of his former weight. Villarreal was released on 13 July 2010 following an agreement between Fidel Castro, the Catholic Church, and the government of Spain. He then resettled in La Rioja, Spain.
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He too was arrested, and Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience. The Court of Appeal ruled that a treasonous offence cannot be committed "against Zanzibar as [it] is not a sovereign state." President Salmin Amour ordered their release just before the end of his tenure in 2000. In 2009, President Amani Abeid Karume nominated him to the ZHoR.
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Yusuf Osman Samatar (Barda'ad) () was a lawyer, post-colonial political party leader, and former member of Somalia's parliament. First arrested in 1961, Samatar was arrested again in 1975 by the dictatorial regime and detained without charge or trial. A prisoner of conscience, Samatar would spend nearly two decades in prison, mostly in solitary confinement making him the longest serving political prisoner in Somalia's history.
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Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, and U.S. President George W. Bush named al-Bunni in a speech as a political prisoner unfairly jailed by Syria. After his release from prison in 2011, he continued to defend the detainees, he escaped from Syria the end of 2014. He is in Germany now working to open the files of war criminals in Syria and transitional justice.
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Taghi Rahmani () is an Iranian journalist, writer and nationalist-religious activist. Shireen Hunter describes Rahmani as "a contemporary Iranian intellectual and author of books on religious intellectualism and reason". Between 1981 and 2005, he reportedly was sentenced to a total of 5,000 days in prison. According to Reporters Without Borders, he is "Iran’s most frequently jailed journalist" and Amnesty International has designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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Albert Langer (also known as Arthur Dent.) is an Australian political activist, best known for his 1996 conviction and gaoling on contempt charges after breaching an injunction forbidding his advocacy of marking electoral ballot papers in a way discouraged by the Australian Electoral Commission. As a result of his imprisonment, Amnesty International declared him the first Australian prisoner of conscience for over 20 years.
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On 27 August, Isganadarov was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the vote-tampering charges. Amnesty protested the sentence and designated him a prisoner of conscience. The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe also wrote to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev calling for Isganadarov's immediate release. The International Federation for Human Rights condemned the sentence as part of a pattern of "constant judicial harassment".
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More than 100 of Maleki's fellow prisoners wrote a letter to the authorities warning that he would die if not provided with appropriate medical care. Amnesty International designated Ronaghi a prisoner of conscience, stating that he appeared to be "held solely on account of his peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression". The organization called for him to be released immediately and unconditionally.
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Mahdi Isa Mahdi Abu Deeb () (born 30 December 1962) is the founder and leader of Bahrain Teachers' Association (BTA), and Assistant Secretary-General of Arab Teachers' Union. Due to his role in the Bahraini uprising, he was arrested, allegedly tortured, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. His sentence was later reduced to five years by an appeals court. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International denounced Francisco Marcial's imprisonment as resulting from a wrongful prosecution. The group declared her a prisoner of conscience, claiming there was no credible evidence against her, and that she had been prosecuted because of her gender, poverty, race, and inability to speak or understand the Spanish language. In 2009, prosecutors dropped the case against Francisco Marcial. In September 2009, she was released.
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Trần Quốc Hiền (born c. 1965) is a Vietnamese lawyer and author imprisoned by the Vietnamese government for his union activities. His detention was protested by several international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, which named him a prisoner of conscience. Tran was director of a law firm in Ho Chi Minh City, where he specialized in defending farmers whose land had been confiscated by the government.
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Grave de Peralta was imprisoned in 2003 within the Kilo 5½ Prison in Pinar del Río during the Black Spring. He has been declared as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Before his imprisonment, he was a multitasking threat to the Castro dictatorship. As a member of the Christian Liberation Movement, Grave de Peralta collected over 100 signatures for the Varela Project's pro-democracy campaign.
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During his legal career, he has prosecuted and defended in cases concerning terrorism, international fraud, and homicide. He has also advised and defended corporate clients, and prosecuted for HM Revenue and Customs and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. He represented journalists during the phone-hacking scandal. Chalk has provided counsel for the human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International described the arrest as "a further nail in the coffin of freedom of expression and association in Belarus", and named Suryapin a prisoner of conscience. Suryapin was charged and released on bail on August 17, 2012, on condition that he could not leave his home city of Slutsk, south of Minsk, without government permission.Belarusian journalist released on bail. The Local, 20 August 2012.
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Appeals by international organizations eventually led to small improvements in his treatment. In 1984, Amnesty International declared him a Prisoner of Conscience. AIUSA campus groups on the San Francisco peninsula took up his case and, with Congressman Tom Lantos and his wife Annette, campaigned for his release, winning extensive news coverage and high level support. Jiri was released at the end of his prison term.
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During his time in custody, he was recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience and was awarded by Refuse and Resist with its Courageous Resister Award. He was also the recipient of the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award which was presented by his attorney Louis Font. Camilo was recognized by the Detroit, Michigan, City Council with a commendation for his stand.
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But I worry about the effect this has on my > family. I ask you to please consider granting me presidential clemency or a > pardon. I have given this to many different organizations and people to > ensure that you receive a copy.CourageToResist.org "Prisoner of conscience > Robin Long's letter to Obama" On March 15, 2009, two members of the Parliament of Canada visited Long in prison.
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As a result, Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience and called for his release. In the early 1990s Mobutu, after years of totalitarian rule, agreed to institute political reforms in the Congo. With the possibility of renewed elections in Kivu, Weregemere joined a former colleague in reestablishing CEREA. He also became president of the national committee of the Union des Sociaux Nationalistes.
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With Jan Wyrowiński, Irena Lipowicz and Olgierd Dziekoński during the Paweł Włodkowic Award ceremony in the Polish Senate (2014) Ales Bialiatski (, sometimes transliterated as Ales Bialacki, Ales Byalyatski, Alies Bialiacki and Alex Belyatsky) is a Belarusian civic leader and former prisoner of conscience known for his work with the Human Rights Centre “Viasna”. In 2020, he won Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the "Alternate Nobel Prize".
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Amnesty International declared Al-Sharif to be a prisoner of conscience and called for her immediate and unconditional release. The day after al-Sharif's arrest, another woman was detained for driving a car. She drove with two women passengers in Ar Rass and was detained by traffic police in the presence of the CPVPV. She was released after signing a statement that she would not drive again.
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According to witnesses, the head of the Quintana Roo branch of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the private secretary of the office for State Public Defence played a role in the irregular detention of Canché. According to Article 19, Canché underwent persecution in prison. During his imprisonment, Article 19 published an online blog, “Diary of a prisoner of conscience” written by Canché.
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Ransome-Kuti was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria. His mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti opposed indiscriminate taxation of women by the British colonial government. She helped negotiate Nigerian independence from Britain and is said to have been the first Nigerian woman to drive a car.Shola Adenekan, "Dr Beko Ransome- Kuti - Nigerian doctor, bold human rights campaigner and prisoner of conscience" (obituary), The Guardian, 15 February 2006.
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In October 1981 the State Council revoked his immunity, as he was sentenced to 29 months imprisonment for violating the Public Order Law.Envio. The Inmunity Of Five Council Members Revoked He was recognized as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Zambrana Salmerón was the Communist Party of Nicaragua candidate for the presidency in the 1984 Nicaraguan general election. He obtained 16,034 votes (1.5%).
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In July 1976, Huang was arrested for his writings in the Review. During his third prison term, Huang was designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. His mother died in February 1984, and Huang was prohibited from leaving Green Island to attend her funeral, held the next month. Huang began a hunger strike in April 1985, to show solidarity with fellow political prisoner Shih Ming-teh.
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She is also an instructor of courses on women's rights in Iran at Tavaana: E-Learning Institute for Iranian Civil Society. In 2002, the U.S. First Lady, Laura Bush, gave her the National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy award.Publications She is the widow of Siamak Pourzand, a fellow Iranian dissident and former prisoner of conscience who committed suicide on 29 April 2011, after a long period of torture and imprisonment.
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Jama later joined the Somali National Army, rising to the rank of Colonel. In the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union promoted Jama as the chief ideologue of socialism in the Horn of Africa. He was later imprisoned for 11 years by the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre after having been accused of participating in an abortive coup d'état. Jama was recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.
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The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) in a statement said "If such activities continue, investments do get impacted and even committed investments would fly away." CPI activist Kartam Joga was arrested in connection with the attacks on 14 September 2010. His arrest has been controversial and was condemned by Amnesty International, who described the charges as "fabricated" and named him a prisoner of conscience.
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The International Federation for Human Rights and World Organisation Against Torture began a letter-writing campaign on his behalf, calling on authorities to immediately release Gulaliyev and impartially investigate his allegations of torture. Front Line Defenders also condemned the charges against him. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "targeted in response to his work as a human rights defender". Human Rights Watch dismissed the charges against him as "spurious".
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In 1987, Cheng was one of the 22 Singaporeans branded as a "Marxist conspirator" and arrested under Operation Spectrum. He was the last detainee to be released. On 1 January 1994, Amnesty International recognised him as a "prisoner of conscience." Cheng and his fellow detainees related some of their experiences, including physical torture,Vincent Cheng: I still bear the scars in the book, That We May Dream Again, published in 2009.
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On June 2001, Yury Bandazhevsky was sentenced to eight years imprisonment on the grounds that he had received bribes from students' parents. The institute's Deputy Director, Vladimir Ravkov, also received an eight-year prison sentence. Bandazhevsky's lawyer claimed that he had been convicted on the basis of two testimonies made under duress, without any material evidence. According to many human rights groups Dr. Bandazhevsky was a prisoner of conscience.
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A June 1997 report stated the 63-year-old lawyer was reportedly in poor health and suffering from high blood pressure caused by his treatment. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release. Durojaiye was an elected Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999-2003). After taking his seat in the Senate he was appointed to committees on Judiciary, Establishment (Chairman) and Special Projects.
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Emiliano Esono Michá is an Equatoguinean political activist currently imprisoned on weapons possession charges. His imprisonment drew protest from the US State Department and Amnesty International, the latter of which named him a prisoner of conscience. Michá was active with the Progress Party of Equatorial Guinea (PPGE), a banned political party opposing the long-dominant Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea. In late March 2008, he was arrested without a warrant.
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Back home, in an initiative named G-15, Solomon along with 15 other ministers were arrested by the ruling front and detained in unknown location ever since. The ministers were criticizing the border war of the then president, Isaia and signed an open letter. He was fired along with other opposing members and was detained on 18 September 2001. He was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience and he was released from prison in the early 1990s. He is an acclaimed member of the Minjung art movement, and in 1996 was commissioned by the Government of South Korea to create a 42-metre mural for Chonnam National University. He married in 2005 and settled in Ansan. One of his most well known artworks is called 'Spreading the news'.
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Following his second arrest, Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience. In 2019, Iranian police detained Nicolas Pelham of The Economist for several weeks. On 11 August 2020, Human Rights Watch reported about the execution of a protester by Iran authorities for killing a security officer during protests in December 2017 and January 2018 in Isfahan. The authorities did not grant a fair and transparent judicial process to the accused.
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In March 2012, the sentence was upheld by an appeals court, though it was reduced to six years. On 26 April, she was arrested to begin her sentence. The sentence was protested by the British Foreign Office, which called it "another sad example of the Iranian authorities' attempts to silence brave human rights defenders". Amnesty International designated her a prisoner of conscience and called for her immediate release.
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President Assad responded that the complaints amounted to foreign interference in Syrian domestic affairs. Dalila was later adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. PEN American Center also protested his sentence, stating that his trial "did not comply with international standards." During his imprisonment, Dalila suffered from diabetes and heart disease, undergoing a heart surgery; both conditions were reportedly worsened by the poor conditions of his confinement.
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In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gluzman was forced to serve seven years in labor camp for defending Grigorenko against the charge of insanity. Amnesty International declared Grigorenko a prisoner of conscience. Grigorenko became the key defender of Crimean Tatars deported to Soviet Central Asia. He advised the Tatar activists not to confine their protests to the USSR, but to appeal also to international organizations including the United Nations.
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Amnesty International also named him a prisoner of conscience. When the band U2 visited Turkey in September 2010, Bono called on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to investigate Süver's treatment, and reported that Erdoğan agreed to "look into it." Süver was conditionally released from Balıkesir prison on 9 December 2011. In September 2012 he was re-arrested in Istanbul and given a five-month prison sentence for his April 2011 escape.
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He was detained in prison without trial for more than a year until August 2008. On 11 November, he was sentenced to 65 years in prison. On 13 January 2012, he was released as part of a mass presidential pardon of political prisoners with nearly 600 other political prisoners. He spent 20 years of his adult life in prison and was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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He was released on 22 June 2010. On 26 February 2010, Amnesty International adopted Ferrer Ramírez as a prisoner of conscience in Cuba and urged President Raúl Castro for his immediate and unconditional release. On 23 March 2010, Ferrer Ramírez was the recipient of the 2009 State Department Freedom Defenders Award, Honorable Mention. This award recognized Ferrer's work and bravery in the defense of human rights in Cuba.
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Rachid Niny (born 16 October 1970 in Ben Slimane, Morocco), is a Moroccan journalist, chronicler and editor, and the director of Al Massae, which as of 2012 was Morocco's most popular daily newspaper. He was imprisoned from 28 April 2011 to 28 April 2012, allegedly for "undermining a judicial decision", "attempting to influence the judiciary", and "reporting on untrue criminal offences", leading Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience.
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Subsequent appeals have overturned that conviction and reduced Daemi's original sentence. Daemi has been on hunger strike at Evin Prison (9 April 2017 – 1 June 2017, 55 days) and at Shahr-e Rey prison near Tehran (24 January 2018 – 15 February 2018, 22 days). She continues to protest against conditions and against the death penalty from within Evin prison. She is considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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He was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, which intensively campaigned for his release. According to Amnesty International, Min Ko Naing was severely tortured and ill-treated during the early stages of his detention. His health suffered as a consequence. During his interrogation he was reportedly forced to stand in water for two weeks until he collapsed, and as a result, his left foot became totally numb.
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Sergei Leonidovich Tikhanovsky or Siarhei Leanidavich Tsikhanouski (, ; born 18 August 1978) is a Belarusian YouTuber, video blogger,Belarus Jails Several Opposition Figures in Widening Clampdown Ahead of Election, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (15 June 2020). dissident and pro-democracy activist. He is considered by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience. He is known primarily for his activism against the government of Belarus's long- serving president, Alexander Lukashenko.
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On 27 November 1998, all remaining restrictions were nullified. He thus formally regained rights to make public statements, address public meetings, and participate in political activity. He immediately called upon the Government to repeal the Internal Security Act and expressed his interest in becoming involved in political activity. On 27 November 1998, Amnesty International issued a public statement that restrictions on "Singapore's longest serving prisoner of conscience" had been lifted.
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Al-Marzooq was arrested on September 18, 2013 for his criticism of the government. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. A Bahraini court acquitted him for the charges of "inciting terrorism" and belonging to a terrorist organization on June 25, 2014. On 1 February 2015, al-Marzooq was interviewed by the newly launched al-Arab News Channel, after which the channel suspended broadcasting.
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The group of economists has exposed how the communist government uses false statistics when reporting to the people and to international organizations. He was imprisoned during the Black Spring in 2003 and Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience. In August 2005 political prisoners Adolfo Fernández Sainz and Alfredo Domínguez Batista went on a hunger strike after Ramos was beaten by guards. Ramos was freed in November 2010.
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During the early of 1990s, Eun was a member of Socialist Labour League of South Korea, along with Cho Kuk and Rhyu Si-min. This activity caused her to be detained in 1992, under the breach of National Security Act. She later mentioned she was tortured by Agency for National Security Planning and underwent several diseases. It made her to be selected as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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In 1983 Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience. On 28 September 1994, he was sentenced to five years in the Dubrava penitentiary for "endangering the constitutional order of Serbia". On 16 May 1999, the day he was to be released, he was last seen alive by three inmates. Rather than be released, he was transferred to the prison of Niš, and from then, he went missing.
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He was arrested in Riyadh on the "night" of February 12. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Freedom House, EveryOne Group, and Front Line Defenders called on the government of Malaysia to release Kashgari and not to extradite him to Saudi Arabia. Amnesty also called him a prisoner of conscience. The European Union condemned his deportation, saying it would "[take] all appropriate steps to achieve a positive outcome of Mr Kashgari's case".
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Minivan News, Jennifer Latheef Declared Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience , 18 October 2005 She was detained in Maafushi Prison on the Kaafu Atoll, 18 miles south of the capital, Malé. She was reportedly not being given regular access to the medication which she needs to take daily to regulate her blood sugar. She was released on August 16, 2006. She was informed of her release from house arrest through a presidential pardon.
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Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience. Apple Daily reported that he had no minders before the interviews. After his interviews were broadcast, Li was kept under around the clock surveillance by a team of 10 police officers. An account that was opened to receive donations from supporters from China and abroad to pay his medical fees was inexplicably blocked; he was also severely impeded from going to Beijing to see a specialist physician.
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Ivan Pavlov defended Alexander Nikitin, an environmentalist accused of high treason for having prepared a research report The Northern Fleet: A Potential Radioactive Contamination Threat for the Region. Nikitin was detained from February to December 1996; his case was widely covered by media, NGOs, and political organizations of Russia and Europe[17]. Amnesty International recognized Nikitin as a prisoner of conscience. In 1998, the court sent back the case for further investigation[19].
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He was ultimately sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment and a flogging of seventy-four lashes. Amnesty International reported that the group believed him to have been "ill-treated" during his interrogation and called for his release as a prisoner of conscience. Human Rights Watch similarly denounced the trial as a "mockery of the law", and "of a pattern of repression against reformist and independent figures that has gathered momentum since February's 2000 parliamentary elections".
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In 2009, Tavakoli was awarded Homo Homini Award, annually bestowed by People In Need on people who have contributed significantly to the cause of human rights. Tavakoli was awarded beside Abdollah Momeni, one of the student leaders from 1999 protests, which became the biggest rising since the Islamic revolution. Amnesty International considers Tavakoli to be a prisoner of conscience, and named him a 2011 "priority case." Human Rights Watch has also protested Tavakoli's imprisonment.
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Salijon Abdurahmanov (born 28 May 1950 in Nukus, Uzbekistan) is an Uzbek journalist who contributed to Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and uznews.net. In October 2008, he was given a ten-year prison sentence for marijuana and opium possession. He asserted his innocence of the charges, stating that the drugs were planted by police officers. Several international human rights NGOs called for his release, including Amnesty International, which designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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Following the 2010 earthquake that took place in Haiti, HRF began a fundraising campaign for a food program devoted to the children of the St Clare's community of Port-au-Prince. The program was started in 2000 by American author Margaret Trost and by Gérard Jean-Juste, a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience who served as the priest of the St. Clare's community. The campaign aimed at providing 160,000 meals for children.
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On March 16, 2017, the European Parliament condemned the wave of killings in the Philippines and called for De Lima's release. It expressed "serious concerns that the offences Senator De Lima has been charged with are almost entirely fabricated". Amnesty International regards De Lima as a "prisoner of conscience". Despite her imprisonment, de Lima continues to oppose the policies of Duterte and remains a member of the Philippine Senate and the Liberal Party.
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Doan Van Dien is a Vietnamese union leader currently imprisoned by the government of Vietnam. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and has called for his release. Doan was an activist with the United Workers-Farmers Organization, a labor union unrecognized by the Vietnamese government. In advance of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, authorities imprisoned all of the UWFO's members, including Doan Van Dien and his son Doan Huy Chuong.
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Between 1999 and 2002, Ambon was at the centre of sectarian conflict across the Maluku Islands. In 2007, Ambon resident Leonard Joni Sinay was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment for treason after he and other activists protested a visit by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with a dance and a raising of the banned regional flag; both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called for his release, the latter organization designating him a prisoner of conscience.
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Juan Ecomo Ndong is an Equatoguinean political activist currently imprisoned on weapons possession charges. His imprisonment has drawn protest from the US State Department and Amnesty International, the latter of which considers him to be a prisoner of conscience. Ndong was active with the Progress Party of Equatorial Guinea (PPGE), a banned political party opposing the long-dominant Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea. In mid-April 2008, he was arrested without a warrant.
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Gumersindo Ramírez Faustino is an Equatoguinean political activist currently imprisoned on weapons possession charges. His imprisonment has drawn protest from the US State Department and Amnesty International, the latter of which considers him to be a prisoner of conscience. Faustino was active with the Progress Party of Equatorial Guinea (PPGE), a banned political party opposing the long-dominant Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea. In late March 2008, he was arrested without a warrant.
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Accessed 1 March 2006. The Advocate estimates that in 2011, at least a dozen men were arrested under Section 347. One of these, Jean-Claude Roger Mbede, was arrested by security forces for sending SMS messages to male acquaintance and sentenced to three years' imprisonment at Kondengui Central Prison. The sentence was protested by international human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the latter of which named him a prisoner of conscience.
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The hunger strike had lasted over 50 days. Amnesty International designated Villar a prisoner of conscience, the announcement coming one day after his death. Representatives from the European Union and the governments of the United States and Spain made statements about his death, criticizing the Cuban government. The Cuban government stated he was not a dissident, but that he had been arrested for violence and injuring his wife at the 2011 protest.
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Malaysia: Double injustice heaped on Anwar Ibrahim 18 April 2003, Amnesty InternationalHuman Rights Watch Monitors Second Anwar Trial 11 June 1999, Human Rights Watch Amnesty International subsequently designated Anwar as a prisoner of conscience. The trial also provoked international criticism. Then-U.S. Vice President Al Gore denounced Anwar's trial as a "mockery", but Mahathir rejected all such international criticism as "foreign interference."Gore: Anwar trial a 'mockery Gore: Anwar trial a 'mockery'.
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Human Rights Watch called for an urgent investigation by Iran's judicial authorities to determine whether the role of a lack of oversight or neglect by Fashafiyeh Prison authorities contributed to the murder of Shir Mohammad Ali. On 13 June 2019, Amnesty International responded to the murder of Shir Mohammad Ali, a prisoner of conscience, and called on Iranian authorities to identify any state failings that contributed to his death and to remedy them.
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Filep Jacob Semuel Karma (born 15 August 1959), commonly known as Filep Karma, is a Papuan independence activist. On 1 December 2004 he helped raise the Morning Star flag at a ceremony in Jayapura, for which he was charged with treason and given a fifteen-year prison sentence. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have protested on his behalf, the former designating him a prisoner of conscience. He was released on 19 November 2015.
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Following this rally, virtually the entire leadership of Taiwan's democracy movement, including Lu, was imprisoned. She was tried, found guilty of violent sedition, and sentenced by a military court to 12 years in prison. She was named by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and, due to international pressure, coupled with the work of Ma Ying-jeou and Jerome A. Cohen, was released in 1985, after approximately five-and-a-half years in jail.
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In May 2001, Bizimungu founded a new political party, the Party for Democratic Renewal (PDR), known as Ubuyanja in Kinyarwanda. It was almost immediately banned by the government, which accused it of being a radical Hutu party. Bizimungu was arrested, and Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience. He was placed under house arrest for continuing the operations of the party on 19 April 2002 and charged with endangering the state.
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Wang Wanxing (, born 10 October 1949What Happened to them?, International Society for Human Rights, retrieved 9 October 2007) is a prominent Chinese pro-democracy activist who was a prisoner of conscience for 13 years in Chinese detention centres and psychiatric institutions called Ankang. Wang was the only person to have been discharged from such an institution to a Western country. In 2005, he was released and now lives in exile in Germany.
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Nguyễn Văn Hải (born c. 1952; also known as Nguyen Hoang Hai), better known by his pen name Điếu Cày, is a Vietnamese blogger who has been prosecuted by the government of Vietnam for tax evasion and "disseminating anti-state information and materials". His imprisonment was protested by several international human rights organizations, and Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience. On 21 October 2014, he was released and deported to the United States.
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On 2 December 2009, Laylaz was found guilty of "taking part in illegal gatherings" and "holding classified information", and was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. In March 2010, the sentence was reduced on appeal to three years. Laylaz's imprisonment drew international attention and protest from NGOs. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for [his] peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression", and called for his immediate release.
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In 2005 Statkevich was sentenced to three years of labour for organising mass protests against the 2004 referendum in Belarus that has lifted the constitutional limit on presidential terms and allowed president Aliaksandr Lukashenka to again participate in presidential elections. Amnesty International declared Mikola Statkevich a prisoner of conscience. He was then set free in 2007 following an amnesty. In 2010 Mikola Statkevich was one of many democratic candidates running in the presidential election.
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He was later alleged by the government, to have withheld information about a bombing plot. On 8 April 1992, he was sentenced to three years in prison on that charge. He was released in June 1993, then re-arrested in 1994 and 1995. In 1996 he was sentenced to two years imprisonment for an article he had written about the 1993 and 1994 Maldivian elections, and was again designated a prisoner of conscience.
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Arturo Pérez de Alejo Rodríguez (1951 - 25 January 2017) was a Cuban dissident and had been declared as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He was president of the human rights organization Frente Escambray and activist supporter of the Varela project. He was a member of the Democratic Action Movement, National Action Party and the Independent Democratic Front. He was imprisoned during the Black Spring in 2003 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
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He was arrested several times between 2000 and 2004 and spent around three years in the prisons. While being in Sepah prison that belongs to the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, Sehati spent eight months in the solitary cell. As a prisoner of conscience, he experienced tortures. Because of his activities focused on support of the democratic movements, freedom of speech and human rights in Iran, the authorities of Iran threatened his family members several times.
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Yang died in the hospital in Shanghai on November 7, 2017. Chinese authorities pressured Yang's relatives to cremate body and bury ashes in sea while keeping this information about the burial in sea in secret, but a Yang's friend had known about it and leaked this to a human rights group. Amnesty International considered Yang Tongyan as a prisoner of conscience who was persecuted by Chinese government for his fight for human rights.
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Atangana spent 17 years in a cell below the Yaoundé gendarmerie. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Freedom House condemned his imprisonment. In 2005 the U.S. Department of State declared him a political prisoner, in 2013 Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience, and in 2013 the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention published their report concluding that his arrest and detention were arbitrary and that he should be released immediately.
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Following the 2007 arrest, U.S. presidential candidate John McCain and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright expressed their support in freeing Le Quoc Quan. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience. Following the 2012 arrest, Human Rights Watch have called for these "politically motivated charges to be dropped". The organization also pointed out the similarity of using "tax evasion charges" to frame political dissidents such as in the case of Dieu Cay.
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Many other dissidents, such as Marsillam Simanjuntak, who would emerge as the 'Mr. Clean' of post-Suharto Indonesian politics, had the same fate. In early 1990 Princen had a major role in founding the Merdeka Labor Union (Serikat Buruh Merdeka – "Merdeka" literally means "Independence") – together with Dita Indah Sari, a noted Indonesian labor activist and Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience. He conducted extensive correspondence with the International Labour Organization (ILO) regarding the conditions of Indonesian workers.
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As a result, the International Labour Organization (ILO) removed Kuwait from the list of countries violating workers rights. Male homosexuality is illegal in Kuwait and punishable by up to 6 years in prison. Kuwaiti activist and blogger Hamad al-Naqi, who is a Kuwaiti Shi'ite, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "blasphemous tweets" and criticizing neighboring Saudi and Bahraini monarchs. Amnesty International designated al-Naqi a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate and unconditional release.
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As a black prisoner of conscience, Óscar Elías Biscet wrote to Coretta Scott King in January 1999, "They [black Cubans] have a very low political, economic, and judicial representation in contrast to the numerous prevailing black penal population. This situation is never publicly manifested by the government but is a component of Communism's subtle politics of segregation." Black Cubans such as Biscet and Jorge Luis García Pérez have been allegedly forcefully separated from their families for criticizing Fidel Castro.
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The Department of Justice is considering the prison inmates' applications for pardon or clemency following their testimony. In October 2017, the prestigious Prize for Freedom was awarded to her for her stand against a regime accused of being dictatorial. She was designated as a 'prisoner of conscience' by numerous international human rights organizations. In May 2018, Amnesty International conferred to de Lima the first ever “Most Distinguished Human Rights Defender” award during the Ignite Awards for Human Rights.
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Mikalay Autukhovich is a Belarusian businessman and political dissident who has twice been imprisoned by the government of Belarus. Belarusian courts have found him guilty of tax evasion and terrorism, but international human rights organization Amnesty International has stated that he is a prisoner of conscience imprisoned solely for peaceful protest. Prior to his arrest, Autukhovich worked at the Vaukavysk-based taxi company Nika-taxi 22222. He also ran as an opposition candidate in the 2004 Belarusian parliamentary elections.
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Cruz Obiang Ebele is an Equatoguinean political activist currently imprisoned on weapons possession charges. His imprisonment drew protest from the US State Department and Amnesty International, the latter of which designated him a prisoner of conscience. Ebele was active with the Progress Party of Equatorial Guinea (PPGE), a banned political party opposing the long-dominant Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea. He had previously worked that the Moroccan embassy in Malabo, but had been dismissed from the job.
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He had a circulation record of over 700 book loans despite restrictions on independent libraries. During his time as a prisoner of conscience, he was subjected to ill-treatment such as extended periods of solitary confinement and incarcerating in prisons located at extreme distances from his home, breaking many Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. He received assistance from Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart while incarcerated, who petitioned for his release along with the other political prisoners.
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Luis Milán Fernández (born 21 February 1970) is a Cuban physician from Santiago de Cuba. In 2001, he and his wife, a dentist named Lisandra Lafitta Hernández, signed "Manifiesto 2001", which called for basic freedoms to be respected in Cuba. He was one of 75 dissidents arrested in 2003 as part of the crackdown known as the Black Spring. He was sentenced to thirteen years in prison, and Amnesty International recognized him as prisoner of conscience.
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Mammadli was sentenced to 5 years and 6 months by the decision of Baku Grave Crimes Court. Mammadli was charged with illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, abuse of official authority to influence on the results of election, charges rejected by Mammadli and his lawyers. The trial and sentence was criticized by many international organizations and human rights groups. Amnesty International Organization considers Anar Mammadli to be a prisoner of conscience, and a number of countries have called for his release.
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Mohsin publicly campaigned for his release and continued to publish the Friday Times. Amnesty International stated that Sethi's arrest was connected with his investigations into government corruption, and designated him a prisoner of conscience. The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists sent a letter of protest letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, noting the organisation's dismay "that the state (Pakistan) continues its persecution of independent journalists". The World Bank president, James Wolfensohn called Sharif to urge for Sethi's release.
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Malleza, Martínez, and Alvarez were released on 20 January after 52 days in prison; the release came only a few hours after Amnesty International's announcement of their "prisoner of conscience" designation. The organization reported that authorities told the three that they would face "harsh sentences" if they continued their anti- government activities. In 2012, she was a finalist for the Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, which ultimately went to Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi.
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Myo Min Zaw is a Burmese democracy activist imprisoned from 1998 to 2012 for distributing fliers and organizing demonstrations. He was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Myo Min Zaw studied English at the University of Yangon, where he became active in the pro-democracy group All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU). In December 1996, he participated in a student protest, and following the closing of Burma's universities, remaining involved in the pro-democracy movement.
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Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov (, 13 August 1924 – 27 September 2020) was a particle accelerator physicist, human rights activist, Soviet dissident, founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a founding member of the Soviet Amnesty International group, and Professor of Physics at Cornell University. He was declared a prisoner of conscience while serving nine years in prison and internal exile for monitoring the Helsinki human rights accords as a founder of the human rights movement in the Soviet Union.
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He was held at Kaliti Prison. During his incarceration, Mesfin took part in two hunger strikes in December 2005 and January 2006, protesting his detention and trial. He later contracted pneumonia, collapsing in his prison cell 18 August, and was taken to the hospital."Ethiopia: Medical concern/ Prisoner of Conscience: Professor Mesfin Woldemariam", Amnesty International website, Report AFR 25/024/2006 (accessed 20 May 2009) The court was supposed to deliver the verdict on 19 February 2007.
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When Meles Zenawi succeeded Mengistu in 1991, Asrat became an active critic of the government, particularly of Meles' formation of new autonomous regions in Ethiopia. He then formed his own political party, the AAPO, with a central tenet of restoring Ethiopian unity. In 1994, he was sentenced to two years in prison for "planning violence against the state". International human rights organizations protested the evidence against him as unsound, and Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience.
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Nashawi studied Sociology at the Damascus University, then she went to study Master's in Art at King's College London. Since 2001, she has began making graphic and comic designs. In 2010 and 2011 she made her first exhibition of support for refugees under the umbrella of UNHCR, to support children with cancer under the auspices of the Syrian NGO Basma. Her art focuses on Syrian collective memory, personal experiences, advocating for prisoner of conscience, and the forced disappeared.
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In a 1989 interview in London, Seow told The Sunday Times that he would return to Singapore to face tax evasion charges. On 16 October 2007, Amnesty International issued a public statement mentioning Seow as one of two prominent Singaporean lawyers who were penalised for exercising their right to express their opinions. Amnesty International also called him a "prisoner of conscience." On 8 October 2011, Seow and Tang Fong Har publicly addressed a Singapore Democratic Party forum via teleconferencing.
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He is the author of more than 40 books on numerous subjects, ranging from literature to politics, prison diaries, culture, and poetry, etc. He became the first political prisoner who remained the longest term in jail under political charges for more than 11 years and was declared as Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International in 1981. In October 2016, he split up from his son Ayaz Palijo Qaumi Awami Tehreek (QAT) and revived Awami Tehreek - the QAT’s parent party.
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Amnesty International designated Amer a prisoner of conscience, "imprisoned simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression". After Amer's release, the organization called for Egypt to investigate his allegations that he was tortured while in custody. Human Rights Watch described Amer's arrest as a "chilling precedent" and called for his immediate release. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information called Amer's sentencing a "gloomy day for freedom of expression in Egypt" and also urged his release.
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Su Su Nway in her apartment in Yangon, Myanmar on 26 January 2013 In 2005, Su Su Nway received a human rights award from the NLD. The following year, she was awarded the John Humphrey Freedom Award by the Canadian human rights group Rights & Democracy. In 2007, People in Need awarded Su Su Nway, Phyu Phyu Thin, and Nilar Thein their Homo Homini Award. Amnesty International considers her a prisoner of conscience and a "priority case".
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Balys Gajauskas (24 February 1926 – 28 September 2017) was a Lithuanian politician. In 1990 he was among those who signed the Act of the Re- Establishment of the State of Lithuania. In 1978 he became a prisoner of conscience after being sentenced for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" by the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR. Before that he had served a 25-year sentence for having participated in the Lithuanian anti-Soviet resistance, being released in 1973.
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Where Acid Rap is a seamless convergence of local and post-regional sounds, Prisoner takes on a bunch of things one by one without squeezing the most from any of them. Kweli’s absolutely owned his lane when he’s been committed to it but now he's jumping around from style to style with no destination in sight." Homer Johnsen of HipHopDX gave the album three out five stars, saying "Coined by Peter Benenson in 1961, a “Prisoner Of Conscience” is defined as “a person who has been imprisoned for holding political or religious views that are not tolerated by their own government.” Kweli is not calling himself a prisoner of conscience, but he is calling on his listeners to think outside the box, while being aware of top-down mental imprisonment. At the same time, he is also tackling the notion that he is a “prisoner” of the conscious rapper label by balancing the insular brand of Hip Hop championed by many of his early fans, with newer, more radio-friendly content.
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On 24 March 2011 Tamimi was detained by Israeli forces following a demonstration. Following his arrest, he was charged with sending youths to throw stones, holding a march without a permit, incitement, and perverting the course of justice. He was subsequently held in a military prison for thirteen months. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for his role in organizing peaceful protests against the encroachment onto Palestinian lands by Israeli settlers," and called for his immediate and unconditional release.
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During the rule of President Hastings Banda, Mapanje was jailed without charge in 1987, apparently for publishing his poem collection Of Chameleons and Gods. The collection obliquely criticized Banda's government, and the "chameleon" of the title refers to the disguise of personal voice Mapanje deemed necessary in order to mount a criticism of the politics at the time. The book received no official ban, but was "withdrawn from circulation". Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release.
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PEN International reported that she and the other defendants were given insufficient time to prepare a case. Roque was sentenced to 20 years in prison for "acts against the independence or territorial integrity of the state". Amnesty International adopted her as a prisoner of conscience, and Roque's sister Isabel was invited to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. to discuss the case. Reports stated that Roque lost while imprisoned from vomiting and diarrhea, and was hospitalized in July 2003.
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The United States Embassy in Burundi described Sinduhije's arrest as "unacceptable" and demanded his release. The British government also noted its concern, stating that the arrest threatened "the ability of Burundians to exercise their civil and political rights". Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "held solely for expressing his political views", and called for his immediate release. Burundi's ambassador to the United States responded that the Sinduhije's arrest was unconnected to the election and that Burundi was "committed to human rights".
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In September 2001 he was detained indefinitely along with other politicians who were known as the G-15, a group which opposed the rule of Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki. Mahmud along with 15 other ministers were arrested by the ruling front and detained in unknown location ever since. The ministers were criticizing the border war of the then president, Isaia and signed an open letter. Amnesty International has named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release in 2011.
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Radina only had time to post "We're all at the KGB" on the site before being arrested and taken away. She was then indicted on charges of "organizing mass disorder", an offense carrying a possible fifteen-year jail sentence. Amnesty International named her a prisoner of conscience and demanded her release, as did the Committee to Protect Journalists. Radina was released on 31 January 2011 on the condition that she relocate from the capital of Minsk to her hometown of Kobrin.
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On February 23, a Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court issued an arrest warrant against de Lima for allegedly violating the drug trafficking law. De Lima faces drug related cases for allegedly using her position as Secretary of Justice to acquire money from drug pushers to make their drug business operational even though they are imprisoned. De Lima turned herself in the following morning of February 24. She has also been referred to as a 'prisoner of conscience' by numerous international human rights organizations.
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Al-Khawaja who was planning to stay in Bahrain before and during 14 August said the move "show[ed] how nervous they [the authorities] are and how much they have to hide." The same day, an opposition activist, Mohammad Sanad al-Makina was arrested from Bahrain International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Sri Lanka with his family. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience. An activist reported that 7 journalists were in hiding due to house raids.
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The documentary features an interview conducted with Yusak Pakage, a high-profile West Papuan political prisoner recognised by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. He is currently serving a ten-year prison sentence for raising the West Papuan flag during a ceremony in 2004. The interview was recorded in secret by Brown during a hospital visit where Pakage was receiving treatment for torture. There is also footage from an TPN camp led by one of the armed resistance leaders, General Goliath Tabuni.
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Amnesty International issued a press release on 2 July 2007, stating that "The organisation considers Mordechai Vanunu to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and unconditional release."[6] Vanunu has been characterized internationally as a whistleblower[7][8] and by Israel as a traitor. Despite the whistle blown towards the operation of the nuclear weapons program in Israel, the Israeli government denied the existence of all allegations. Mordechai Vanunu is known as Israel`s Nuclear Whistleblower.
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Amnesty International does not consider them "prisoners of conscience". Amnesty International avoids the term "political prisoners" because there is no generally accepted definition of the term in international law and because generally speaking the term has many different meanings and interpretations. The term "political prisoners" is only used sporadically by the organisation as a descriptive term in specific cases with a strong political context. Amnesty explicitly avoids the term in cases where it might be confused with the term "prisoner of conscience".
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The latter organization named Díaz Hernández a prisoner of conscience, calling for his immediate release. His arrest was also criticized by The Committee to Protect Journalists, who alleged that it was part of a broad "crackdown" on the non- government aligned press, and by Reporters Without Borders, who wrote to Fidel Castro to demand his release. Díaz Hernández himself went on hunger strike to protest his detention for the first ten days of his imprisonment. Díaz Hernández was released in January 2001.
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In 1995 she was imprisoned for her activities and was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. In 2002 she was accused by Turkey's State Security of "aiding and abetting" the PKK because of her advocacy for Kurds to use their native language in Turkey. In March 2006 a Turkish court sentenced her to 10 months’ imprisonment for insulting the country's military. The sentence was then converted to a fine of 6000 New Turkish Liras, which Keskin refused to pay.
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Petros Solomon (born 1951; also known as Wed'Solomon, Son of Solomon) is an Eritrean politician. He was an Eritrean People's Liberation Front commander during the Eritrean War of Independence, and following independence he served in several positions in the Cabinet, including Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has been in prison, held incommunicado in an undisclosed location, since September 18, 2001 for opposing the rule of Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki. Amnesty International has named him a prisoner of conscience.
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Iosif Ziselovich Begun, sometimes spelled Yosef (born July 9, 1932 in Moscow, Soviet Union; , ), whose last name is pronounced "bee-goon" and in Russian literally means "runner," is a former Soviet refusenik, prisoner of conscience, human rights activist, author and translator. Over the course of 17 years, Begun was imprisoned three times and spent over eight years in prisons and labor camps as a political prisoner.Jackson, James O. "Soviet Union A Day in the Depths of the Gulag." Time Magazine.
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In November 2010, Askarov's health was reported to be rapidly deteriorating as a result of his confinement. Numerous groups advocated on his behalf, including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, People In Need, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Amnesty International, the latter of which designated him a prisoner of conscience. In 2015, the U.S. conferred the 2014 Human Rights Defender Award on Askarov. The Kyrgyz government protested this decision and formally terminated a 1993 agreement on cooperation between the U.S. and Kyrgyzstan.
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In 2003, González was arrested at his home on the first day of the national press crackdown that would later be called the Black Spring. Cuban authorities accused him of being "in the pay of the United States" and "undermining Cuba's independence and territorial integrity", and he received a twenty-year prison term. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. In 2009, he was reported to be in deteriorating health while held in an isolation cell.
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In March 2003, the Cuban government launched a general crackdown (later called the "Black Spring") on dissidents, including a number of journalists. Seventy-five people were ultimately arrested, including Vázquez Portal. On 4 April 2004, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for "endangering Cuba's independence" through his articles and his meetings with US officials. Vázquez Portal's imprisonment was condemned by several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, which designated him a prisoner of conscience, and Reporters Without Borders.
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Huang was ultimately tried for "subversion" in August 2001. He was charged under articles 103, 105, 55 and 56 of the Criminal Law and tried in secret by the Chengdu Intermediate Court in August 2001. He was detained without sentencing until May 9, 2003, when he was sentenced to five years in prison. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience "imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and association" and called for his immediate release.
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The utopian communist Étienne Cabet, who also from time to time collaborated with Laponneraye, praised L'Intelligence as 'the standard-bearer of the egalitarian party, the communist party'Cp. Billington, J.H., Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith. p. 247. In 1839–1841, Laponneraye was a member of Cabet's communist association. Laponneraye's passionate declarations of hatred for tyranny and his history as a prisoner of conscience also attracted the attentions of the republican conspirators Louis Auguste Blanqui and Armand Barbès.
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Baghi's imprisonment was condemned by Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi and by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release. Baghi was among the numerous journalists and reformists detained by the government of Iran on 28 December 2009 in the wake of clashes between demonstrators and police at the Ashura protests. In August 2010, Baghi was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a five-year ban on political activity.
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The arrest and detention of Cheam met with widespread international condemnation. Peter Leuprecht, the special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for human rights in Cambodia, called the trial unfair and called for Cheam's release. The U.S. State Department listed the case in a report on "Arbitrary Arrest or Detention" and noted that "international and local NGOs widely criticized Cheam Channy's arrest and detention as illegal under criminal law". Amnesty International declared him to be a prisoner of conscience.
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Later in 1999, he was sent back in prison for a three-year sentence for dishonoring a national symbol, public disorder, and instigating to commit crime, after having protested Cuba's lack of freedom by showing the Cuban flag upside down. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. He was released from a high-security prison in the Holguín Province after having served his full sentence.Cuba; Political prisoner freed after serving 3 years, Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2002, page A4.
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Cho showed his interests toward politics in the end of the 1980s, while studying at university. During this time, he was already a member of Socialist Labour League of South Korea, along with Rhyu Si-min and Eun Su-mi. Cho was detained due to this activities, under the breach of the National Security Act, and declared as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Later, he criticised the National Security Act as a "barbaric law" from his book titled For the Freedom of Conscience and Ideology.
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On 4 February 2015, authorities transferred him for the sixth time of his imprisonment to former Ha'ir prison. Amnesty International demanded the release of Waleed “immediately and unconditionally, because it is a prisoner of conscience detained solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression”. Human Rights Watch called for his release “immediately and to drop the charges against him”. Front Line Defenders commented that the detention is unfair for he has practiced his legitimate and peaceful work in the field of human rights only.
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In November 2005, Fasil was arrested along with thirteen other reporters, including her husband, Eskinder Nega, after publishing articles critical of the Ethiopian government's actions during the May 2005 parliamentary elections. Fasil and her co-defendants were charged with "treason, outrages against the Constitution and incitement to armed conspiracy". Amnesty International identified her as a prisoner of conscience, who had not advocated or used violence. She was being held in a Kaliti Prison in Addis Ababa in a rat-, cockroach-, and flea-infested cell.
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Burundi's government has been repeatedly criticised by human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch for the multiple arrests and trials of journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu for issues related to his reporting. Amnesty International (AI) named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his "immediate and unconditional release." In April 2009, the government of Burundi changed the law to criminalise homosexuality. Persons found guilty of consensual same-sex relations risk two to three years in prison and a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 Burundian francs.
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Gerardo Angüe Mangue is an Equatoguinean political activist currently imprisoned on weapons possession charges. His imprisonment has drawn protest from the US State Department and Amnesty International, the latter of which considers him to be a prisoner of conscience. Mangue was the secretary to Severo Moto, leader of the Progress Party of Equatorial Guinea (PPGE), a banned political party opposing the long-dominant Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea. On 12 March 2008, he was arrested without a warrant, and documents were confiscated from his home.
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Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández is a Cuban journalist who was imprisoned by the Cuban government from 1999–2001. His imprisonment attracted protest from several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, which named him a prisoner of conscience. Prior to his arrest, Díaz Hernández was executive director of the Cooperativa Avileña de Periodistas Independientes (CAPI), an independent news agency that sought to challenge the state monopoly on news. Censorship in Cuba is commonplace, with its media under the supervision of the Communist Party's Department of Revolutionary Orientation.
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In August 2012, five years after her arrival in Canada, Rivera received another deportation order, ordering her to return to the United States by September 20, 2012. Amnesty International stated that it considered Rivera a conscientious objector and would consider her a prisoner of conscience if she were detained. Upon her return to the U.S., she was arrested and transferred to military custody. Subsequent to a plea agreement between Rivera and U.S. military authorities, a sentencing hearing was held April 29, 2013, at Fort Carson, Colorado.
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Perrin, C.J. (30 March 2011) Australia, Singapore: Least Tainted with Corruption—survey, International Business Times. Amnesty International currently recognises one prisoner of conscience in the country: 33-year-old land rights activist Yorm Bopha. Journalists covering a protest over disputed election results in Phnom Penh on 22 September 2013 say they were deliberately attacked by police and men in plain clothes, with slingshots and stun guns. The attack against the president of the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia, Rick Valenzuela, was captured on video.
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Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for the legitimate expression of his opinions". Signs calling for Jean-Juste's release reportedly became a common sight around the Miami neighborhood of Little Haiti. At the time of his arrest, Jean-Juste was being considered as a Fanmi Lavalas candidate for the 2006 presidential election. However, electoral authorities ruled that Jean-Juste could not be properly registered as a candidate due to his incarceration, prompting Fanmi Lavalas to threaten to boycott the poll.
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Amnesty International protested Aung Pwint's arrest and called for his release, the former naming him a prisoner of conscience. In 2001, Human Rights Watch named him the recipient of a Hellman/Hammett Grant for writers "in recognition of the courage with which [he] faced political persecution". In 2004, Aung Pwint and Nyein Thit won the International Press Freedom Award of the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists. An editorial in The Washington Post published following the awards described the pair as "heroes of press freedom".
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Following his second arrest, Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience. In 2012 the journalist Marzieh Rasouli, who writes about culture and the arts for several of Iran's reformist and independent publications including Etemaad, Roozega, and Shargh, where she edited the music pages, was arrested and accused of collaborating with the BBC. In 2014 she was convicted of "spreading propaganda" and "disturbing the public order". She was sentenced to two years in prison and 50 lashes, and reported to Evin prison on 8 July 2014.
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Later that year, she won the Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management, which came with a cash award of 5,100,000 rupees, and the Sarva Gunah Sampannah "Award for Peace and Harmony" from the Signature Training Centre. In 2013 Amnesty International declared her a Prisoner of conscience, and said she "is being held solely for a peaceful expression of her beliefs." The influence made by Irom Sharmila is often considered as powerful as the influences by personalities in the past and present.
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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the imprisonment of Son and fellow online activists Nguyen Khac Toan and Nguyen Vu Binh stating that the men's "only crime was to express themselves freely on the Internet". On 7 April 2006, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for Son's release as a condition of Vietnam joining the World Trade Organization. The European Union also objected on Son's behalf. Amnesty International designated Son a prisoner of conscience and described Son's espionage conviction as "a travesty of justice".
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As editor of the newspaper Satenaw, Nega was arrested on 28 November 2005 following demonstrations against the results of the Ethiopian general election on 15 May 2005. Nega was charged with the capital offenses of treason, "outrages against the Constitution" and "incitement to armed conspiracy". Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression", and called for his immediate release. The group also protested the "poor and unsanitary" conditions of his detention at Karchele prison.
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Amnesty International designated Hoi a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. The Committee to Protect Journalists also protested the sentence, calling on the government to release him. Front Line Defenders stated that the charges against Hoi were "a direct result of his legitimate and peaceful work as a democracy activist and in the defence of human rights". In 2011, Human Rights Watch awarded him its Hellman/Hammett award, "recognizing writers who demonstrate courage and conviction in the face of political persecution".
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United Nations officials stated that they were "deeply concerned about [Razvozzhayev's] disappearance". The US Embassy in Moscow officially expressed concern over the case, calling on Russian officials to "examine the issue carefully", while the European Union urged Ukraine to investigate the alleged kidnapping. The alleged kidnapping was described by the BBC as causing "outrage among human rights groups". Amnesty International called for Razvozzhayev's allegations of torture and abduction to be "promptly, thoroughly, effectively and independently investigated"; the group also stated that it was considering designating Razvozzhayev as a prisoner of conscience.
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On his release from prison, The Sunday Times described him as a previous "prisoner of conscience". Daniel Finkelstein wrote about Gough and his practice of unlimited naturism in The Times just before Christmas 2015: In Finkelstein's opinion: "The refusal of individuals to abide by court rulings is deeply injurious to a free society based upon law, and we have to protect ourselves against it." In April 2016, Gough asserted that he had cut back on his public nudity because he was responsible for caring for his then 89-year-old mother.
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Major General Mian Gulam Jilani (SQA, Imtiazi Sanad) (1 March 1913Indian Army List October 1936 – 1 March 2004) was a two-star general officer in the Pakistan Army who, as an Indian Army officer during the Second World War had survived a Japanese PoW camp at Singapore. He subsequently rose to help negotiate Pakistan's membership in the Baghdad Pact and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. An ethnic Pashtun, he retired from the Pakistan Army in 1962 and was jailed 1973 for his political beliefs. Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience in 1974.
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During al-Hashimi's imprisonment, several international human rights groups campaigned on his behalf. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that his detention was arbitrary and illegal. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and stated that al- Hashimi had been jailed for "peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and association". The International Federation for Human Rights and World Organisation Against Torture issued a joint statement calling for "urgent intervention" into the case, including the immediate and unconditional release of al-Hashimi.
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According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), reporters for Reuters and the Associated Press were assaulted by plainclothes police officers when attempting to photograph Poczobut entering the courthouse. On 5 July 2011, he was found guilty and given a suspended three- year prison sentence. Poczobut attributed the suspension of his sentence to international pressure, including a statement on his behalf by the EU. Amnesty International also denounced Poczobut's prosecution and named him a prisoner of conscience. RSF called for his conviction to be overturned, calling him "a -watched victim of President Lukashenko's persecution of journalists".
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During this period, Amnesty International adopted him as a "Prisoner of Conscience," and in 1977, he was expelled from the country and moved to the United States."Washington College of Law Faculty", American University Subsequently, Mendez worked for the Catholic Church in Aurora, Illinois, protecting the rights of migrant workers. In 1978, he joined the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under the Law in Washington, D.C., and in 1982, he launched Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Americas Program. He continued to work at Human Rights Watch for 15 years, becoming their general counsel in 1994.
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On April 25, 2009, the BBC reported that Saberi's father, Reza Saberi, said he had received word from his daughter that she had been on a hunger strike for the past five days. At the end of two weeks, she told him she had discontinued the hunger strike. During this time, her situation was followed closely by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Asian American Journalists Association, Committee to Protect Journalists, Society of Professional Journalists, and UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc. Amnesty International later named her a prisoner of conscience.
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Tun Aung subsequently became a teacher in Kunlong from 1973 to 1974, and married Sein Sein Thein in 1973. He was arrested in September 1988 for serving as chairman for the Nawnghkio Township General Strike Committee. Tun Tun Hein won the seat in the Pyithu Hluttaw to represent the Nawnghkio Township constituency during the 1990 Burmese general election, winning about 57% of the votes (18,886 valid votes), but was never allowed to assume his seat. Tun Tun Hein was imprisoned in 2012 and was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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In May 2012, a Sudanese court convicted Intisar Sharif Abdallah of adultery and sentenced her to death; the charges were appealed and dropped two months later. In July 2012, a criminal court in Khartoum, Sudan, sentenced 23-year-old Layla Ibrahim Issa Jumul to death by stoning for adultery. Amnesty International reported that she was denied legal counsel during the trial and was convicted only on the basis of her confession. The organization designated her a prisoner of conscience, "held in detention solely for consensual sexual relations", and lobbied for her release.
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Davoodi was arrested in October 2003 after criticizing human rights conditions in Iran in the documentary Forbidden Iran, particularly the death in custody of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi. He was tried in 2005 by the Islamic Revolutionary Court for "spreading propaganda against the system" and "establishing and directing an organization opposed to the government". The court found him guilty and sentenced him to 15 years' imprisonment and 75 lashes; as of August 2012, the latter part of his sentence had not been implemented. Amnesty International protested the sentence, designating Davoodi a prisoner of conscience.
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Amnesty International considers Tabarzadi a prisoner of conscience, and has repeatedly called for his immediate release. While on temporary leave from prison with the condition of remaining silent, he called for a campaign against executions and to free political prisoners in Iran. Shortly after on January 6, 2014 he was called to report back to prison, which he refused calling it "oppression and bullying" and instead chose "civil disobedience". Mr. Tabarzadi was arrested at noon on January 15, 2014 by three security officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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The court banned her from practicing journalism for thirty years and sentenced her to a year in prison. On 2 September 2012, she was summoned to Evin Prison to begin the sentence. Amnesty International designated her a prisoner of conscience, "held solely for peacefully exercising her rights to freedom of expression", and called for her to be released and allowed to resume her profession. In 2009, the International Women's Media Foundation awarded Baniyaghoob its Courage In Journalism prize, stating that she had "fearlessly reported on government and social oppression, particularly as they affect women".
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Notable of the nextPix projects is the Sundance award-winning documentary Tibet in Song, directed by former political prisoner of conscience Ngawang Choephel. Thompson was a producer on the film. Since Tibet in Song, Thompson has been affiliated with other notable films as a producer, including Ned Rifle (2015), Railway Children (2016), and Yomeddine (2018). Ned Rifle won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival, and Railway Children was nominated for the 2017 ICFT UNESCO Gandhi Prize for film at the International Film Festival of India.
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His trial and conviction were widely discredited by the international community. Amnesty International stated that the trial proceedings "exposed a pattern of political manipulation of key state institutions including the police, public prosecutor’s office and the judiciary" and declared Anwar a prisoner of conscience, stating that he had been arrested in order to silence him as a political opponent.Canadian Lawyers Defend the Independence of the Bar in Malaysia His conviction was overturned by the Federal Court and Anwar was finally released from solitary confinement on 2 September 2004.
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Amnesty International named her a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for her release. After serving seven years of her ten-year prison sentence, San San Nweh was released in July 2001 from Insein jail, Yangon but has not been allowed to leave Myanmar. San San Nweh has won numerous awards for her work, including a PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in 1995 and a Reporters Without Borders-Fondation de France Prize in 1999. In 2001, she and Win Tin were jointly awarded the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award.
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On 15 December 1999, he was arrested and imprisoned after a demonstration along with fellow Alternative Option Movement members Guido and Ariel Sigler Amaya; the latter arrest caused Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience. In 2000, he was arrested and imprisoned for a year for "disrespect" after commemorating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He was again imprisoned during the Black Spring in 2003, and sentenced to 20 years in jail. His wife Berta Soler, now leader of the Ladies in White movement, campaigned on his behalf.
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Nelson Moliné Espino is a Cuban dissident who was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He was president of the unofficial Confederación de Trabajadores Democráticos de Cuba (English: Confederation of Democratic Workers of Cuba), and a member of the unofficial Partido 30 de noviembre (English: 30 November Party). He was arrested during the Black Spring in 2003 and sentenced to 21 years in jail. After Tripartite talks between the Cuban government, the Catholic Church in Cuba and the Spanish government in 2010 he was released on July 7, 2010 and traveled to Spain.
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Yet in May 2010, Vanunu was arrested again and sentenced to three months in jail on a charge that he met foreigners in violation of conditions of his 2004 release from jail. In response, Amnesty International issued a press release on July 2007, stating that "The organisation considers Mordechai Vanunu to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and unconditional release." Vanunu has been characterized internationally as a whistleblower and by Israel as a traitor. Daniel Ellsberg has referred to him as "the preeminent hero of the nuclear era".
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Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir (Arabic: محمد الشيخ ولد امخيطير ) is a Mauritanian blogger who was a political prisoner from 2014 to 2019. He was sentenced to death after he wrote an article critical of Islam and the caste system in Mauritania, after which he became a designated prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He now lives in exile in France due to concerns for his safety. Mkhaitir was born into the Moulamines caste, commonly referred to as the blacksmith caste, which holds the second lowest social status in Mauritania.
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Alexander's arrest caused "outrage" among both domestic and international religious freedom activists, and several petitions were circulated calling for his release. Setara Institute director Hendardi described the requested sentence as "excessive", a demonstration of "the arbitrariness of the law and law enforcement officials", and a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Indonesia is a signatory. Amnesty International responded by designating Alexander a prisoner of conscience, describing the sentence as "a serious setback for freedom of expression in Indonesia". The organization called for Alexander's immediate release.
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Vladimir Ivanovich Kozlov (Russian and Kazakh: Владимир Иванович Козлов) is a Kazakh journalist and politician who has been a leader of the democratic opposition in Kazakhstan and a candidate for his country's presidency. In 2012, he was the defendant in what Deutsche Welle described as “the first political trial in Kazakhstan.” The US charged Kazakhstan with using its criminal-justice system “to silence a leading opposition voice.” Kozlov, who was found guilty and served a prison sentence, has been designated by Amnesty International as a “prisoner of conscience.” He was released in 2016.
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Amnesty International declared Hernández a prisoner of conscience in March 2010. In 2007 González received in absentia the Dr.Rainer Hildebrandt Human Rights Award endowed by Alexandra Hildebrandt. The award is given annually in recognition of extraordinary, non-violent commitment to human rights. In 2010, the Committee to Protect Journalists published a short piece by Hernández about his life in prison, with “the murmurs of suffering, the plaintive screams of torture, the screeching bars, the unmistakable music of padlocks, the garrulous sentinels....the dismal silence of those petrified dungeons.
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Francisco Chaviano is a Cuban human rights activist and mathematics professor. In 1994, he was the President of the Cuban National Council for Human Rights when he documented cases of people who disappeared or died while trying to leave Cuba.AP via Washington Post "Cuban Prisoner Released After 13 Years" 10 August 2007 He was arrested in March 1994 and sentenced to 15 years in prison a year later by a military court. Amnesty International listed him as a prisoner of conscience and said that his trial fell short of international standards.
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Nikitin started to co-operate with Norwegian environmental Bellona Foundation in 1994. He was arrested in February 1996 by Russian FSB and charged with treason through espionage for his contributions to a Bellona report on the nuclear safety within the Russian Northern Fleet. On 30 August, Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience and began an international campaign for his release. After having spent ten months in pre-trial detention in Saint Petersburg he was released on the order of Mikhail Katushev, the then deputy Russian Prosecutor General, in December 1996.
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When the paper was founded in 1985, there were no prominent journalists based in the area, and its original editor Aziz Siddiqi was neither an ethnic Pukhtoon (the dominant population of Peshawar) nor from a Pukhtoon area. Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor Fazle Haq along with several entrepreneurs were engaged in founding the paper. The founder, chief editor and publisher, Rehmat Shah Afridi, has been termed a 'prisoner of conscience' by Amnesty International due to his longstanding struggle for democracy and media freedom in Pakistan; Afridi was arrested in 1999. Jalil Afridi had been running The Frontier Post as its Managing Editor since 1999.
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Akçam explained that he accepted the editorship position, aged 22, as none of his peers would, knowing that it could land him in jail. His fears materialized when he received a nine-year sentence in early 1977, which resulted in Amnesty International naming him as a prisoner of conscience. He served for a year before escaping from Ankara Central Prison on March 12, 1977, using the leg of an iron stove to dig a hole. He received political asylum from West Germany in 1978, where he obtained citizenship and resided until obtaining his doctorate degree in 1995.
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In May 1992 the government claimed that it had detected plans for a coup d'état by Ennahda, which had allegedly plotted to kill President Ben Ali and establish an Islamic state. In August 1992, Jebali, along with 170 other sympathisers of Ennahda, was charged with "attempted overthrow". Jebali protested that he had no knowledge of the plot's existence, and asserted that he had been tortured, presenting marks on his body for evidence. The trial was classified as unfair by observers for Human Rights Watch, the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights, and Amnesty International, the latter of which named Jebali a prisoner of conscience.
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Another 256 people of Kurdish origin also had announced their conscientious objection to military service.See the list on the pages of the "opponents to war" (tr:savaş karşıtları), accessed on 15 May 2011 Conscientious objector İnan Süver was named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. On 14 November 2011, the Ministry of Justice announced a draft proposal to legalise conscientious objection in Turkey and that it was to take effect two weeks after approval by the President to the change. This decision to legalize by the Turkish government was because of pressure from the European Court of Human Rights.
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His imprisonment was condemned by a number of international human rights NGOs, which alleged that his arrest was connected to his journalism and activism for the Karakalpakstan separatist movement. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for carrying out his human rights activities and exercising his right to freedom of expression". Front Line stated that it was "deeply concerned" by the arrest, and the International Federation for Human Rights and World Organisation Against Torture issued a joint statement urging his release, calling his detention "arbitrary" and for the sole purpose of "sanctioning his human rights activities".
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The UN Working Group on Forced or Involuntary Disappearances called on Iran to investigate the disappeared relatives of Maryam Akbari Monfared to find out there fate. She has three daughters, her youngest was a just toddler when she was imprisoned. She has been named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International as her conviction is solely based on an arbitrary interference with her privacy, family and correspondence. Akbari Monfared, despite serving a decade in prison, has not been allowed a single day of furlough so far, and she has not been allowed to attend the weddings nor funerals of her relatives.
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On June 1, 2018, the book of de Lima's spiritual adviser, Fr. Robert Reyes, entitled, "Prisoner of Conscience Prisoner of Hope", was launched. The book contained various accounts from different personalities giving their views of and conversations with de Lima during her incarceration. On August 27, 2018, on the birthday of senator de Lima, she released her second book, entitled, "Fight for Freedom and Other Writings", which collects her speeches, letters, and notes, as well as letters of support from prominent personalities such as Vice President Leni Robredo, former Hong Kong Legislative Council Member Emily Lau, and Liberal International President Juli Minoves.
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Amnesty International reported that the Government of the Maldives made no effort to locate Rasheed's attackers, despite "credible photographic evidence of the attack". On 14 December, Rasheed was detained on a charge of questioning the constitution, later amended to "involvement in an unlawful assembly". Amnesty International described the charge as a "clear example of the erosion of freedom of expression in the Maldives," named Rasheed a prisoner of conscience, and demanded his immediate release. Reporters Without Borders also condemned the arrest, stating that "it is disturbing to see the government yet again yielding to pressure from the most conservative fringes of Maldivian society".
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Moroccan-French dissident and former Tazmamart prisoner of conscience Ali Bourequat claims in his book In the Moroccan King's Secret Garden to have met a former Moroccan secret agent in a prison near Rabat in 1973–74. The man, Dubail, recounted how he and some colleagues, led by Colonel Oufkir and Ahmed Dlimi, had murdered Ben Barka in Paris. The body was then encapsulated in cement and buried outside Paris, but his head was brought by Oufkir to Morocco in a suitcase. Thereafter, it was buried in the same prison grounds where Dubail and Bourequat were held.
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On the day of the presidential elections on 19 December 2010 Niaklajeŭ was seriously beaten by unidentified men in black when he was on his way to an opposition protest rally in Minsk,BBC News sustained a head injury during this beating and was abducted from intensive care by the Belarusian authorities.Foreign Secretary William Hague expresses UK concern following Belarus elections. Indonesia Katakami On 28 January 2011, Niaklajeŭ was transferred from prison to house arrest whilst still a political prisoner without appropriate medical treatment. Amnesty International has named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate and unconditional release.
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The Irish-based organization Front Line called for their release on 15 December 2011. On 13 January 2012, US Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz- Balart, Albio Sires, and David Rivera issued a bipartisan statement urging the prisoners' release, calling their detention "appalling and unjust". US Senators Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez also issued a statement calling for their release and condemning the "unrelenting tyranny" of "the Castro brothers". Malleza, Martínez, and Alvarez were released on 20 January after 52 days in prison; the release came only a few hours after Amnesty International's announcement of their "prisoner of conscience" designation.
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Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. Later that same year, he was arrested again on June 15, this time with his eldest son Vahid Sazegara, on the order of Tehran's Public Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi. Vahid Sazegara was released July 9, but Mohsen Sazegara went on to spend 114 days in custody and 79 days on a hunger strike, during which he lost almost 50 pounds of his body weight. This was especially troubling, since Sazegara suffers from severe heart problems, having had two heart operations within the previous few years.
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She was moved from the concentration camp to the prison of Villa Floresta in Bahía Blanca where she stayed for six months only to be transferred to Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires. She spent two and a half years as a prisoner of conscience, with no charges. In 1979, she was forced to leave the country, coming to the U.S. as a refugee with her daughter where they were reunited with her husband in Seattle, Washington. In 1985, she told her story of what had happened to her at The Little School, in an eponymous book.
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Tal Dosr al-Mallohi (alternately, al-Mallouhi) () born January 4, 1991 is a Syrian blogger from Homs. In December 2009, Tal was taken from her home by Syrian forces, which took issue with the contents of her blog (specifically some of the poems she wrote about Palestine, alongside other social commentary). Tal al-Mallohi was accused by the Syrian government of being a spy for the United States of America, and sentenced on February 15, 2011 to five years in prison. During her ordeal, she was called "the youngest prisoner of conscience in the Arab world".
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Amnesty International found the Archbishop Jovan to be a Prisoner of conscience.Amnesty International sees Jovan Vraniskoski a prisoner of conscience The US Mission to the OSCE in its report stated that The United States is concerned that Vraniskoski's January detention and his ongoing trial may be disproportionate to his alleged offenses and violate his freedom of religion. We believe that governments should avoid involvement in religious disputes. US Mission to the OSCE - Statement on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Freedom House speaking of Jovan Vraniskoski's second imprisonment reported that he has been again arrested ... for his ties to the Serbian Orthodox Church.
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His view on how the case was exploited and manipulated to undermine the elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide is discussed in more depth in an interview with Joseph and attorney Brian Concannon. The interview is published in the journal of Haitian studies. Joseph represented Catholic Priest and human rights activist Fr. Gérard Jean-Juste, who was designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International following his multiple arrests in 2004 and 2005. In January 2007, Joseph testified before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica, in the case of Yvon Neptune v.
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The criminal code states that whoever defames, insults or threatens the king, queen, the heir- apparent, or the regent, shall be jailed for three to 15 years, but the statute is broadly interpreted to apply to any mention of the institution of royalty that is less than flattering. On 29 April 2010, Wipas Raksakulthai was arrested following a post to his Facebook account allegedly insulting King Bhumibol. The arrest was reportedly the first lèse majesté charge against a Thai Facebook user. In response, Amnesty International named Wipas Thailand's first prisoner of conscience in nearly three decades.
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Residents of Nabi Salih also assert that they are being prevented from working the fields around the spring. The protests have led to violent clashes, with Palestinian youths throwing stones and Israeli forces firing on protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons. Since the end of 2009, 64 people (13% of the village's population) has been arrested by Israeli forces. Bassem al-Tamimi, one of the leaders of the protests, who was declared a human rights defender by the European Union and a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, has been arrested twelve times to date.
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On 11 October 2011, Sori began a hunger strike to protest her alleged framing in the payoff case. On 13 October, the National Human Rights Commission announced that it would investigate Sori's allegations of torture. In January 2012, Human Rights Watch called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to launch an independent probe, criticizing the failure of the Chhattisgarh government to begin an investigation and the lack of inquiries by the national government. Amnesty International stated that it considered Sori a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned for her critique of human rights violations by both Maoist rebels and Indian state forces.
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Kabugho and she was one of six members arrested on 16 February after several peaceful protests but the protest at that time was named "Dead City". She and the other five men were charged with encouraging civil disobedience over President Joseph Kabila's disregard of Congo's constitution. She spent six months in a prison in her home town whilst being lauded on social media and the international press as "one of" the "youngest prisoner of conscience in the world". On 19 December 2016, Rebecca was amongst 19 other activists who were arrested again for protesting against what they consider as an unconstitutional government.
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European Court Rules That Khodorkovsky's Rights Were Violated, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 31 May 2011. Despite these findings, the court ultimately ruled that the trial was not politically motivated, but rather "that the charges against him were grounded in 'reasonable suspicion'". He was considered to be a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Upon being pardoned by Putin and released from prison at the end of 2013, Khodorkovsky immediately left Russia and was granted residency in Switzerland. At the end of 2013, his personal estate was believed to be worth, as a rough estimate, $100–250 million.
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ACPRA stated that the arrest was arbitrary, in violation of the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia and the Law of Criminal Procedures. Amnesty International designated al-Bajadi a prisoner of conscience, "held solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association". Al-Bejadi was held for four months in solitary confinement and allowed a few minutes each week to telephone to his wife. He was shifted to a by cell with 9 other prisoners and "bright lighting all day and night". He was denied access to a doctor for 7 months.
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ASVDH was founded in El Aaiun on May 7, 2005 by Sahrawi activists, including its president Brahim Dahane (a former prisoner of conscience). Although the association has complied with the Moroccan Law of Public Associations, it has been refused permission to operate by the Moroccan authorities and operates illegally with limited means. Its activities consist of researching and recording abuses by interviewing alleged victims of persecution and posting documentation (including photographs) of demonstrations, police interventions and torture on the Internet. ASVDH has been outspoken in its defense of jailed Sahrawi human- rights and independence activists, such as Aminatou Haidar and Ali Salem Tamek.
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154] The author, now a moderate Muslim, is opposed to the ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir and critical of the consequences of political Islam poisoning young minds. Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism is Maajid Nawaz's autobiography. It partly recounts his time as a recruiter for Hizb ut-Tahrir, his imprisonment in Egypt from 2002 to 2006, and his release after being cited as a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International. In 2007, he left HT and co-founded the Quilliam Foundation with Ed Husain, an organization focused on countering extremism in the Muslim World.
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The late Rep. Tom Lantos, who served on CHAI's Advisory Board, was a warm supporter of its work, as was Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer. Cantor wrote a 10-lesson Humane Education unit drawing entirely on Jewish sources, which forbade cruelty to animals (though Judaism permitted slaughtering for food, Jewish law required that the process was to be as close to painless as possible; this situation does not largely obtain today, especially in South America"Jewish Vegetarian Society"). In the 1980s she initiated an ultimately successful Women's Appeal for the release of Soviet Prisoner of Conscience Ida Nudel.
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Straight after his GCE A Levels, Nasheed moved north to Liverpool, where he spent the next three years reading in maritime studies at Liverpool Polytechnic (later Liverpool John Moores University), graduating in 1989. Nasheed was held in prison for an article in the political magazine Sangu, published in 1991, alleging the government had rigged the 1989 General election. He was named an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience in 1991. He has stated that he was tortured while in detention, including being chained to a chair outside for 12 days and forced to eat food containing crushed glass.
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In addition to political oppression, the Cambodian government has been accused of corruption in the sale of vast areas of land to foreign investors resulting in the eviction of thousands of villagers as well as taking bribes in exchange for grants to exploit Cambodia's oil wealth and mineral resources. Cambodia is consistently listed as one of the most corrupt governments in the world.C.J. Perrin (30 March 2011) Australia, Singapore: Least Tainted with Corruption—survey, International Business Times. Amnesty International currently recognizes one prisoner of conscience in the country: 29-year-old land rights activist Yorm Bopha.
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Upon return he was arrested and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, to be followed by five years in exile (later reduced to six years imprisonment and no exile) for "retaining classified documents from the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, insulting the former Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, and disseminating propaganda against the Islamic system."Iran: Further information on torture/ill-treatment/prisoner of conscience – Akbar Ganji Amnesty International, 2001 His time in prison included hunger strikes and courtroom displays of torture marks. Baghi was sentenced to three years in prison in 2000 and served two years.
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In 1995, a military tribunal sentenced him to life in prison for bringing the mock trial of Olusegun Obasanjo to the attention of the world. He was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International"Nigeria: Medical concern: Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti", Amnesty International, 18 September 1995. and freed in 1998 following the death of Sani Abacha. Ransome-Kuti was a fellow of the West African College of Physicians and Surgeons, a leading figure in the British Commonwealth's human rights committee, chair of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights and executive director of the Centre for Constitutional Governance.
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On 8 March 2007, Lê Quốc Quân was detained after he returned to Vietnam from a fellowship with the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy. The detention led U.S. presidential candidate John McCain and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to write to Vietnam in protest and Amnesty International to name him a prisoner of conscience. During Quan's detention, U.S. Ambassador Michael Marine invited his wife to tea at the U.S. Embassy, but was unable to meet her when police blocked her from entering. Vietnamese authorities accused Quan of "activities to overthrow the people's government", but did not formally charge him.
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In December 2010, Kweli appeared with Darryl McDaniels, Mix Master Mike and Ahmet Zappa on a cover of Frank Zappa's "Willie the Pimp" for The Frank Zappa AAAFNRAAAA Birthday Bundle 2010. In 2011, Kweli was featured on the soundtrack for the film Beat the World with the song "Infinite Love". Kweli's fifth solo album, Prisoner of Conscious, a title derived from Kweli's constant labeling as a "conscious rapper" and based on Nigerian reggae artist Majek Fashek's album Prisoner of Conscience. Before the release of "Rainbows", Kweli began working on "Prisoner", and put cuts originally intended for "Conscious" on "Rainbows".
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He was imprisoned in Kenitra prison. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, and other human rights organizations also called for his release. In 1994, his death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment, and in 2001, he was freed following a royal amnesty by Mohammed VI of Morocco, who described it as coming from "affection for the sons of the Sahara". In 2002, Daddach was awarded the Rafto Prize for his efforts, and after some difficulties obtaining a passport, he was finally able to go to collect the prize in Norway, where he also saw his mother, Enguia Bakay Lahbib, for the first time since 1975.
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He was heavily involved in student politics during the pro democracy movement and became the General Secretary of the Nepal Students Union from 2002 to 2004. Thapa was declared a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International in 2005, following his arrest on charges of treason. In 2008, he became a Member of the First Constitutional Assembly, and in 2010 became a Central Committee Member of the Nepal Congress Party. He won again in 2013 as a Member of the Second Constitutional Assembly following the failure of the first assembly to promulgate a constitution, serving as the Health Minister from 2016-2017 under the Congress-Maoist government.
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Despite being released via habeas corpus, he was soon re-arrested. Thapa was declared a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International in May 2005, who was "detained purely for his peaceful and legitimate activities in support of democracy and human rights". Following a Special Court order in July 2005, Thapa was arrested from the Singha Durbar Ward Police Station where he had gone to meet his colleagues, and was subsequently interrogated by The Office of the Kathmandu District Government Attorney for his involvement in 'offense against the state' by chanting anti- monarchy slogans at a rally. Following immense international pressure, Thapa was released in August 2005.
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Aminatta Forna was born in Bellshill, Scotland, in 1964 to a Sierra Leonean father, Mohamed Forna, and a Scottish mother, Maureen Christison. When Forna was six months old the family travelled to Sierra Leone, where Mohamed Forna worked as a physician. He later became involved in politics and entered government, only to resign citing a growth in political violence and corruption. Between 1970 and 1973 he was imprisoned and declared an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience. Mohamed Forna was hanged on charges of treason in 1975.Sekou Daouda Bangura, "34 years after the execution of Mohamed Sorie Fornah and 14 others", The Patriotic Vanguard, 21 July 2009.
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Amnesty International designated Darwish a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely on account of his peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and association in relation to his work with the CMFE." More than twenty international human rights organizations, including the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, Human Rights Watch, Index on Censorship, the International Press Institute, Reporters Without Borders, and the World Organisation Against Torture, co-signed a letter calling for Darwish's immediate release. Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of European Union, also condemned the arrest, calling on Syria to release Darwish immediately.
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On December 27, 2011, group member Zhila Karamzadeh- Makvandi was arrested and sentenced to two years in Evin Prison for "founding an illegal organization" and "acting against state security". Amnesty International protested her imprisonment, designating her a prisoner of conscience "held solely for her peaceful activities as a member of the Mothers of Laleh Park". On April 4, 2012, group member Mansoureh Behkish was informed she was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for her activities with the group. Another member, Leyla Seyfollahi, and a male supporter, Nader Ahsani, were sentenced to two years' imprisonment apiece, but had not yet been summoned to begin their sentences.
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Pavlov also represented in court interests of Grigory Pasko, a military journalist arrested in 1997 and accused of high treason (Article 275). They said that when the journalist had been going to travel by air from Russia to Japan, some documents had been withdrawn from him and their preliminary study had shown that they had contained information comprising state secret. The Amnesty International recognized Pasko, too, as a prisoner of conscience. In 1999, the military court of the Pacific Fleet sentenced Pasko to a year of imprisonment for abuse of official powers and immediately included in the amnesty and released from the court room.
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Since August 2017, Eivazov, suffering from severe bronchial asthma, is kept in a pre-trial detention center; his defending attorneys filed a number of motion for his hospitalization. On January 19, 2018, information came on completion of the case preliminary investigation; on January 23, the investigator commissioned a psychological and psychiatric expert evaluation of Eivazov. On February 14, 2018, his defending attorneys informed on possible forgery of evidence: a blank protocol of victim familiarization with the case materials, signed by Judge Irina Kerro but neither filled nor dated, was found in the case files. The Memorial human rights center recognized Eivazov a political prisoner, and Amnesty International, a prisoner of conscience.
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The verdict came at a time when Thailand's lese majeste laws were becoming increasingly controversial domestically and internationally. Thai activists and human rights groups stated that the laws were disproportionately used to imprison "red shirts" and other political opponents of the government. Prior to the trial, an alliance of human rights organizations lobbied for the dismissal of the charges against Somyot, including Amnesty International, Freedom House, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). Amnesty International called Somyot a "human rights defender" and designated him a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned "simply for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression".
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On August 25, de Lima called for a Senate probe into delays in the free irrigation law's mandated IRR. On August 27, on the birthday of senator de Lima, she released her second book, entitled, "Fight for Freedom and Other Writings", which collects her speeches, letters, and notes, as well as letters of support from prominent personalities such as Vice President Leni Robredo, former Hong Kong Legislative Council Member Emily Lau, and Liberal International President Juli Minoves. On the same day, Amnesty International called for the dropping of charges again, adding that de Lima is a 'prisoner of conscience'. Opposition lawmakers also called for the release of de Lima.
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The group's legal consultant, Tran Quoc Hien, was arrested the following January, two days after agreeing to become the group's spokesman. In December 2007, Doan Van Dien and Doan Huy Chuong were given prison sentences of four-and-a-half years apiece under penal code article 258, "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state." Authorities also accused them of slandering the Vietnamese government and spreading "reactionary" thinking. Their sentences have been protested by international human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which granted all of the arrested activists "prisoner of conscience" status and called for their immediate and unconditional release.
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Mijail Bárzaga Lugo (his name being the Spanish rendering of the Russian name Михаил, usually spelled Mikhail in English) is a Cuban dissident who worked as a freelance journalist in Havana and was incarcerated in Cuba for seven years as a prisoner of conscience recognized by Amnesty International. In 2003, during the Black Spring crackdown on dissidents, the regime accused Mijail Bárzaga of publishing subversive and counter-revolutionary news on Internet sites such as Cubanet, Cubaliberal and Payolibre. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail for his journalism. He was released from prison in July 2010 and immediately exiled to Spain together with his family.
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Armando Valladares Perez (born May 30, 1937) is an Cuban-American poet, diplomat, and human rights activist. In 1960, he was arrested by the Cuban government for conflicting reasons; the Cuban government alleged that he had been complicit in anti-Castro terrorism, while foreign sources regarded his arrest as being due to his protesting communism, leading Amnesty International to name him a prisoner of conscience. Following his release in 1982, he wrote a book detailing his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Cuban government, and was appointed in 1987 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
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Raji Sourani (, born 31 December 1953 in the Gaza Strip ) is a human rights lawyer in the Gaza Strip. He is married and is the father of two children, and lives in the Gaza Strip. He was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience in 1985 and 1988, member of International Commission of Jurists EXCO and IDAL EXCO, and Vice President of the International Federation of Human Rights. He was a recipient of the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1991, given each year to an individual whose courageous activism is at the heart of the human rights movement and in the spirit of Robert F. Kennedy's vision and legacy.
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She thus became the first person to qualify as an Amnesty prisoner of conscience and thereafter, Amnesty International included homosexuality on their list of political crimes. Whilst she tried to take legal action, she was unsuccessful. Demir stood up for the rights of transsexual sex workers in 1995, when they were being arrested (and evicted) in order to "clean up" the neighborhood to organise the United Nations Habitat Conference, thus bringing greater visibility to transgender rights in Turkey. In 1996, she underwent a sex reassignment surgery to get a woman identity card and subsequently freelanced at workshops and press studios, before joining a company to avail of future retirement benefits.
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She was released in September 2014, only to be sentenced on a different charge, in May 2015, when under the Morsi presidency, El-Masry and a group of lawyers started a sit-in in front of El- Raml police station in Alexandria, demanding an official apology from the Ministry of Interior regarding the injury of their fellow lawyer at the hands of police personnel. The lawyers were then arrested and accused of attempting to break into the police station. An acquittal hearing for El-Masry and her colleagues was made in December 2015 but was unsuccessful. She has been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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Gérard Jean-Juste (February 7, 1946 – May 27, 2009) was a Roman Catholic priest and rector of Saint Claire's church for the poor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He was also a liberation theologian and a supporter of the Fanmi Lavalas political party, as well as heading the Miami, Florida-based Haitian Refugee Center from 1977 to 1990. In 2004, he became internationally noted as an opponent of the interim government of Prime Minister Gérard Latortue following the overthrow of the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the 2004 Haitian coup d'état. He was arrested twice for his political work, leading Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience.
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Human Rights Watch condemned the arrests and called for the immediate release of the three bloggers. In 2009, the group awarded Nguyen Van Hai its Hellman-Hammett Award "for writers who have suffered persecution as a result of their writings". Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, expressing concern at reports of his weight loss and deteriorating health. On 6 March 2012, former U.S. Representative Joseph Cao organized a Vietnamese-American lobbying effort for Hai, Nguyen Van Ly, Nguyen Dan Que, and other Vietnamese political prisoners, calling on the administration of President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress to take a stronger stand on their behalf.
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On 24 August 2006, Chen was sentenced to four years and three months for "damaging property and organising a mob to disturb traffic." He was released from prison in 2010 after serving his full sentence, but remained under house arrest or "soft detention" at his home in Dongshigu Village. Chen and his wife were reportedly beaten shortly after a human rights group released a video of their home under intense police surveillance in February 2011. Chen's case received sustained international attention, with the U.S. State Department, the British Foreign Secretary, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International issuing appeals for his release; the latter group designated him a prisoner of conscience.
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" His work has been anthologized in "The Lincoln Anthology" (The Library of America, 2008), "Breakthrough" (Peter Lang Publishers, 2007), and "No Near Exit: Writers Select Their Favorite Work From Post Road Magazine" (Dzanc Books, 2010). Additionally, he co-edited "The Madrid Conversations (UNO Press, 2013), a book-length interview with former Cuban dissident and prisoner of conscience, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez; "Jewher Ilham - A Uyghur's Fight to Free Her Father" (UNO Press, 2015); and "We Are Syrians - Three Generations. Three Dissidents" (UNO Press, 2017). Braver is on faculty and the University Library Program Director at Roger Williams University; he also regularly teaches at the New York State Summer Writers Institute.
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227 A major seminar/meeting of the Forum was held on 5 September 2001. Several hundred people attended and leaders of the Syrian opposition called for political reform and democratic elections and discussed amending the constitution and issuing a call for a civil disobedience campaign. Following this Seif and the nine other opposition leaders were arrested.Syria: Prisoner of conscience, Riad Seif According to Human Rights Watch, the two members of parliament, Riad Seif and Ma'mun al-Homsi, were accused of "attempting to change the constitution by illegal means" and "inciting racial and sectarian strife" and sentenced by the Damascus Criminal Court to five years in jail.
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Human Rights Watch said: "The Venezuelan government has openly embraced the classic tactics of an authoritarian regime, jailing its opponents, muzzling the media, and intimidating civil society." HRW further accused the Maduro government of blaming opposition leaders, including López, for violence. The Human Rights Foundation, founded and run by López's first cousin, Thor Halvorssen Mendoza, declared López a prisoner of conscience and joined other international organizations in calling for his immediate release. "With López’s imprisonment and the brutally repressive tactics that police, armed forces, and paramilitary groups are using against his supporters, the Venezuelan state has lost any democratic façade it may have had", said HRF chairman Garry Kasparov.
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He has been arrested by the Israeli authorities over a dozen times, at one point spending more than three years in administrative detention without trial. Tamimi has said that he advocates grassroots, nonviolent resistance, but has also said that stone-throwing is an important symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.Palestinian activist aims to ‘start an intifada against Israel in the US’, Times of Israel, 6 October 2015 His 2011 arrest drew international attention, with the European Union describing him as a human rights defender, and Amnesty International designating him a prisoner of conscience. He was arrested again in October 2012 for a demonstration in a supermarket, but released in early 2013.
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Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression", and called for his immediate arrest. The organization also noted its concern that the arrest might have a "chilling effect" on other activists and journalists. Ten Burundian civil society groups rallied in Bujumbura on 14 February to call for Ndikumana's release, with Gabriel Rufyiri of the Anti-corruption and Economic Malpractice Observatory urging the government to free Ndikumana and become "more transparent in recruitment". On 17 February, a court rejected Ndikumana's bail plea, ruling that he must remain in prison; however, the court reversed its decision four days later, and he was released on bail on 21 February.
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After twelve days of interrogation, Saleh was charged with "crimes against the state" as well as new charges of defamation for his reporting the Safia Ishaag rape case, for which he had been already arrested the previous year. The arrest led Amnesty International to name him a prisoner of conscience, "imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of his beliefs". The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information also condemned the arrest, describing it as part of "the severe decline of freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of the press" in Sudan. The Doha Centre for Media Freedom criticized Saleh's interrogations and detention, calling them "harassment" designed "to prevent Saleh from doing his work as a journalist".
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In November 2010, Bertrand Teyou published a book titled ' (English: "The belle of the banana republic: ChantalBiya, from the streets to the palace"),. tracing Biya's rise from humble origins to become First Lady.. He was subsequently given a two-year prison term on charges of "insult to character" and organising an "illegal demonstration" for attempting to hold a public reading. Amnesty International and PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee both protested his arrest and issued appeals on his behalf; Amnesty International also named him a prisoner of conscience. He was freed in April 2011 when a well wisher agreed to pay his fine in order that he might seek treatment for his worsening health..
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Yaroslav Gennadievich Belousov (born July 30, 1991) is a Russian political- science student who was a participant in the May 6, 2012, Bolotnaya Square protest against President Vladimir Putin and who has been imprisoned since June 9, 2012, as a result of his participation in the protest. Russia's Memorial Human Rights Center considers Belousov a political prisoner; Amnesty International has declared him a prisoner of conscience and has described his trial in 2013-14 as a farce. Human Rights Watch calls his conviction a “miscarriage of justice.” His continued imprisonment has been condemned by both the U.S. State Department and by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. House of Representatives.
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After an international campaign that included his designation as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and a request by France Libertés, the organization founded by former French first lady Danielle Mitterrand, Arcos was released in 1995. A few weeks after his release, Arcos was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in the rectum, for which he had previously been denied medicine and treatment in prison. After a Cuban doctor was fired from his post for treating Arocs, he traveled to Miami for further care. In 1996 he testified before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, and in 1997 was awarded the first Human Rights Award given by the Spanish-Cuban Foundation (Fundación Hispano-Cubana).
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A defense lawyer, he entered the dissident movement when he began to defend political prisoners in the late 1980s. He became a cofounder of Corriente Agramontista in 1990, an organization of lawyers willing to file suit against the state to force it to fulfill its own laws. On 6 August 1994, he was arrested and detained in what Amnesty International called "an apparent round- up of known government critics and human rights activists"; the group designated him a prisoner of conscience. For several years, Gomez Manzano was married to fellow dissident and independent journalist Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito until she decided to leave Cuba with her daughter and seek exile in the United States in 2012.
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Abul has alleged that he was beaten and subjected to sleep deprivation in the first two days of his detention; according to his lawyer, Abul was also denied counsel for several hearings. One week after his arrest, Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. Human Rights Watch also demanded that the charges against him be dropped, with a representative stating that "Kuwait has sunk to a new low by arresting people just for posting criticism of governments on the internet." On 19 September, Kuwaiti MP Faisal Al-Duwaisan, Chairman of the Human Rights Committee, requested Abul's release, calling it "a shame to taint Kuwait’s human rights history".
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In 2010, the seven leaders of the community were wrongly sentenced to 20 years in prison, the longest term then facing any prisoner of conscience in Iran. In late 2015, reports indicated that their sentences have been belatedly reduced from 20 years to 10 years. Other types of persecution include educational and economic discrimination, also limits on the right to assemble and worship, and the dissemination of anti-Baha’i propaganda led by government news media. Attacks on Baha'is or Baha'i-owned properties, go without any prosecution, creating a sense of impunity for attackers. Since 2005, for example, there have been at least 52 incidents of arson against Baha’i properties, crimes for which no one has been arrested.
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However, Badawi was confirmed to be a Muslim after reciting the Shahada in court, and also stated that people should have the right to choose their faith. Human Rights Watch stated that Badawi's website had hosted material criticizing "senior religious figures". Badawi had also suggested that Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University had become "a den for terrorists." Following the 2012 arrest, Amnesty International designated Badawi a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression", and said: "Even in Saudi Arabia where state repression is rife, it is beyond the pale to seek the death penalty for an activist whose only 'crime' was to enable social debate online".
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Spent all over 15 years as a prisoner of conscience on various occasions being an opponent of dictatorial panchayat regime (while leading campaigns against King's directly imposed ruling system). (a) 1962- Detained for 10 months in connection with the armed seize of bharatpur by Nepali Congress. (b) 1964- Detained for 12 months in connection with the student movement in Kathmandu. (c) 1966- Detained for 6 months for being involved in the movement to oust the then Deputy inspector General of Police. (d) 1967- Detained for 14 months in connection with the organizational activities of DSYL in Pokhara. (e) 1969 – Detained for one year in Kathmandu in connection with the reorganization of DSYL in Western Nepal.
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Amnesty International, 6 February 1996, Document - Turkey: health concern / probable prisoner of conscience: Abdulmelik Firat In 1996 he was imprisoned for two months for aiding the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) although he was a harsh critic of the party. Fırat said the PKK had been set up by the Turkish "deep state" and worked closely with the Turkish Gendarmerie's JITEM intelligence unit, and that leader Abdullah Öcalan had worked with the National Intelligence Organization before founding the PKK.Today's Zaman, 28 October 2008, Fırat: Deep state permits Öcalan to lead PKK He established the Rights and Freedoms Party (, HAK-PAR) in 2001, retiring on health grounds in 2006. He published his memoirs in 2006 (Fırat Mahzun Akar, Avesta Kitabevi).
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A demonstration held for Mohammed al-Ajami outside the Qatari embassy in Washington, D.C. Freedom of expression is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas. A life sentence was handed to the Qatari poet Mohammed al-Ajami, also known as Mohammed Ibn al-Dheeb, for criticism of the government during the 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Qatar. Observers were not allowed to enter the court, and al-Ajami himself was not present at the sentencing.Qatar: Outrageous life sentence for 'Jasmine poet' Amnesty International 29 November 2012 All the information available points to Mohammed al-Ajami being a prisoner of conscience who had been placed behind bars solely for his words.
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In 1987, shortly after Jastix disbanded, Fashek, who now used the name Majek Fashek, signed with Tabansi Records and began a solo career by releasing the album Prisoner of Conscience and quickly became Nigeria's top reggae artist after the song "Send Down The Rain" became the most popular song of the year, and in 1989 he won six PMAN awards for "Song of the Year", "Album of the Year", and "Reggae Artist of the Year" among others. Fashek's next album was I&I; Experience which was released in late 1989 under the Tabansi Label, and included the anti-apartheid anthem Free Africa, Free Mandela which sampled Steam's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.
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Sometime close to when his first date of execution was postponed, Iranian officials ordered Khosravi's defense attorney, Abdolfattah Soltani, to be imprisoned for 18 years on charges unrelated to Khosravi's case. According to Soltani's daughter, the charges were for "co-founding the Center for Human Rights Defenders, spreading anti- government propaganda, endangering national security and accepting an illegal prize [the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award]". Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "held solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and association, including his work as a defence lawyer and in the Centre". Soltani was sent to Evin Prison's Ward 350, where he shared a cell with his former client.
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Anwar was eventually sentenced to six years' imprisonment for corruption in April 1999 and nine years' imprisonment for sodomy two months later by the Malaysia High Court. His trial and conviction were widely discredited by the international community. Amnesty International stated that the trial proceedings "exposed a pattern of political manipulation of key state institutions including the police, public prosecutor’s office and the judiciary" and declared Anwar a prisoner of conscience, stating that he had been arrested in order to silence him as a political opponent.Canadian Lawyers Defend the Independence of the Bar in Malaysia Once Anwar had been detained, the Reformasi movement continued to develop, with "Justice for Anwar" remaining a potent rallying call.
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Kim was almost killed in August 1973, when he was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo by KCIA agents in response to his criticism of President Park's yushin program, which granted near-dictatorial powers. Years later, Kim reflected on these events during his 2000 Nobel Peace Prize lecture: Philip Habib, the US ambassador in Seoul, had interceded for him with the South Korean government. Although Kim returned to South Korea, he was banned from politics and imprisoned in 1976 for having participated in the proclamation of an anti- government manifesto and sentenced for five years in prison, which was reduced to house arrest in 1978. During this period, he was designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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Maede Soltani asks for the freedom of her father, Abdolfattah Soltani, November 2011 Soltani was arrested again 10 September 2011 while preparing to defend a group of Baháʼí defendants. He received an 18-year prison sentence in 2012 and was banned for an additional 20 years from practicing law. His daughter stated the sentence was for "co- founding the Center for Human Rights Defenders, spreading anti-government propaganda, endangering national security and accepting an illegal prize [the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award]". Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience, "held solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression and association, including his work as a defence lawyer and in the Centre".
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Ahmad Batebi (; born July 25, 1977) is an Iranian activist who was designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. During his studies at the University of Tehran he gained international fame for his appearance on the July 17, 1999, cover of The Economist magazine, holding up a shirt splattered with the blood of a fellow protester.Silent no more from the July 10, 2008, edition of The Economist The photo, which has been called "an icon for Iran's student reform movement", was taken during the Iranian Student Protests in July 1999 in Tehran. Following its publishing, Batebi was arrested, tried in closed-door proceedings, found guilty of "creating street unrest", and sentenced to death.
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Dr. Yacob Hailemariam (born 1944) is a retired professor of business law at Norfolk State University; former Senior Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and an elected member of the Ethiopian parliament who had been held as a "prisoner of conscience" in Ethiopia. When the May 2005 Ethiopian election was promoted as the first democratic election in the country's history, Haile-Mariam, affectionately called "Dr. Yacob" by his former students, took an early retirement from NSU to run for a parliamentary seat in his home district. Haile-Mariam became a member of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), the main opposition party in Ethiopia, which gained strong and widespread support from the public.
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At the end of the uprising, over two hundred people were estimated to have been killed by the police, a huge number wounded and some student activists detained. Olawepo was clamped into detention for four months in solitary confinement under the Detention of Persons Decree No. 2 of 1984 as amended. It was detention without trial. He was released after an epic legal battle led by his counsel, the late President of the Nigeria Bar Association Alao Aka-Bashorun , and an international campaign co-ordinated by the International Union of Students, World Federation of Democratic Youth, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The Amnesty International declared him a '’Prisoner of conscience'’ in 1989.
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On September 11, 2019 he joined forces with Muhammad Alissa of the Muslim World League to issue a joint statement calling for cooperation between evangelicals like Moore and Muslims with a focus on protecting Christian holy sites. Moore is a critic of Iran and has called for the Iranian people to take back their religion from their supreme leader. He praised Pakistan’s prime minister for the arrest of a leading terrorist and in 2019 his advocacy was credited for the release of an 82-year-old Muslim prisoner of conscience in Pakistan, Abdul Shakoor. Moore was among an evangelical delegation who met with Egyptian government officials and was the guest of Egypt’s president for the grand opening of the Middle East’s largest cathedral.
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The first member to bear the name Ransome, the Reverend Josiah Jesse "J.J." Ransome-Kuti, adopted it in honour of the Anglican missionary that had first converted his family to Christianity. He followed his father Likoye Kuti - an Egba griot - into the musical vocation, and wrote a series of popular hymns in the Yoruba language while serving as an Anglican cleric. The descendants of J.J.'s son, the Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, and Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti include a Health minister (who had also served as a university professor), a political activist (who would himself later be adopted as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience), and five further musicians (including one that founded and led a political party and two Grammy Award nominees).
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He contributed to the Kurdish Report of the Social Democrat Populist Party (SHP) and later resigned from the party in 1989 in protest against the dismissal of seven Kurdish deputies for attending a Kurdish Identity and Human Rights Conference in Paris. In 1991 he was elected to the Turkish Parliament, later joining the Democracy Party (DEP). Doğan was arrested on the 17 March 1994 and on the 8 December 1994 he was convicted, together with other DEP deputies Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle and Selim Sadak, of membership in an organization (PKK) and sentenced to 15 years in prison. An early day motion in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 2001 mentions him as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.
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In March 2008 HRF wrote to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa asking for the release of the imprisoned, governor of the province of Orellana, Guadalupe Llori implying that the charges against her were politically motivated. Later in March Amnesty International declared that governor Guadalupe Llori may be a prisoner of conscience and a political prisoner According to HRF Llori was imprisoned on trumped up terrorism charges by the government. She was sent to El Inca prison where she remained for about ten months. HRF filed a communication with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, pleading that it activate its urgent action procedure and send an appeal to the government of Ecuador for the immediate release of political prisoner Guadalupe Llori.
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Doan's sentence was protested by a number of human rights organizations, including the United Nations, whose Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that Doan's sentence was arbitrary detention and therefore a violation of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Vietnam was a state party. Amnesty International protested the conditions of his trial, named him a prisoner of conscience, and called for his immediate release, as did The Committee to Protect Journalists and the World Association of Newspapers. Human Rights Watch also protested the sentence and called on the US government to pressure Vietnam for Doan's release. Doan continued to write in the months following his sentence, smuggling out several essays from prison.
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Freedom House report on Macedonia, 2007 Reporting about the first imprisonment Freedom House writes that the charge was loosely based on the fact that he had performed a baptism and held church services in his apartment. Amnesty International has declared him a prisoner of conscience.. In Freedom House's publications Macedonia received a downward trend arrow due to ... an increase in the harassment of leaders of various religious groups. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe reported that Macedonian officials, in response to the ecclesiastical dispute concerning the status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, have over- reacted and found the 18-month prison sentence to be excessive and unjustified.In addition to these legal problems, concern exists about the situation surrounding Bishop Jovan (Zoran Vraniskoski).
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She is a nonviolent pro- democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma (Myanmar) and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a Buddhist and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" on 8 October 2010. He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi from India and Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".
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In the afternoon of Thursday, 28 April 2011, Rachid Niny was placed under arrest by the Moroccan Police after being accused of an "offence against national and citizens security" by Abd-Allah al-Balghîtî, the general prosecutor of the King at Casablanca. His lawyer Khalid Soufyâni called the arrest a political decision which aimed to silence an opponent of official corruption.Une d'al- Massae (Consulté le 29/04/2011) On 9 June 2011, the Court of First Instance in Ain S’ba’ in Casablanca sentenced Niny to one year in prison for "undermining a judicial decision", "attempting to influence the judiciary", and "reporting on untrue criminal offences". Amnesty International protested Niny's incarceration, declaring him a prisoner of conscience and demanding his immediate release.
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As well the UN labeled the anti-sexuality offenses in Cameroon's Penal Code as a violation of the international human rights laws. In January 2011, she was threatened with arrest by a representative of Cameroon's Ministry of Communication after ADEFHO was awarded a €300,000 grant by the European Union. Later that year, she represented Jean-Claude Roger Mbede, a man imprisoned for three years for "homosexuality and attempted homosexuality" following a series of SMS messages to a male acquaintance, and who was named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. In 2006 and 2013, she was a keynote speaker at the Human Rights conferences that took place in conjunction with the OutGames, in Montréal, Canada (2006) and Antwerp, Belgium (2013).
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A demonstration outside the Qatari embassy in Washington, D.C. Amnesty International called on the Qatari government to release al-Ajami if he were being held for the content of his poems, stating that in that case he would be a prisoner of conscience. Human Rights Watch stated that there was no evidence "that he has gone beyond the legitimate exercise of his right to free expression", and called the trial an example of Qatar's "double standard on freedom of expression". EveryOne Group, 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Split This Rock, PEN American Center, PEN Center Germany, Code Pink, and Rootsaction.org are engaged in civil actions to ask the authorities of Qatar to review the judgment and release Mohammed al-Ajami.
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During that same visit, Kamenetz met with the Dalai Lama, which inspired him to work with the Interfaith Action Network of the International Campaign to free the young Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima from Chinese government detainment. The world's youngest prisoner of conscience, the Panchen Lama's eighth birthday fell during the first week of Passover. Struck by this coincidence, Kamenetz created a nationwide campaign of Passover Seders for Tibet, uniting the Jewish memory of slavery and oppression in Egypt long ago with the lack of religious freedom in today's Tibet under Chinese rule. A special seder was held in Washington D.C. on April 24, 1997 and attended by the Dalai Lama, as well as by numerous U.S. dignitaries and celebrities, including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys.
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She is currently detained under house > arrest in Malé. In addition, it is believed that Jennifer Latheef’s > continued detention may be a measure by the government to limit the > activities of her father, Mohamed Latheef, a Maldivian politician currently > living in exile in Sri Lanka where he is engaged in a campaign of peaceful > political opposition to the Government of Maldives.Amnesty International, > The Republic of Maldives: Prisoners of conscience should be released , 19 > November 2003 Jennifer Latheef was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment on October 18, 2005, convicted of "terrorism" for joining a protest in September 2003 against deaths in prison and political repression.Reporters sans frontières, Jennifer Latheef - In prison since 18 October 2005 Amnesty International adopted her as a Prisoner of Conscience during her time in prison and campaigned for her release.
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In November 2013, Amnesty International released a public statement declaring Kokabee a "prisoner of conscience, held solely for his refusal to work on military projects in Iran and as a result of spurious charges related to his legitimate scholarly ties with academic institutions outside of Iran." In that statement Amnesty asked for "his immediate and unconditional release". In October 2014, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) awarded Kokabee its 2014 Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award "for his courageous stand and willingness to endure imprisonment rather than violate his moral stance that his scientific expertise not be used for destructive purposes and for his efforts to provide hope and education to fellow prisoners". While in prison he translated "Human Rights Atlas" by Andrew Fagan to Persian.
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On November 19, 2013, Amnesty International released a public statement declaring Kokabee a "prisoner of conscience, held solely for his refusal to work on military projects in Iran and as a result of spurious charges related to his legitimate scholarly ties with academic institutions outside of Iran." With that statement, Amnesty launched a campaign calling for his immediate and unconditional release. On October 27, 2014, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general science association in the world, selected Kokabee as the recipient of the 2014 Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award "for his courageous stand and willingness to endure imprisonment rather than violate his moral stance that his scientific expertise not be used for destructive purposes and for his efforts to provide hope and education to fellow prisoners".
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Maleh's most recent arrest was on 14 October 2009, a day after giving an interview on 'Panorama', a political analysis show on Barada TV, a London-based satellite channel associated with the Syrian opposition and allegedly funded by the U.S. government. He was referred to the Damascus military court and tried on charges of spreading false and misleading information that would "affect the morale of the nation", and sentenced to three years prison. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression", and called for his immediate release. He was released on 8 March 2011 after a presidential amnesty on the anniversary of the arrival of the Baath party ascension to power, which was extended only to prisoners over 70 years old.
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Nguyễn Văn Lý began his dissident activities as early as the 1970s. He spent a year in prison from 1977–78, and an additional nine from May 1983 to July 1992 for "opposing the revolution and destroying the people's unity." In November 2000, Father Lý gained global and official attention when members of the Committee for Religious Freedom visited him in his village, during the visit of U.S. president Clinton to Vietnam. On 17 May 2001, Father Lý was arrested at An Truyền church, for his alleged "failure to abide by the decisions on his probation issued by authorized State agencies".Amnesty International profile of Father Lý, "Prisoner of Conscience" In October 2001 Lý received another prison sentence of 15 years for activities linked to the defense of freedom of expression.
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Hamad served as Member of the Zanzibar Revolutionary Council and Zanzibar Minister of Education (1977–1980), founding member of the Zanzibar House of Representatives (1980–1989) and Member of Tanzanian Parliament (1977), Member of the Central Committee and National Executive Committee of Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) - Tanzaniania's Ruling Party (1977–1987), Head of the Economic and Planning Department of the CCM (1982–1987) and Chief Minister of Zanzibar from 6 February 1984 to 22 January 1988. Soon after his dismissal, he was expelled from the sole legal party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), after disputes with party officials. From May 1989 - November, 1991 he was imprisoned as a prisoner of conscience. When Tanzania adopted a multiparty political system in 1992, Hamad along with other former CCM members founded the Civic United Front party.
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On 31 October 2011, the organisation issued an "urgent action" identifying Gambira as a prisoner of conscience and stating that he was being denied hospitalisation necessary to treat complications from being tortured at Hkamti prison in April 2009. Democratic Voice of Burma reported that Gambira was being regularly beaten by guards during the same period and was having seizures as a result. During his imprisonment, Gambira won the Bindmans Law and Campaigning Award in absentia at the 2008 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards. The prize recognises "lawyers and campaigners who have fought repression or who have struggled to change political climates and perceptions, especially those who have used or established legal means to fight injustice in the field of freedom of expression", and is sponsored by Bindmans LLP.
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The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights commented that the Criminal Code, section 112, and the law on computer-related offences were used in the name of the security protection to violate the freedom of expression, and called for a provisional release of Ampon in the course of the trial. The Delegation of the European Union to Thailand expressed its "deep concern" and urged the Thai authorities to end discrimination. The conviction led Amnesty International to designate Ampon a prisoner of conscience, and to denounce his arrest as a "blow to freedom of expression". Human Rights Watch described Ampon's conviction as demonstrating "the misuse by successive Thai governments of laws intended to protect the monarchy" and called for the laws "be amended to prevent unnecessary restrictions on freedom of expression".
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The UK Foreign Office, noting that Ibrahim Sharif was a prominent moderate opposition politician who had been a constructive participant in Bahraini politics, expressed concern at the trial of civilians under martial law by tribunals chaired by a military judge, as well as reports of abuse in detention, lack of access to legal counsel and coerced confessions. Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme director, Malcolm Smart, described the trials as patently unfair, emphasising inadequate investigation of claims of torture and the use of false confessions as evidence. Summing up the situation he said that On 30 March 2012, the organization officially designated Alkhawaja a prisoner of conscience and demanded his immediate release. Amid his hunger strike, the Danish foreign minister met with Bahrain's foreign minister in March 2012 and called for al- Khawaja's immediate release.
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On the same day, the book of de Lima's spiritual adviser, Fr. Robert Reyes, entitled, "Prisoner of Conscience Prisoner of Hope", was launched. The book contained various accounts from different personalities giving their views of and conversations with de Lima while she is in prison. Hours before her son's graduation on June 3, Presiding Judge Amelia Fabros-Corpuz of the Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court Branch 205 rejected de Lima's motion for reconsideration in attending to her son's law graduation. On June 3, de Lima filed a resolution seeking to probe the state-sponsored immigration of Chinese citizens into the Philippines which has caused the unemployment of Filipinos. On June 5, de Lima called solicitor-general Jose Calida as a 'role model in government corruption' after Calida's multi-million corruption scandal surfaced. Calida was one of the personalities that spearheaded de Lima's arrest.
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575-597 It was at Baker's suggestion that the now-famous term 'prisoner of conscience' was adopted and became central to Amnesty International, as did Baker's view that they should support those who were not themselves advocating or condoning violence. Baker subsequently explained his view that AI represented the response of men and women ‘who are tired of the polarized thinking which is the result of the Cold War and similar conflicts but who are deeply concerned with those who are suffering simply because they are suffering.’ Baker became secretary general of AI in 1966. The organisation was in something of a crisis as a result of Benenson's resignation as president, originating in his concerns that AI activities critical of the British Government were being suppressed and his wish to move the organisation headquarters to Switzerland.
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Deeming the charges against him "politically motivated", Human Rights Watch called for al-Mir's immediate release. The organization included his arrest in the Syrian section of its 2008 World Report, a human rights assessment. Amnesty International judged al-Mir a "prisoner of conscience" and called for "his immediate and unconditional release." Atallah — speaking to NOW Lebanon, a Lebanese newspaper — praised al-Mir's human-rights activism and commented "arresting someone for a phone call is unheard of... every free and democratic Lebanese citizen is in solidarity with [Mir] and his comrades, and they demand that he is set free along with all the political prisoners in Syria.” According to NOW Lebanon, al-Mir's indictment implied that "any support for March 14 – the ruling parliamentary majority in Lebanon – is tantamount to treason," a precedent that was "portentous for the future of Lebanese-Syrian relations or for the revitalization of democracy inside of Syria.
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After the imposing of martial law by the bloodless 5 July 1977 Operation Fair Play coup by the Army Chief, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Khan began opposing the Zia administration and called for support for restoring democracy. On television interviews with news channels, Khan strongly defended his letter as according to him, "nowhere in the letter had he asked for the military to take over", and he had written it in response to a news story he read in which an Army Major had shot a civilian showing him the "V sign". In 1983, Khan went on to join the left-wing alliance, the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) led by Benazir Bhutto, supported by the communist parties at that time. Khan was kept under house arrest at his Abbottabad residence from 16 October 1979 to 2 October 1984 and was named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
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Following a legal apprenticeship with prominent Lebanese lawyers Edmond Gaspard and Yusuf al-Sawda, he established Mallat law offices in 1949. As a lawyer, he defended celebrated cases in Lebanese modern advocacy, winning landmark judicial victories on behalf of the Vatican and the Beirut Maronite Church. In 1972, he was elected president of the Beirut bar, and founded the first Arab Organization for Human Rights in 1974, together with prominent Arab lawyers like Abderrahmane Youssoufi (Arabic عبد الرحمن اليوسفي), a prisoner of conscience and later prime minister of Morocco. In peacetime, he was an influential figure in Lebanon through the respect expressed to him by the leaders of various factions and his intimate knowledge of the Lebanese political scene. In 1964, he was appointed Minister of Social Affairs by Lebanese president Charles Helou, but resigned a year later over the arbitrary dismissal of leading judges under the pretext of fighting corruption.
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Following the firing of Scud missiles at Tel Aviv, Nusseibeh worked with Israeli Peace Now on a common approach to condemn the killing of civilians in the war. But he was arrested and placed under administrative detention on 29 January 1991, effectively accused of being an Iraqi agent.. The arrest was then questioned by British and American officials, and the U.S. administration urged that he should either be charged or else the suspicion would be that the arrest was political. He was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.. and letters of protest were written to The Times by such luminaries as Peter Strawson, Isaiah Berlin and H. L. A. Hart.. Some Israelis said the move was designed to discredit Nusseibeh before international opinion. Palestinians saw the arrest as a political warning that Israel did not intend to negotiate with any Palestinian leader, no matter how moderate.
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The organization designated Atabaev a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression". Human Rights Watch also protested the arrest of Atabaev and other activists, stating that "If the Kazakh authorities can prove these political activists were involved in the violence in Zhanaozen, they shouldn’t need to resort to using vague and undefined criminal allegations to imprison them ... The 'inciting social discord' charge should be dropped immediately and those against whom there is no evidence of any violent activity should be released from custody." Anti-censorship group ARTICLE 19 described the charge as "spurious" and "alarming", warning that the arrests of Atabaev and others would have "a chilling effect on freedom of expression in Kazakhstan". The German government called for his release, with Human Rights Commissioner Markus Loening describing Atabaev as "guilty of only using his constitutional right of free expression".
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He was detained for almost nine months while awaiting trial. Polish activist and former prisoner of conscience Adam Michnik wrote a letter to Nazarbayev, dated July 30, 2012, pleading with him to release Kozlov and other activists and oil workers who had been imprisoned in the wake of events in Zhanaozen. On August 16, he went on trial at the Mangistau Regional Court in Aktau on charges of inciting social hatred, calling to the overthrow of the constitutional order of the state, and creating and managing an organized criminal group. Kozlov said that the charges represented an effort by the government to silence the opposition. Deutsche Welle called Kozlov's trial “the first political trial in Kazakhstan.” The US State Department's 2012 Human Rights Report on Kazakhstan cited Kozlov's arrest and detention, and the confiscation of his personal property, at length as representative of that country's poor human-rights record.
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" In his The United Nations, Peace and Security, Ramesh Thakur called Khan's likening of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to a gulag a "hyperbole" that is "wrong". Commentary on Europe's Ariel Cohen said that Khan's statement was a product of being "blinded by a hatred of U.S. policies," "deception or deep[] ignoran[ce]," stating to that statement Khan, reportedly, added "[i]ronic that this should happen as we mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz". Cohen stated that he is "incensed at Amnesty's gall in trivializing [the suffering of prisoners in Soviet gulags that included his grandfather] for political purposes. A former Soviet prisoner of conscience, Pavel Litvinov, told the Amnesty International staffer, who called him to inquire on behalf of Khan whether it would be appropriate to use the word 'gulag' in an Amnesty report and in relation in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, that there was "an enormous difference" between the gulags and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
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In January 2013, U.S. State Department condemned Abedini's sentencing: "We condemn Iran's continued violation of the universal right of freedom of religion and we call on the Iranian authorities to respect Mr. Abedini's human rights and release him." Amnesty International repeatedly raised the issue of Abedini's imprisonment, calling him a prisoner of conscience and calling upon Iran to release all those detained for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.Iran: New briefing reveals crackdown on dissent ahead of election, Amnesty International (12 June 2013).Elise Auerbach, Why the Iranian Government Should Listen to the King Who Died 3,000 Years Ago, Amnesty International USA (11 March 2013). In May 2015, the United States Senate unanimously passed, 90–0, a resolution calling upon the Iranian government to immediately free Abedini and two other Americans imprisoned in Iran, Amir Hekmati and Jason Rezaian, and to cooperate with the U.S. government to locate and return Robert Levinson, who is missing in the country.
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Tran's sentence was protested by several major human rights organizations, including PEN International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, and Amnesty International, which granted Tran "prisoner of conscience" status and demanded his release. In Spring 2011, Boston's American Repertory Theater and System of a Down's Serj Tankian dedicated their production of Prometheus Bound to Tran Quoc Hien, Doan Van Dien, Doan Huy Chuong, and seven other Amnesty International cases, stating in program notes that "by singing the story of Prometheus, the God who defied the tyrant Zeus by giving the human race both fire and art, this production hopes to give a voice to those currently being silenced or endangered by modern-day oppressors." He was released from prison on 11 January 2012, having completed his five-year sentence. He alleged that following his release, he was kept under close surveillance, and in February, was deliberately driven off the road by state security forces.
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Amnesty International designated Baik a prisoner of conscience for his imprisonment as a former leader of the Socialist Labour League of South Korea, or shortly known as Sanomaeng. On April 29, 1992, the South Korean Agency for National Security and Planning arrested Baik for violating the National Security Law (NSL) for leading Sanomaeng, which it alleged was an anti-state organization. Under the NSL at the time, an anti-state organization was an "association or group within the territory of the Republic of Korea or outside of it, which has the structure of command and control, as organized for the purpose of assuming a title of the government or disturbing the State". In advance of Sanomaeng, the Agency alleged Baik to have "published and distributed over 20 printed documents about Sanomaeng, to have organized two attacks on police boxes, to have communicated with other Sanomaeng members and to have received money from them".
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An Amnesty International press release published in 2004, designates Fakhravar as a prisoner of conscience who was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment for defamation charges in November 2002, because of comments he made on Iranian authorities in his book, This Place is Not a Ditch. The statement further adds sometime between January and February 2004, he was held at Ward 325, where he was reportedly subject to solitary confinement and white torture, before being granted a 2-days furlough on or around 8 February 2004. According to the same release, he was moved to Qasr prison upon his return and on or around 21 March, he was given another leave lasting 19 days for the new year holidays, as part of an annual temporary release of prisoners. On 17 July 2005, Eli Lake made an interview with Fakhravar while on temporarily release to participate in his university exams, in which he said "I forgot to report back to prison" and that he was going to ignore his arrest warrant.
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