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M. Baba Jan is a land and environmental rights defender from the Gilgit-Baltistan administrative territory (in the north of Pakistan).

He was first arrested on September 16, 2011 because of his participation in demonstrations in Aliabad, in support of the inhabitants of the Hunza Valley, whose villages were submerged following a landslide that blocked the Hunza River and caused a lake to form in the valley. This natural disaster caused dozens of deaths and injuries and a thousand people found themselves displaced. M. Baba Jan was reportedly subjected to torture in prison.

After an international mobilization on his case (the Gilgit-Baltistan diaspora and the Awami Workers Party, of which he is a member, were involved in advocating his release)., he was released on bail in October 2012. He continued his peaceful activities as a member of the left-wing Awami Workers Party.

In September 2014, an anti-terrorism court sentenced M. Baba Jan and 11 other activists to 71 years in prison for attacking public property (the police station house officer’s residence and police station), in relation with the Aliabad demonstrations. Baba Jan turned himself in to prison authorities to serve his prison sentence on September 25, 2014. Although he was acquitted on appeal, he was subsequently sentenced by the Supreme Appellate Court of Gilgit-Baltistan on June 8, 2016 to 40 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 rupees, under the Anti-Terrorism Act. He is currently imprisoned in Gahcooch prison, Gilgit-Baltistan territory.

Mr Baba Jan suffers from health problems, including chest pains, and does not receive adequate medical care within the prison.

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Ms. Abdelaziz is a journalist who has been vocal with regards to the wave of arrests which targeted many women’s rights defenders from May 2018 onward, ahead of the entry into force on June 24, 2018 of the Royal Decree that allows women to drive.

On June 6, 2018, Ms. Nouf Abdelaziz was arrested by security forces following a raid at her home in Riyadh.

On March 13, 2019, the Riyadh Criminal Court held a first hearing in the case against Nouf Abdelaziz, who was accused of “undermining the public order, religious values, good morals and private life” under Article 6 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law for expressing her opinion, conducting human rights work, communicating with “hostile parties”, human rights organisations and personalities.

On March 18, 2020, the trial of Ms. Nouf Abdelaziz was postponed to an unknown date, following the closure of the courts due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Ms. Nouf Abdelaziz is currently being detained at Al-Ha’ir Prison, Riyadh. During her detention, she was placed in solitary confinement, suffered brutal torture by beating and use of electric shocks and was sexually molested. Her health has deteriorated since she was tortured, and she has pre-existing health conditions.

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Mr. Burin Intin, 32, worked as a welder in Bangkok until 2014, when he became actively engaged in political activities to protest the rule of the military junta that seized power in a military coup in May of that year.

In 2015, Mr. Burin participated in activities organized by two pro-democracy groups, the New Democracy Movement (NDM) and the Resistant Citizens Group.

On April 27, 2016, Mr. Burin was arrested after participating in “Just Standing”, a peaceful protest held by the Resistant Citizens group in Bangkok to call for the release of political prisoners. On the same day, he was charged with violating Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code (‘lèse-majesté’), as a result of an online chat message he allegedly sent to the mother of a prominent student activist and a Facebook post critical of the Thai monarchy.

On 27 January 2017, the Bangkok military court sentenced him to 22 years and eight months in prison on two lèse-majesté counts. His sentence was reduced to 11 years and four months in consideration of his guilty plea.

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On May 7, 2020, agents of the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DTS) in plain clothes and hoods arrested Mr. Saikou Yaya Diallo in Conakry, without any arrest warrant or summons, and took him by force in a vehicle to the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (CDJP) first before driving him to an unknown destination on Friday and then returning him to the CDJP on Saturday, May 9, 2020. He did not have access to his lawyer until May 11, 2020.

On May 12, 2020, the prosecutor of the Dixinn Court of First Instance in Conakry opened a judicial investigation against Mr. Saikou Yaya Diallo and charged him with “violence”, “threats”, “assault” and “public insults” (Article 240 et seq. of the Penal Code). The charges against him are related to his involvement in the case that led to the discovery of a DTS police officer who came to attend, undercover, a meeting followed by a press conference of the NFDC, which was held on March 25, 2020 at the headquarters of the PADES party. Following the hearing, Mr. Saikou Yaya Diallo was placed under a committal order at the central house in Conakry.

On May 21, 2020, the President of the First Investigation Control Chamber of the Conakry Court of Appeal ordered the provisional release of Mr. Saikou Yaya Diallo with a placement under judicial supervision. This decision, although not subject to appeal and which was to take effect immediately, was not carried out because the Prosecutor General at the Conakry Court of Appeal, according to him, filed a cassation complaint against him on May 25, 2020. Mr. Saikou Yaya Diallo’s lawyers stressed that it was incomprehensible that the Prosecutor should appeal to the Court of Cassation against a decision that could not be appealed. Mr. Saikou Yaya Diallo remains incarcerated in Conakry’s central house.

Mr. Saikou Yaya Diallo, who is chronically diabetic and in need of medical treatment and a special diet, is at increased risk of contracting Covid-19 in prison. Indeed, on May 26, 2020, the Guinean authorities confirmed at least 66 cases of Covid-19 out of 572 detainees detected in the central house in Conakry, one of the most overcrowded in the country, where Mr. Saikou Yaya Diallo is incarcerated.

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Ms. Sepideh Gholian is a labour rights defender and an independent journalist who collaborates closely with the independent Workers Syndicate of Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company (Shush, Khuzestan Province).

On November 18, 2018, Ms. Sepideh Gholian was arrested while she was covering a strike and protest movement organized by workers at the Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company, and charged with “gathering and collusion against national security” (Article 610 of the Islamic Penal Code). She was released on bail on December 18, 2018 and subsequently stated that she had been tortured and forced to confess. Her “confessions” were televised. She was re-arrested in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province, on January 20, 2019 and detained in Sepidar prison until April 28, 2019, before being transferred to Evin prison where she remained until June 3, 2019, when she was transferred to Qarchak prison.

On September 7, 2019, Branch 28 of the Islamic Revolution Court in Tehran sentenced Ms. Gholian to 18 years in prison, after an unfair trial in August. She appealed the sentence.

On October 26, 2019, Ms. Sepideh Gholian was released from Qarchak prison in Varamin, south of Tehran, on a heavy bail. She was released one day after ending a five-day hunger strike to protest against her conditions of detention and the Intelligence Ministry’s harassment of her family.

Ms. Gholian was detained again at her home in the town of Dezful on November 16, 2019, after she participated in popular protests against price hikes, and was released on bail on December 3, 2019.

On December 14, 2019, the Court of Appeals of Tehran upheld Ms. Sepideh Gholian’s conviction on charges of “gathering and collusion against national security” and reduced her sentence down to five years in prison.

On June 16, 2020, Ms. Gholian was informed by the judge in charge of the Verdicts Enforcement Office that she would be sent to Qarchak prison to serve the sentence handed down against her in December 2019 by the appeal court unless she wrote a letter to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to request pardon, which she refused to do.

On June 21, 2020, Ms. Sepideh Gholian reported to the Verdicts Enforcement Office in Tehran’s Evin prison and was detained to serve her five-year prison sentence.

Ms. Gholian is facing at least two other cases.

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Mr. Ahmed Mansoor, a prominent human rights defender and 2015 Laureate of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, has faced repeated intimidation, harassment, and death threats from the UAE authorities or their supporters because of his work to document human rights violations in the country. He has been arrested and imprisoned in 2011 following an unfair trial and, although pardoned and released later that year, the UAE authorities have arbitrarily imposed a travel ban on him and have refused to return his passport, which they have confiscated since 2011.

On the night of March 20, 2017, Mr. Mansoor was arrested at his home in Ajman by a dozen security officers and was then subjected to enforced and involuntary disappearance for over six months, with no access to a lawyer and sparse contact with his family, who did not know his exact whereabouts. He has been kept in solitary confinement since the day of his arrest.

Mr. Mansoor was convicted on May 29, 2018 of “insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols including its leaders” and of “seeking to damage the relationship of the UAE with its neighbours by publishing false reports and information on social media”. He was sentenced by the State Security Chamber of the Federal Appeal Court to ten years’ imprisonment, followed by three years of surveillance and a fine of 1,000,000 Emirati Dirhams (around USD $270,000), in reprisals for his peaceful human rights activism, including posts on social media.

This sentence was upheld on December 31, 2018 by the State Security Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court. Mr. Mansoor’s trial was widely viewed as grossly unfair and lacked the minimum international standards of fair trial and due process. The European Parliament, United Nations Special Rapporteurs, and human rights organisations have all called for his immediate and unconditional release.

Ahmed Mansoor is being kept in solitary confinement in an isolation ward in Al-Sadr prison in Abu Dhabi, where he is being held in terrible conditions in a cell with no bed, no water and no access to a shower. His health has deteriorated significantly, and he is in bad shape, moving slowly when he is allowed out of his cell. He went on two separate hunger strikes which have harmed his health – a harm which has been exacerbated by the lack of adequate medical care. Mr. Mansoor is not allowed to have regular family visits : the last visit in person from his family was in January 2020. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, family visits at Al-Sadr Prison were canceled and replaced by phone calls. However, the last call from Mr. Mansoor to his family was in April 2020, and they did not receive any news since then.

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Osman Kavala has been arbitrarily detained in Turkey since October 18, 2017 within the scope of several criminal investigations.

Osman Kavala is a prominent businessperson, philanthropist and human rights defender from Turkey. As the founder of several civil society organisations in Turkey, he promoted democracy, human rights and multiculturalism in the country. In 2002, in an effort to promote peace and dialogue through arts and culture, he founded the civil society organisation Anadolu Kültür and several arts centers in Anatolian towns later on, in collaboration with like-minded civil society actors. In addition to his work at Anadolu Kültür, Osman Kavala is also a founding member, board member and advisory board member of many civil society organisations including the Open Society Foundation (Açık Toplum Vakfı), Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (Türkiye Ekonomik ve Sosyal Etüdler Vakfı – TESEV), and Diyarbakır Political and Social Research Institute (Diyarbakır Siyasal ve Sosyal Araştırmalar Enstitüsü).

Osman Kavala was taken into police custody on October 18, 2017 at Istanbul Ataturk Airport on his way back from a trip to Antep for a joint project with Goethe Institute. On November 1, 2017, he was placed in pre-trial detention in Silivri High Security Prison on accusations of “being the mastermind behind the Gezi Park Protests in 2013” and “taking part in the attempted coup of July 2016”. He spent one year and four months in prison without an indictment and official charges. The scope of the investigation was later expanded and it turned into a high profile criminal case targeting many civil society actors, including academics and employees of Anadolu Kultur.

Osman Kavala’s arbitrary detention was eventually challenged before the European Court of Human Rights, and on December 10, 2019, the Court ordered his immediate release and ruled that his detention was in violation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (the right to liberty and security) and Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions on rights). Despite the Court’s judgment, he was not released by the Turkish courts.

On February 18, 2020, along with other defendants, he was acquitted of all charges in the Gezi trial, and the judge ordered his release. Yet, the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Kavala on the same day, preventing his release from prison, on trumped-up accusations of “attempting to overthrow the government” through his alleged involvement the attempted coup of July 15, 2016. İstanbul 8th Criminal Peace Judge eventually ruled for his re-detention under the accusations in question at midnight on February 20, 2020. On March 10, 2020 another detention order was issued against him for supposed “espionage”. The previous detention order based on the accusation of “attempting to overthrow the government” was later canceled, but he was not released in light of the second detention order based on “espionage” accusations.

Osman Kavala is still being held in a single cell in Silivri Prison while sharing a common yard with another prisoner kept in an adjacent cell. 63-year-old Kavala is in the risk group for Covid-19. Although his attorneys lodged an application for his release with judicial control underlining his vulnerability, the authorities have not responded to date.

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Mr Naâma Asfari has been arbitrarily detained in Morocco since November 7, 2010 where he is serving a 30-year prison sentence for murder.

Mr Naâma Asfari is a Sahrawi human rights defender for the right to self-determination. He was the spokesperson of the Gdeim Izik camp (“Camp of Freedom and Dignity”, in prelude to the Arab Spring), a peaceful gathering of more than 20,000 people who had gathered in October 2010 at the gates of Laayoune (capital of Western Sahara) to peacefully demonstrate against the Moroccan occupation of the Sahrawi territory since 1975. On November 8, 2010, during the dismantling of the camp by the Moroccan authorities, clashes broke out between the demonstrators and the armed forces and resulted in several victims, both civilian and military according to the Moroccan authorities.

The day before, on November 7, 2010, Naâma Asfari had been arrested and imprisoned. He was subsequently accused of killing police officers during the dismantling of the camp, an event in which he was unable to participate due to his arrest. In 2013, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison by the Rabat military court for murder, following a trial marked by numerous irregularities and on the basis of confessions obtained under torture. 23 other defendants suffered a similar fate and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two years to life imprisonment. In July 2017, all were sentenced to the same sentences on appeal by the Civil Court of Rabat-Salé. An appeal in cassation was subsequently lodged but no date for a hearing has yet been set.

Mr. Naâma Asfari is detained in Kenitra prison. Since October 2016, the Moroccan authorities have deprived his wife, Claude Mangin-Asfari, of her right to visit him. She has been expelled from Morocco several times and is still banned from staying.

In December 2016, the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) condemned Morocco for torture and ill-treatment of Mr Naâma Asfari.

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Mr. Pham Chi Dung has been arbitrarily detained in Vietnam since November 21, 2019, where he is prosecuted for “making, storing or disseminating information, documents, materials and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”.

Mr. Pham Chi Dung is an independent journalist who has written articles criticizing the government’s human rights record, and collaborated with several foreign media, such as Voice of America and the BBC, under different pen names.

On November 10, 2019, Mr. Pham Chi Dung sent a petition to the European Parliament urging its members to postpone ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) until issues of worker rights and human rights are addressed.

On November 21, 2019, Mr. Pham Chi Dung was arrested by security officers at his home in Ho Chi Minh City and charged with “making, storing or disseminating information, documents, materials and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” (under Article 117 of the Criminal Code). According to the police, Mr. Pham Chi Dung wrote “anti-State articles” and “cooperated with foreign media to deliver distorted information”. Shortly after his arrest, IJAVN’s website (www.vietnamthoibao.org) was shut down by the authorities. If found guilty, Mr. Pham Chi Dung could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

This is not the first time Mr. Pham Chi Dung has been detained for the legitimate exercise of his right to freedom of opinion and expression. In 2012, Mr. Pham Chi Dung was arrested over the same accusation, and released six months later without being tried. He has also been frequently harassed by the authorities and was banned from traveling abroad in 2014.

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Mr. Orbin Nahúm Hernández is the coordinator of the Sectoral Committee for the Defence of Water and the Environment, a direct representative member in the coordination of the Municipal Committee of Tocoa since 2015. He is in preventive detention for his struggle for the defence of water and life against mining projects granted in the heart of a national park.

On August 1, 2018, faced with the lack of response to the legal actions undertaken, environmental activists, including Mr. Nahúm Hernández, decided to create the “Campamento Digno por el Agua y por la Vida de Guapinol” in La Ceibita, Tocoa, to prevent the continuation of the exploration and mining activities of the company Los Pinares, and thus protect rivers from the pollution generated by the exploitation of the projects.

On August 29, 2019, Orbin Nahúm Hernández and six other environmental activists appeared before the national court. On September 1, 2019, the Judge of the National Criminal Court of Tegucigalpa decided to issue a formal indictment for the crimes of arson and unjust deprivation of liberty. Judge Lisseth Vallecillo imposed the measure of preventive detention, ordering their transfer to Olanchito prison.

Olanchito prison, where Mr. Orbin Nahúm Hernández is being held, is overcrowded. The cell in which he is being held, together with eight to 10 other prisoners, is barely 12 square metres. In addition, prisoners have problems with access to food, health care is poor and insufficient and no adequate measures are taken to protect prisoners from the outbreak and spread of diseases inside the prison. The Honduran National Committee for the Prevention of Torture observed these conditions of detention during its visit to the prison on April 16, 2020. Prison inmates suffer from a shortage of water, which is not present in sufficient quantities to meet basic needs. They also feel very insecure as prison staff come and go without any protection. Prisoners only receive a very simple mask when there is a visit, and only to display it, the rest of the time they are left without any protection.

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Mr. Cheng Yuan is the co-founder and Messrs. Liu Dazhi and Wu Gejianxiong are members of Changsha Funeng (长沙富能), an NGO focused on advocacy for the rights for persons with disabilities and efforts to combat employment discrimination against persons infected with HIV and Hepatitis B.

For more than a decade, Mr. Cheng Yuan has led ground-breaking impact litigation focused on the rights of people living with HIV as well as other health rights, first at Tianxiagong, an NGO in Nanjing, and later at Changsha Funeng. Two of his landmark cases, in 2013 and 2016, won compensations for teachers who lost their jobs due to their HIV-positive status. Cheng Yuan has also led work on Hepatitis B anti-discrimination litigation, advocated for the rights of persons with disabilities and for an end to China’s One Child Policy, and worked to promote freedom of information and the rule of law.

Messrs. Cheng Yuan, Liu Dazhi, and Wu Gejianxiong were detained on July 22, 2019, by state security on suspicion of “subversion of state power” under Article 105(1) of China’s Criminal Law. The charge stipulates imprisonment of up to 3 years for participants, 3 to 10 years for active participants,  and  not  less  than  10 years or life imprisonment for those who organize, plot or carry out the scheme of subverting the state power or overthrowing the socialist system, and to ringleaders and others who commit major crimes.  The three human rights defenders are currently held in the Hunan Provincial State Security Bureau Detention Center in Changsha.

The day the activists were arrested, Cheng’s wife, Shi Minglei (施明磊), was also taken by state security officers who forced a black hood on her and handcuffed and interrogated her for 18 hours. The interrogators pressed her to provide details of Cheng’s work and made threats involving her 3-year-old daughter. Subsequently, several other members of Cheng Yuan’s family were intimidated by the authorities because they spoke out about his case.

On December 11, 2019, UN human rights experts sent a communication to Chinese authorities to express their concern over Messrs. Cheng Yuan, Liu Dazhi, and Wu Gejianxiong’s arbitrary detention.

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Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh has been arbitrarily detained in Iran since June 13, 2018, where she is serving a 38.5-year prison sentence.

Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh is a prominent human rights lawyer, 2012 laureate of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, and a major figure in the fight for human rights in Iran.

On June 13, 2018, security forces arrested Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh at her home in Tehran and transferred her to the capital’s Evin prison. Upon her arrest, she was presented with an arrest warrant and was told that she was being taken to serve a five-year prison sentence, which had been imposed against her in absentia on September 4, 2016. Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh was not shown the court’s ruling related to the sentence and had not been informed of the conviction or the sentence prior to her arrest, in breach of domestic and international fair trial standards. Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh filed an appeal against the sentence.

On March 9, 2019, Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh received a copy of a court ruling issued after a one-day hearing held in absentia on December 30, 2018, by Branch 28 of the Islamic Revolution Court (IRC) in Tehran. Ms. Sotoudeh had refused to attend the hearing in protest against the illegality of proceedings before the IRC. The court found her guilty and sentenced her to 33.5 years in jail and 148 lashes on the following seven charges: “gathering and collusion against national security” (Article 610 of the Islamic Penal Code), “spreading propaganda against the system” (Article 500), “effective membership of the illegal and anti-security splinter groups Defenders of Human Rights Centre, LEGAM and National Council of Peace” (Article 498), “encouraging people to commit corruption and prostitution, and providing the means for it” (Article 639), “appearing without the sharia-sanctioned hijab at the premises of the magistrate’s office” (Article 638); “disrupting public order and calm” (Article 618) and “spreading falsehoods with intent to disturb the public opinion” (Article 698). No lawyer represented her before the court, as she refused to appoint a lawyer to protest against provisions denying the right of those accused of national security crimes to be represented by a lawyer of their choosing. She subsequently refused to appeal the ruling in order to protest the unfairness and illegality of the trial.

Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh was previously imprisoned for her peaceful and legitimate human rights activities in September 2010. Following national and international outcry over her detention, she was released in 2013 after serving more than three years of her six-year prison sentence.

In Iran, detainees are held in unsanitary and overcrowded prison conditions, which facilitate the spread of infectious diseases, including Covid-19. In Evin prison, where the women’s ward lacks medical and cleaning supplies, a large number of the female prisoners of conscience are detained in cramped and unsanitary spaces. They are at an even greater risk than the general prison population, because their health is often compromised by torture, denial of medical treatment, other ill-treatment and their own hunger strikes.

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Ms. Khalida Jarrar is a renowned Palestinian human rights defender, feminist activist and politician committed to the defence of Palestinian political prisoners, notably as a representative of a civil society network focusing on prisoners rights. She has been a director and then member of the Board of Directors of Addameer (until 2017), an important human rights organisation in the country. She also played an important role in denouncing war crimes committed by the Israelis within the Palestinian Commission in charge of filing complaints before the International Criminal Court. She was elected as an MP in the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006 and was the President of the Prisoners Committee in Parliament, focusing not only on the rights of prisoners in Israeli jails but also prisoners in Palestinian authority jails.

Ms. Khalida Jarrar was arrested at her home in Ramallah on October 31, 2019 in the middle of the night by more than 70 Israeli soldiers and was charged for holding a position in a ilegal organization, the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FPLP), according to article 85(b) of the security regulations 1945.

Ms. Khalida Jarrar is currently detained in Damon Prison in Haifa, where female prisoners have been receiving chlore sanitizers and 2 masks and gloves only once since the beginning of the outbreak of Covid-19. Visits from family have been prohibited as of March 5, 2020 and lawyers visits as of March 12, 2020. Ms. Khalida Jarrar is currently teaching human rights law and international law to her co-inmates.

Ms. Khalida Jarrar has already been imprisoned twice in the past. In 2015, she was sentenced to 15 months in prison for “inciting the abduction of Israeli soldiers”. In 2017, she was placed in administrative detention and imprisoned for 20 months without trial.

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Messrs. Halidou Mounkaila (arbitrarily detained since March 15, 2020), Moussa Moudi and Mr. Maïkoul Zodi (arbitrarily detained since March 16, 2020) are three members of the Tournons la Page (TLP) Niger NGO.

On March 15 and 16, 2020, Messrs. Moussa Moudi, Halidou Mounkaila and Maïkoul Zodi and several other members of Nigerien civil society were arrested at their respective homes by agents of the judicial police who took them to their premises. These arrests took place following their participation in an anti-corruption demonstration in Niamey on March 15, 2020, denouncing embezzlement in the purchase of military equipment.

During the demonstration, which had been banned the previous day as part of the prevention of coronavirus (Covid-19) – without notification of the ban being sent to Tournons la page (TLP) Niger, which had requested permission to demonstrate – violent clashes between police and demonstrators resulted in the deaths of at least three people after a fire broke out.

On March 19, 2020, Messrs. Moussa Moudi, Halidou Mounkaila and Maïkoul Zodi were brought before the Niamey prosecutor’s office. The President of the court decided to prosecute them for “organising a banned demonstration”, “arson” and “manslaughter”. They face up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine.

On March 20, 2020, they were incarcerated in various remand prisons in the territory of Niger, some located more than 100 km from the city of Niamey and in areas under a state of emergency: Mr. Halidou Mounkaila in Dey Keyna prison, Mr. Moussa Moudy in Kollo prison and Mr. Maikoul Zodi in Ouallam.

Since the beginning of their detention, Messrs. Moussa Moudi, Halidou Mounkaila and Maikoul Zodi have not been able to see their families or other activists, and have had access to their lawyers only once. Visiting rights are gradually returning to normal, but the distance between their places of detention and their families makes it difficult for them to visit. Within their prisons, Messrs. Moussa Moudi, Halidou Mounkaila and Maïkoul Zodi are held in cells of several prisoners in very poor hygienic conditions. Ouallam prison, where Mr. Maïkoul Zodi is detained, has 109 inmates, three in each cell. Numerous cases of tuberculosis have been reported in Nigerien prisons, particularly in Ouallam. Moreover, no sampling or screening for Covid 19 has been carried out in the prisons.

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M. Selçuk Kozağaçlı, has been detained in Silivri High Security Closed Prison No. 9 since November 8, 2017 because of his human rights activities as a lawyer and an activist.

Mr. Selçuk Kozağaçlı is a lawyer and was the long-time chairperson of Progressive Lawyers’ Association, which was closed down by a statutory decree on November 22, 2016. He acted as a defense counsel for several cases involving human rights violations. For instance, he worked on the cases of Berkin Elvan (a 15-year-old child who was shot dead by a police officer with a tear gas capsule during the Gezi Park protests), Dilek Doğan (who was shot dead by a special operations police officer during a house search within the scope of an anti-terror operation), educators Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça (who were dismissed from public service following the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, went on a hunger strike and subsequently imprisoned), and the families of miners who lost their lives in the Soma Mine Disaster that claimed the lives of 301 miners on May 13, 2014.

Mr. Selçuk Kozağaçlı was arrested on November 8, 2017, placed in pre-trial detention and charged with “membership of a terrorist organisation” following the criminalization of his professional and human rights advocacy activities. His pretrial detention was confirmed by the judge on November 13, 2017 and he was later transferred to Silivri High Security Closed Prison No. 9, where he has been imprisoned ever since. His arrest was part of a crackdown against a total of 20 lawyers who were prosecuted under the same charges, and 17 of which were detained.

On September 14, 2018, after 5 days of trial, the 17 detained lawyers were released by İstanbul 37^th Heavy Penal Court. After the Prosecutor had contested the decision, the Court decided to re-arrest 12 of them, including Mr. Selçuk Kozağaçlı, on the following day. Mr. Kozağaçlı was formally re-arrested on September 17, 2018 and transferred back to Silivri High Security Closed Prison No. 9.

The charges impugned on Mr. Kozağaçlı, within the scope of the trial he was standing along with the other lawyers before İstanbul 37th Heavy Penal Court, are directly related to his profession as a lawyer. These trumped up charges were based on his meetings with his clients in prison, his participation in demonstrations held after the killing of Berkin Elvan and the funerals of his clients, advising his clients in custody that they could exercise their right to remain silent if they wanted to and advising them not to sign any documents. On March 20, 2019, İstanbul 37^th Heavy Penal Court sentenced 18 of the charged lawyers to between three and 18 years in prison. Among those, Mr. Kozağaçlı was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison. This ruling was upheld by İstanbul Court of Appeals on October 8, 2019 and is now pending before the Court of Cassation.

Mr. Kozağaçlı had a heart condition before he was detained and underwent coronary angiography due to vasoconstriction. He also suffers from bleeding piles, an impairment of the digestive system, and this condition quite negatively affects his everyday life while the medication he has to use for this disease has negative side effects on his heart condition. Mr. Kozağaçlı, in addition, suffers from scoliosis.

Mr. Selçuk Kozağaçlı went on hunger strike on February 3, 2020 demanding his right to a fair trial. After 30 days, during which he lost 12 kilograms, he stated that he suspended his strike as his immunity system was quite weakened and bruises appeared on his hands. Mr. Selçuk Kozağaçlı is among the group of people most vulnerable to the Covid-19 pandemic. Unless he is released, he will remain in such a life-threatening condition. Alongside him, seven of his colleagues went on a hunger strike on February 3, 2020 demanding fair trials both for their clients and themselves. While five other lawyers stopped their strike during the process due to health reasons on March 10 2020, Ebru Timtik and Aytaç Ünsal continued their hunger strike. The two lawyers decided to turn their hunger strikes to indefinite death fast on April 5, 2020, Lawyers’ Day in Turkey, and both have been on a death fast since then.

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Mr. Ramy Shaath is arbitrarily detained in Egypt since July 5, 2019 where he is charged with “assistance to a terrorist group”.

Mr. Ramy Shaath is a human rights defender and political activist with Palestinian-Egyptian dual citizenship. He was a leading activist in the January 2011 popular uprising that led to the departure of President Mubarak and played an important role in the country’s democratic transition. In addition, he has been the Coordinator of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement in Egypt since 2015, in support of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

On the night of July 5, 2019, a dozen of heavily armed security agents stormed Mr. Ramy Shaath’s home and searched it without presenting any legal documents justifying their intervention. During the raid, officers seized computers, hard drives and mobile phones and then took Mr. Ramy Shaath to an unknown location. His disappearance was reported by his family and lawyers to the Qasr el Nil police station on July 5 in the morning. 36 hours later, on July 6, Mr. Shaath reappeared before the State Security Prosecution. It was then that his family discovered that he had been added to an already open criminal case (State Security case No. 930/2019) known as the “Hope Plan” case, and charged with “assistance to a terrorist group”. His wife, Ms. Céline Lebrun Shaath, was forcibly deported from Egypt at the time of his arrest.

Since his arrest, Mr. Ramy Shaath has been held in pre-trial detention pending investigation in Torah prison. He spent his first month of detention in a cell of about 30 square meters in which about 30 other people were also detained, some suffering from illnesses, with no space to lie down. His pre-trial detention has been constantly renewed since his arrest.

On April 18, 2020, the Cairo’s Criminal Court published in the Egyptian Official Gazette its decision to arbitrarily add Mr. Ramy Shaath (and 12 other detainees) to the “terrorist list” for a duration of five years. This decision was taken in absentia – in the absence of the defendants and their lawyers. Being added to this list means the imposition of travel bans and asset freezes, as well as the seizure of Mr. Shaath’s Egyptian passport. Mr. Ramy Shaath was subsequently added to a new case, 571/2020, investigated by the State Security Prosecutor, for which charges are still unknown.

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Li Ming-Che is arbitrarily detained since 19 March 2017 by the Chinese authorities, in Chi-Shan prison and was sentenced in November 2017 to five years’ imprisonment on charges of ‘subverting state power’ through promoting ‘Western-style democracy’.

Li Ming-Che is a Taiwanese human rights defender who worked for the promotion of civil and political rights in Taiwan and in China. Prior to his arrest, he actively supported activists and civil society organisations in China, sharing the experience of Taiwan’s democratic process and encouraging online donations to the families of jailed Chinese dissidents.

Li Ming-Che is in poor health and his family has had no contact with him since January 2020. According to his wife, he had lost about 20 kilos already due to the spoiled food provided in Prison.

In March 2017, Li Ming-Che was in China for a personal visit, when his family lost contact with him. Ten days later, the Government revealed that Li Ming-Che had been detained by the security police, and was being kept in an undisclosed location. In a hearing in September 2017, he pleaded guilty to charges of ‘subverting state power’ through promoting ‘Western-style democracy’, a confession that his wife claimed was made under duress. Two months later, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on these charges, the first case of a Taiwanese activist convicted for ‘subverting state power’ in China.

Throughout his imprisonment, Li Ming-Che has continued to face inhumane treatment. He has been prohibited from contact with outsiders, beyond his wife and mother. Despite legal provisions allowing monthly family visits, his wife Li Ching-Yu’s requests to enter the country and visit him have been denied numerous times. In 2018, his winter clothes were taken away and his prison account frozen, preventing him from buying food. His wife reported that he has also been restricted from sending letters, and from trying to contact his family. Several books and letters sent by family and supporters were also not delivered. In September 2019, he was also prohibited from attending his father’s funeral, despite his wife’s pledge that she would remain in prison in his stead.

There are reports that Li Ming-Che has been put into a forced-labour mandatory programme called “reform through labour”, which requires him to work ten hours a day without any rest days. Li Ching-Yu reports that her husband’s physical and mental health have deteriorated over the course of his detention.

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Mr. Khalil Maatouk has been arbitrarily detained since his arrest by the Syrian authorities. On October 2, 2012, he and his colleague Mohamed Thatha are believed to have been arbitrarily arrested at a government-operated checkpoint on their way to their office in Damascus.

As the Executive Director of the Syrian Centre for Legal Studies and Research and the Head of the Syrian Centre for the Defense of Detainees, he has defended numerous activists, including Mazen Darwish, as well as prisoners of conscience, regardless of their affiliation or orientation, in front of military, state security and civil courts. He advocated before and during the current crisis in Syria, and publicly denounced practices depriving his clients of their right to a fair trial.

More than 8 years have passed since his arrest, and his fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

Mr. Maatouk was suffering from a chronic respiratory disease when he was arrested.

Despite repeated requests for information to the public prosecutor’s office in Damascus in 2012 and 2013 by family and colleagues, Syrian authorities have denied that they arrested the two men. Despite these denials, individuals released from government’s custody in 2015 have informed Khalil Maatouk’s family that while in detention they had spotted him in various government-operated detention facilities, including State Security Branch 285 and Military Intelligence Branch 235 in Damascus. Since then, the family has not received any information on his whereabouts.

Detention centers operated by the Syrian government’s security forces are appalling, with rampant torture and inhumane conditions, in which many thousands of detainees have died since 2011. Former detainees at Branch 235, where Khalil Maatouk was reported to have been seen in 2015, said that they were held in poor conditions in crowded cells with inadequate access to food, water and hygienic facilities. One detainee, who cannot be identified for security reasons, told that approximately five men from his cell died each day as a consequence of torture or disease.

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Mr. Tito Magoti has been arbitrarily detained since December 20, 2019 and is prosecuted on trumped-up economic charges.

On December 20, 2019, around 10:30 am, Mr. Tito Magoti was abducted by five unknown persons at Mwenge, Dar es Salaam. He was lured by text messages appeared to have been sent by Mr. Theodory Giyani, a friend of his, who had actually been arrested the day before and whose phone was used by the police to communicate with Mr. Magoti. Between December 20 and 22, 2019, police confirmed Mr. Magoti’s arrest and detention, without indicating the charges against him, nor his whereabouts. The police reportedly questioned him about his online activism on Twitter, where he regularly reports on issues related to human rights, the rule of law, and good governance, as well as his relationship with several leading online activists and opposition voices. During his interrogation, he had no access to his lawyers.

On December 24, 2019, Mr. Magoti was brought before the Resident Magistrate’s Court of Dar es Salaam and charged with “leading organised crime”, “possession of a computer program designed for the purpose of committing an offence” and “money laundering”. The offences he is charged with are unbailable, so he cannot be released until the outcome of his trial.

Hearings have been adjourned 10 times since the beginning of the case, on the ground that further investigation was needed, and he currently remains detained at Segerea Remand Prison awaiting trial.

M. Magoti is detained in a very congested room where four people are sharing a small mattress. The prisoners do not have any privacy and they receive very little water and sometimes no water at all. As for the food, inmates cannot receive food from their relatives anymore so they have to eat the prison’s food which poses hygiene problems.

Regarding the spread of Covid-19, Mr. Magoti and the other inmates are worried about the situation at Segerea Prison since it is very congested and the detainees do not have any information on how to protect themselves from the disease. The detainees also lack information about their relatives’ health status because those are not allowed to visit, nor to contact them.

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Mr. Hasan Ceylan has been detained since March 17, 2017 on the charge of “being a member of a terrorist organisation” because of his human rights activities in the Bitlis Branch of İHD. He suffers from various health problems, including a life-threatening cardiovascular disease, and he needs daily medication.

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Mr. Hasan Ceylan is the Human Rights Association (İHD) Bitlis Branch’s former President. He played a key role in exposing the mass graves in Bitlis to the general public.

Mr. Ceylan was taken into police custody on March 17, 2017 and formally arrested on March 29, 2017 on the charge of “being a member of a terrorist organisation” for his human rights activities in the İHD Bitlis Branch. He was convicted on this charge on April 4, 2019 and sentenced to 7.5 years’ imprisonment. His conviction was based on anonymous witness statements as well as statements of former members of terrorist organisations who were incentivized to collaborate with the criminal justice system by the enticement of receiving reduced sentences. Mr. Hasan Ceylan’s lawyers appealed the decision, but the request was rejected by Erzurum Regional Court of Appeals on September 26, 2019. His lawyers then took the decision to the Court of Cassation, where the case is still under review.

Mr. Ceylan suffers from various health problems, including a life-threatening cardiovascular disease, and he needs daily medication. Mr. Hasan Ceylan’s vulnerable health condition puts him at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19, yet he continues to be held in Bitlis Prison, where conditions exacerbate risks of exposure to the virus.

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Houayheuang Xayabouly, alias Mouay, is a 31-year-old shopkeeper from the village of Ban Salao, Phonethong district, Champasak province. Mouay has used Facebook to post messages criticizing the Laotian government’s inaction in response to the floods that hit the southern provinces in late August and early September 2019, as well as corruption and misuse of public funds.

She was arrested on 12 September 2019 and sentenced in November 2019 to five years in prison and a fine of 20,000 kips (about US$2,280) on the basis of Article 117 of the Criminal Code (“propaganda against the Lao People’s Democratic Republic”). Article 117 punishes with imprisonment of one to five years and a fine of 5 to 20 million kips any person who engages in “propaganda activities against the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and defames … or circulates false rumours causing disturbances … detrimental to the Republic … or aimed at weakening the authority of the State”. Mouay has been held in Champasak Provincial Prison since her arrest on September 12, 2019.

In 2018, Mouay had already used Facebook on several occasions to denounce cases of corruption among Laotian authorities. After the collapse of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy dam in Attapeu province in July 2018, Mouay also criticized on Facebook the government’s response to the deadly disaster. In each case, the police had summoned Mouay and asked her to stop criticizing the government online.

In recent years, other Lao citizens have been imprisoned for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of opinion and expression on human rights issues. On 22 March 2017, Somphone Phimmasone, Soukan Chaithad and Lodkham Thammavong were sentenced to 20, 16 and 12 years’ imprisonment respectively under Articles 56 (“treason against the nation”), 65 (now Article 117 – mentioned above), and 72 (“gathering to cause social disorder”) of the Criminal Code. The three defenders were arrested in early 2016 for posting numerous messages on Facebook criticizing the government over alleged corruption, deforestation, and human rights violations. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared their detention arbitrary in an opinion issued on 25 August 2017.

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Victor Guaillas is a water and land rights defender in Molleturo (Azuay province), active in the community of Río Blanco (Molleturo sector), where a metal extraction project (the “Río Blanco”) was launched more than 25 years ago. This project is currently owned by the Chinese business groups Junefield Mineral Resources Limited and Hunan Gold Group. Its subsidiary in Ecuador is Ecuagoldmining Southamerica S.A. The project was suspended in 2018 by the Ecuadorian authorities. In previous years, Victor Gaillas had, among other things, participated in awareness-raising activities in the country’s capital, Quito, to demand that the government stop the project. More recently, in October 2019, a national strike led to the closure of roads and the interruption of traffic in the country. Clashes took place on October 7, 2019 with members of the Ecuadorian Traffic Commission (CTE) in the Puerto Inca area, and although Victor Guaillas did not take part in these clashes, he is the only one of a group of 40 people to have been arrested.

On October 8, the day after his arrest, he appeared in a hearing for “flagrante delicto” and has since been held in custody on charges of “sabotage” in the men’s section of the adult detention centre in Guayaquil City. His health and physical and psychological integrity have deteriorated since the beginning of his detention.

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Egide Harerimana, Christine Kamikazi, Terence Mpozenzi and Agnès Ndiribusa are four journalists from the IWACU media group. They were sentenced to two and a half years in prison for carrying out their work. The two men are being held in a cell with around 10 persons where water is rationed. Movements inside the prison (guards who can go out, inmates going to court, etc.) raise fears of contamination of the entire prison population, which would have serious consequences in view of the lack of hygiene measures and the great promiscuity between prisoners.

Egide Harerimana, Christine Kamikazi, Terence Mpozenzi and Agnès Ndiribusa were arrested on October 22, 2019 along with their driver, who was later released. Charged on October 31, 2019, they were found guilty of “complicity in undermining State security” on January 30, 2020 and sentenced to two and a half years in prison and a fine of one million francs (about 500 euros). This sentence was confirmed on June 5, 2020 by the Court of Appeal of Ntahangwa (Bujumbura).

At the time of their arrest, the four journalists were going to investigate clashes between Burundian security forces and an armed group that occurred earlier in the morning and which reportedly resulted in the displacement of many civilians. Although they informed the provincial authorities of their movement in the area, they were arrested on arrival at the scene.

Agnès and Christine are being held in a room of five women. This part of the prison is supplied with water and the ICRC sometimes brings soap. Térence and Egide are detained in a room with more than 10 men, where water is only available from 6 to 10 a.m. and 3 to 5 p.m. Visits are suspended.

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Mr. Yury Dmitriyev has been arbitrarily detained since 13 December 2016 under the charges of ‘preparing pornography involving a minor’ (Article 242.2 of Russia’s criminal code), ‘depraved actions with respect to a child under the age of 11’ (Article 135), and unlawful possession of a firearm (Article 222.1).

After his acquittal and subsequent rearrest, he has been charged with ‘violent acts of a sexual nature in relation to a person who has not reached the age of fourteen’ (Article 135.4) and has remained in custody since June 27, 2018

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Mr. Yury Dmitriyev has dedicated his life to locating the remains of victims of Stalinist repressions and documenting his findings. In 1997, Mr. Dmitriyev was part of a team that uncovered a mass grave in Sandarmokh (north-west Russia), which attracted significant national and international attention in the form of commemorative actions, but angered Russian officials intent on marginalizing Soviet-era crimes. Up until the time of his arrest in 2016, Mr. Dmitriyev continued being active in efforts to memorialize the victims of Soviet-era repressions and to document abuses through exhumations and tireless compilation of archives.

In 2016, Mr. Dmitriyev was charged with child pornography and inappropriate sexual acts towards a minor for taking naked pictures of his adoptive daughter between 2008 and 2015, when the girl was between two and nine years old. Mr. Yury Dmitriyev claimed in court that the pictures were made to monitor her health. During the trial that started in June 2017, an expert evaluation found the incriminated pictures non-pornographic and a psychological examination of the girl established that Mr. Yury Dmitriyev had caused no harm to his child. The conclusions of the psychiatric examination of Mr. Dmitriyev found no pedophile inclinations. In April 2018, the Petrozavodsk City Court acquitted Mr. Yury Dmitriyev on child pornography charges but found him guilty on illegal arm possession charges and condemned him to 2,5 months of restriction of movement. By the time of the acquittal, he had spent over one year in arbitrary detention.

On June 14, 2018, Karelia’s High Court overturned the ruling, after the Prosecutor’s office presented a new psychological examination of Mr. Dmitriyev’s adoptive daughter, made after the decision of acquittal. According to Mr. Dmitriyev’s lawyer, the girl was pressured into making new statements. The case was sent for retrial on the basis of ‘newly discovered circumstances’. On June 27, 2018, Mr. Yury Dmitriyev was arrested by traffic police and placed in pre-trial detention. His pre-trial detention was extended several times. On October 19, 2018, the second trial, in which he faces charges for “violent acts of a sexual nature in relation to a person who has not reached the age of fourteen”, opened in Petrozavodsk City Court. If found guilty, Mr. Dmitriyev faces up to 20 years of prison.

Mr. Yury Dmitriyev is 64 years old. He has spent the last three years in custody, but his guilt has not been proven in any way. Mr. Dmitriyev’s health has deteriorated very quickly in the last several months. In February 2020, he went through a severe cold that substantially weakened him. On March 23, 2020, his detention in the Petrosavodsk prison was extended for another three months while the final stages of his trial have been suspended due to the breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic. His sentence will likely be pronounced late spring or this summer, meaning that he will still be behind bars when the spreading coronavirus pandemic reaches its peak.

Memorial and numerous international NGOs consider Mr. Yury Dmitriyev’s case politically motivated. On April 9, 2020, the European Union External Action Service (EEAS) published a statement requiring the Russian authorities to abide by their human rights commitments and drop all the charges against Mr. Dmitriyev. His lawyer filed a complaint regarding his client’s detention before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on June 29, 2017.

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Pablo López Alavez fought for decades to protect the forest where he lived in San Isidro Aloápam. He organized protests against logging. He also documented and reported logging activity to local authorities, organized roadblocks and raised awareness about the importance of the forest in providing his people with access to a safe and sustainable source of water. It is for this reason that he has been perceived as a threat to those who want to profit from logging.

Pablo López Alavez was tried and sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of two men from San Miguel Aloápam in a shoot-out earlier that year. Mr. López Alavez testified and presented evidence indicating that he was elsewhere on the day and time of the shooting and complained of inconsistencies and contradictions in the prosecution and witness testimony. He also noted that his indigenous rights were being violated.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) later found that the Mexican State had failed to ensure a fair trial and recommended his immediate release and reparation in accordance with international standards.

The Ombudsman in Oaxaca supported the WGAD’s appeal, recalling that his office had issued an opinion on the Pablo López Alavez case after determining that irregularities in the investigation and judicial process had violated the veracity, legality, formality and legitimacy of the evidence. Both appeals were ignored by the authorities.

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Ms. Sevda Özbingöl Çelik is a human rights lawyer from Urfa Bar Association and a member of IHD Urfa Branch and Urfa Bar’s Human Rights Center. Early in the morning of March 12, 2020, the house and office of Ms. Sevda Özbingöl Çelik, as well as 11 other human rights lawyers, were raided, and she was taken into police custody, within the scope of an investigation conducted by the Prosecutor’s Office in Urfa.

She is being accused of “assisting a terrorist organisation” (Article 220/7 of the Turkish Criminal Code) through allegedly facilitating communication between prisoners. She was kept at Urfa Police Directorate until the Prosecutor’s Office in Urfa referred the case to a peace judgeship and requested her arrest. On March 17, 2020, the peace judgeship ordered the pre-trial detention of Ms. Sevda Özbingöl Çelik, based on “her representation of individuals charged with membership to a terrorist organisation” as a lawyer and “her visits to the prison”.

An anonymous witness, whose identity is kept secret, alleged that she was among the lawyers who supported the communication between prisoners. Ms. Sevda Özbingöl Çelik has been held in solitary confinement since the beginning of her pre-trial detention. Family visits to the prison are cancelled and lawyer visits are subject to the approval of the Prosecutor’s Office as a “precautionary measure” against COVID-19.

The situation in the prison is far from ideal in terms of hygiene, food and sunlight, and the prisoners regularly come into contact with prison guards without any protective measures. Her arbitrary detention could last for months or even years considering the high number of suspects in this case.

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Patrick George Zaki has been arbitrarily detained in Egypt since February 7, 2020 and is facing fabricated charges of incitement to protest, to commit violence and to overthrow the state, publishing rumors and false news and managing a social media account that aims to undermine social order and public safety. During his detention, he has been subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment (electric shocks, beating, threats, etc.

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Patrick George Zaki is a postgraduate student at Bologna University (Italy) and a Gender and Human Rights researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) who was arrested on February 7, 2020 at the Cairo airport upon his arrival from Italy, where he has been a student since August 2019. He was taken into the custody of Egypt’s National Security Investigations (NSI) at the airport.

During the first 24 hours of his detention, Mr. Zaki was held incommunicado. Afterwards, it was established that during this time, he was sent to NSI facilities in Cairo and Mansoura, where he was beaten, subjected to electric shocks and threatened. Since his arrest, his detention has been extended several times. The hearing for the renewal of his detention which was scheduled on March 21, 2020 has been indefinitely postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

He is being charged with “publishing rumours and false news that aim to disturb social peace and sow chaos” (article 102 bis of the Criminal Code), “incitement to protest without permission from the relevant authorities with the aim of undermining state authority” (article 18 of the Protest law), “calling for the overthrow of the state” (article 87 of the Criminal Code), “managing a social media account that aims to undermine the social order and public safety” (article 27 of Cybercrime law) and “incitement to commit violence and terrorist crimes (article 28 of the Anti-Terrorism law)”. These charges, which are widely used against peaceful political activists, journalists, and rights defenders, can result in at least 13 years in prison.

His arbitrary detention comes amid renewed crackdown on human rights defenders, activists, journalists and civil society in Egypt, that arose since the outbreak of popular movement across the country on September 20, 2019, protesting against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

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Women’s rights defender; right of women to drive

Arbitrarily detained since May 15, 2018. Tortured in prison.

Loujain Al-Hathloul is a prominent Saudi women’s rights defender. She has been detained several times for defying the driving ban on women in Saudi Arabia and was arrested again in May 2018, along with several women’s rights defenders, on alleged charges of “suspicious contacts with foreign entities” and “financial support to enemies overseas”.

In December 2014, she was arrested while attempting to cross the border from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia in her car. She was detained for defying the female driving ban in force in Saudi Arabia. Loujain Al-Hathloul holds an Emirati driving license, which according to the Gulf Cooperation Council regulations is recognised in all member states regardless of the holder’s gender. Yet she was detained for 73 days. Again, on June 4, 2017, she was arrested and detained at King Fahad International Airport in Dammam for four days. The reasons for her arrest were unclear and she was denied access to her lawyer and contact with her family. I

n the midst of a wave of arrest targeting women’s rights defenders on May 15, 2018, Saudi police forces raided Loujain’s home, arrested her in her bedroom and transferred her to Dahban prison in Jeddah. A week later, a smear campaign was launched to discredit several prominent detained women’s rights defenders, portraying them as “traitors”. Official statements accused Loujain Al-Hathoul, Aziza Al-Yousef and Eman al-Nafjan of forming a “cell”, posing a threat to state security because of their “contact with foreign entities with the aim of undermining the country’s stability and social fabric”. However, no official charges have been filed against her yet.

As of June 2018, women were granted the right to drive in Saudi Arabia. Yet, Loujain Al-Hathoul, who fought on the frontlines of the struggle for women’s right to drive is still jailed and has been denied any contact with her family or lawyers since her arrest.

Loujain was arrested in a midst of a wave of arrest targeting women’s rights defenders, including other WHRDs such as Samar Badawi, Nassima al-Sadah, Mayaa al-Zahrani and Nouf Abdelaziz, who remain arbitrarily detained.

As of April 2, 2020, other human rights defenders such as Abdulaziz Al-Ghamdi- Abdulaziz al-Shubaily- Abdulaziz al-Sunaidi- Abdulkarim al-Khodr- Abdullah al-Atawi- Abdullah al-Hamid- Abdullah al-Shehri- Essa al-Nukheifi- Essam Koshak- Fadhel al-Manasef- Fahad al-Fahad- Fawzan al-Harbi- Israa al-Ghomgham- Issa al-Hamid- Khaled al-Ojaimi- Khaled al-Omair- Mayaa al-Zahrani- Mohamed al-Otaibi- Mohammed al-Bajadi- Mohammed al-Humaidi- Mohammed al-Rabiah- Mohammed Fahad al-Qahtani- Mohannad al-Mohaimeed- Nadhir al-Majed- Nassima al-Sadah- Nouf Abdulaziz al-Jeraiwi- Omar al-Saeed- Samar Badawi- Waleed Abu al-Khair- Yasser al-Ayyaf also remain behind bars.

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On February 24, 2017, Senator Leila de Lima handed herself in to police, a week after the Department of Justice filed three charges against her under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act, and a day later a Manila court issued a warrant for her arrest. The charges were related to de Lima’s alleged involvement in a drug trafficking ring inside the New Bilibid Prison in Metro Manila’s Muntinlupa City, while she was Justice Secretary. If convicted, de Lima could face between 12 years and life in prison.

De Lima is a Filipino lawyer, human rights defender and politician. She chaired the Philippine Commission on Human Rights from May 2008 until June 30, 2010, when she was appointed Justice Secretary. She has been a staunch critic of President Rodrigo Duterte’s approach to combatting crimes and drug trafficking. In 2009, as Chair of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights (CHR), she initiated a probe into Duterte’s involvement in the Davao Death Squad during his time as mayor of Davao City.

In August 2016, as Chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, de Lima convened hearings on the hundreds of killings that had been carried out as part of President Duterte’s ‘war on drugs.’ On September 19, 2016, a group of senators voted to oust de Lima as Chair of the Committee, effectively shutting down the hearings. Duterte has repeatedly targeted de Lima. Prior to her imprisonment, he had pledged to “destroy her” in public. He also made personal attacks against her. De Lima has been in pre-trial detention at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center at Manila’s Camp Crame since her arrest.

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Arbitrarily detained since July 13, 2017, Germain Rukuki is a former member of the Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT-Burundi), a member of the Association of Catholic Jurists of Burundi (AJCB) and president of “Njabutsa Tujane”, a community association which aims to fight poverty and hunger through agro-sylvo-pastoral production and to improve the health of the population.

At dawn on July 13, 2017, members of the Bujumbura municipal police went to his home in Bujumbura and carried out a search before seizing two computers and documents, and arresting him without a warrant. After 14 days of detention, on July 26, 2017, Germain Rukuki was transferred to Ngozi prison, without having been heard beforehand by the magistrate of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, who placed him under arrest warrant, and accused him of “undermining the internal security of the State” and “rebellion” because of his cooperation with ACAT-Burundi in the case of the failed putsch of May 13, 2015. In 2018, new charges were added to his file (“assassination of military, police and civilians”, “damage to public and private buildings”, and “desire to change the democratically elected regime”), which the defence had not been able to consult.

On April 26, 2018, the Ntahangwa High Court sentenced Mr. Rukuki to 32 years’ imprisonment for “insurrectional movement”, “undermining internal state security” and “rebellion”. This is the longest prison sentence imposed on a human rights defender in Burundi. Neither Germain Rukuki nor his lawyers were present at the reading of the sentence.

On June 11, 2018, Mr Germain Rukuki was operated on in Ngozi hospital after breaking an ankle and injuring a shoulder in prison on June 7, 2018. On June 18, 2018, Mr. Germain Rukuki was again transferred to Ngozi prison, while his health was still critical and despite the fact that he had requested to remain in hospital to continue receiving health care.

On July 17, 2019, the Burundian Court of Appeal in Ntahangwa upheld Germain Rukuki’s conviction. The decision was handed down in a public hearing without Germain and his defence having been notified. They were finally notified on July 22, six days after the decision was handed down.

On July 30, 2020, the Supreme Court of Burundi overturned the Ntahangwa Court of Appeals’ July 17, 2019, ruling because of procedural irregularities in the Court of Appeals’ conviction. The Supreme Court referred the case back to the otherwise constituted Ntahanga Court of Appeals. A date for the retrial has not yet been set.

Despite his fragile state of health, Germain Rukuki is among the prisoners who do not easily benefit from a release permit to receive care outside the prison.

The prison is over four times its normal capacity of 400, housing about 1,700 inmates. For the past year, the prison’s sewage and rainwater drains have been clogged, causing dirt and moisture to accumulate on the walls of the dormitories, thus affecting prisoners’ health. Germain Rukuki’s cell houses approximately 120 inmates in an area of 100 m2. The inmates in this cell have only two toilets and two showers, and there are no water facilities. The ventilation windows are narrow and overcrowding generates constant heat. These deplorable conditions put Germain and other prisoners at a heightened risk of a potentially devastating coronavirus outbreak.

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Azimjan Askarov died in prison on July 25, 2020, after spending more than 10 years behind bars.

Founder of the human rights organisation “Vozduh” (Air), Azimjan Askarov was sentenced to life imprisonment on trumped-up charges in 2010 after mass disturbances in southern Kyrgyzstan. Prior to his arrest, he had been documenting police brutality and prison conditions. During the June 2010 ethnic clashes, he documented violence in the southern city of Bazar Korgon.

Mr. Askarov also worked with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on monitoring human rights in places of detention in southern Kyrgyzstan. Azimjan Askarov was a highly respected human rights defender who worked to prevent torture, and won several human rights prizes for his work.

The international community at the highest level has been raising Askarov’s case with the Kyrgyz authorities and asking them to release him. In a decision made public on April 21, 2016, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee (CCPR) ruled that Azimjan Askarov had been tortured, subject to inhuman conditions while in pre-trial detention and that his trial had not respected minimum international fair trial standards. The UN CCPR urged Kyrgyzstan to release him immediately. Several international institutions and intergovernmental bodies called for the implementation of the CCPR decision.

On July 12, 2016, the Supreme Court ordered a fresh appeal hearing before the Chuy Regional Court in Bishkek but maintained the life sentence.

On March 11, 2019, Ms. Khadicha Askarova, Mr. Azimjan Askarov’s wife, received a notice from the Oktyabrsky District Department of Service of Court Bailiffs in Bishkek, dated February 28, 2019, stating that the house that she is currently living in would be seized. The decision was issued in connection with the “moral damage compensation” of 175,000 KGS (around 2,230 EUR), awarded by the Jalal-Abad Regional Court to the family of the policeman allegedly killed by Mr. Azimjan Askarov.

On November 20, 2019, Jalal-Abad Regional Court ordered the partial confiscation of Mr. Askarov’s property in the amount of 125,000 KGS (1,620 EUR), corresponding to the “moral damage compensation” awarded to the wife of the killed policeman, given that his mother recently died and the 50,000 KGS (647 EUR) originally awarded to her on the same ground can therefore no longer be claimed.

In a retrial on July 30, 2019, the Chuy Regional Court of Kyrgyzstan upheld the life sentence. During this hearing, Askarov’s lawyer pleaded in favour of his release pursuant to the provisions of the new Criminal Code, and stressed the deterioration of his health.

Mr. Askarov has suffered for years from deteriorating health, including cardiac and respiratory problems, and has not received appropriate and adequate medical attention. Mr. Askarov was among the population that was at high risk of being disproportionately affected by the virus.

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Ms. Narges Mohammadi is the Spokesperson and Vice-President of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), a member organisation of FIDH. She is also a member of the Women’s Citizenry Association and of the now illegal, the Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty (LEGAM) campaign.

In February 2012, she was sentenced to six years in prison for several supposed “crimes” including “assembly and collusion against the national security,” and for being a member of the DHRC. She was released on bail on July 31, 2012, for medical reasons. On May 5, 2015, she was arrested by Intelligence Ministry officials in order to serve the remainder of the six-year prison sentence. On May 18, 2016, she was sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment on several charges by Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolution Court of Tehran for the same offences. She appealed the new sentence, but it was upheld.

On February 22, 2020, judicial authorities communicated two sets of new charges in two cases against Ms. Narges Mohammadi.

In the first case, she was charged with “spreading propaganda against the system” (Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code) and “assembly and collusion with intent to take action against national security” (Article 610), which she is alleged to have committed while in prison. The prosecutor cited “issuing of political statements, holding educational classes and staging a protest sit-in at Tehran’s Evin prison” as the reasons for those charges.

The second case was brought against her following a complaint by the Governor of Evin prison, Mr. Gholamreza Ziaei, who accused Ms. Narges Mohammadi of “disrupting order in prison”, “disrupting general calm in Women’s Ward by organising gatherings and singing loudly,” and “insulting government agents including the prison governor and defaming him by accusing him of torturing and beating and injuring her.”

Ms. Narges Mohammadi has denied all new charges.

Ms. Mohammadi suffers from several very serious health conditions, including a pulmonary embolism and a neurological disorder that results in partial paralysis. Her health condition is worsened by the authorities’ refusal to provide her with adequate medical care both in and out of prison. On January 3, 2019, she undertook a three-day hunger strike to protest being denied access to medical care. On April 27, 2019, she was transferred to Mehr Hospital for medical examination and was sent back to Evin prison on the same day. On May 14, 2019, she was sent to hospital again, where she underwent a hysterectomy operation, and was returned to prison on May 26, 2019, before she had fully recovered. On June 2, 2019, she was reported to have contracted a serious infection, and was denied adequate medication (i.e. antibiotics) in prison.

On December 26, 2019, Narges was transferred from Evin to Zanjan prison, around 350 kilometres from Tehran, as a punishment for taking part in a collective protest sit-in with several other prisoners in Evin prison’s Women’s Ward on December 21, 2019, in solidarity with mourning families of the victims of the November 2019 nationwide protests. In a letter from Zanjan prison, Ms. Mohammadi said that several prison and security agents headed by the Governor of Evin prison, and including her interrogator from the Ministry of Intelligence, had beaten her and forcefully thrown her into a car before transferring her to Zanjan prison.

On December 28, 2019, Ms. Narges Mohammadi was examined by two doctors in Zanjan prison. According to her brother, “there were bruises, cuts and even traces of fingernails on her chest and throat as well as traces of fingers and fists on her body.” Evin prison authorities and the Spokesperson of the Judiciary denied any ill-treatment and maintained that Ms. Mohammadi had been sent to Zanjan prison by a judicial order, which was never presented to her. No investigation has been conducted about her allegations of mistreatment, although even the Deputy Chairperson of Parliament’s judicial committee called for it.

Many other Iranian human rights defenders remain behind bars. Nasrin Sotoudeh, Amir Salar Davoodi, Mohammad Najafi, Farhad Maayssami, Atena Daemi, Arash Sadeqi, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, Saeed Shirzad, Jafar Azimzadeh, Mohammad Habibi, Yassaman Aryani, Monireh Arabshai, Saba Kord Afshari, Mojgan Keshavarz, and Fereshteh Didani are only some of them.

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Narges Mohammadi is being held with common criminals in a 20 square meters cell without proper ventilation. She has received threats of physical and sexual violence from some of the prisoners at the behest of the authorities. Narges has been using breathing spray against her pulmonary embolism. But in March 2020, she has been having strong coughs, burning throat and chest pain as Zanjan prison officials sprayed pesticides against bedbugs on four occasions. Date of birth: 21 April 1972

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Ms. Samira Sabou is a journalist and blogger from Niger, very active in the fight against corruption in her country. President of the Association of Bloggers for Active Citizenship (ABCA), which promotes the role of women in the public arena and in the media, she is also the administrator of the news site Magazine d’Information sur le Développement Économique et Social (mides-niger.com).

On June 11, 2020, Ms. Samira Sabou was arrested by the authorities after attending a summons received the day before from the investigating judge of the Niamey High Court. Her arrest followed a defamation complaint filed against her by Sani “Abba” Mahamadou Issoufou, the son of the President of the Republic of Niger and Deputy Director of the Office of the President of the Republic. The latter filed the complaint following a comment posted by third partie on one of Samira Sabou’s Facebook publications, dated May 26, 2020, in which she referred to a Ministry of Defence audit reporting over-invoicing and misappropriation of funds during the purchase of military equipment.

Ms. Samira Sabou was charged with defamation under article 29 of the Cybercrime Act of June 25, 2019 and was facing up to three years in prison and a fine of five million CFA francs (about 7,620 euros). On July 28, 2020, the Tribunal de Grande Instance Hors Classe of Niamey pronounced her acquittal and release, considering that the offence was not constituted.

Ms. Samira Sabou has spend 48 days in pre-trial detention at Niamey Civil Prison, where she was sharing a small shack with 50 other women. The quality of care and hygiene in the prison is very precarious, with, in particular, a common toilet for all inmates. There are no officially reported cases of Covid-19 in Niger’s prisons. To prevent the spread of the virus in prisons, visitors are required to wear masks and the authorities released 1,540 inmates on 28 March to reduce prison overcrowding.

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Mr. Oumar Sylla was arrested by police officers in the early afternoon of April, 17 2020 at his home in Commandanya, a suburb of Conakry. He was taken to Villa 40, the headquarters of the Guinean General Intelligence in Conakry, where he spent the night, without any access to a lawyer or his family.

Mr. Oumar Sylla’s arrest came one hour after he appeared on the programme “Les Grandes Gueules” on radio Espace FM, during which he denounced the violence in N’zérékoré (a town in the south-east of the country, where violence between supporters and opponents of the new Constitution broke out in the context of the legislative and referendum elections of March 22, 2020) which resulted in many deaths and injuries, as well as the arbitrary arrests and judicial harassment of FNDC leaders and members.

On April 18, 2020, Mr. Oumar Sylla was transferred by the Brigade for the Repression of Banditry (BRB) to the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police, still without access to his lawyer. There, he received a visit from his wife, who came to bring him food, and reported that Oumar Sylla had been given only apples to eat in more than 24 hours of detention.

On April 24, 2020, the Dixinn Court of First Instance in Conakry charged Mr. Oumar Sylla with “disseminating false information” (Article 519 of the Penal Code). Other charges presented by the judicial police directorate, namely “participation in an insurrectional movement” and “attempt to destabilize the regime in place”, were rejected by the public prosecutor. Mr. Oumar Sylla was placed under a committal order at Conakry Central Prison following his hearing. He was facing between six months and a year in prison.

Mr. Oumar Sylla was also prosecuted for “death threats” and “incitement to violence by making available information likely to disrupt public security”.

Mr. Oumar Sylla’s request for provisional release was rejected by the Conakry Court of Appeal on May 11, 2020, thus keeping him in detention despite the deteriorated sanitary situation in Conakry’s central prison following the contamination of about ten detainees and the deaths of some of them due to Covid-19.

At the first hearing of his trial held on August 6, 2020, the President of the Dixinn Court of First Instance joined the two cases in which Oumar Sylla is being prosecuted. At the second hearing on August 13, 2020, the court denied Oumar Sylla’s request for provisional release on the grounds that it would be likely to cause public disorder and postponed the trial until August 20, 2020.

On August 27, 2020, the Dixinn Court of First Instance ordered the release of Mr. Oumar Sylla, considering that the offense for which he was accused was not constituted.

Inside the prison, Mr. Oumar Sylla’s detention conditions were very poor. He shared a cell that was too small with 45 other inmates, and this general promiscuity created a high risk of spreading diseases of all kinds. In this context, Mr. Oumar Sylla was able to test for Covid 19. Moreover, hygiene conditions were deplorable, the prison being infested with bedbugs and cockroaches and water was only available at restricted hours. In addition, there is no food or health care provided by the authorities and it is therefore the families who have to bring food and medicines to the prisoners in case of illness, but they are not allowed to see them because of the Covid 19 pandemic.

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Mr. Abdelouahab Fersaoui has been arbitrarily detained in Algeria since October 10, 2019 where he was sentenced to one year in prison for “undermining the integrity of the national territory” and “incitement to violence”.

Mr. Abdelouahab Fersaoui was arrested on the morning of October 10, 2019 in Algiers by plainclothes officers after participating in a rally in support of Hirak detainees in front of the Court of Sidi M’hamed (Algiers). He was subsequently held in pre-trial detention in El Harrach prison (Algiers) and prosecuted for “undermining the integrity of the national territory” (Article 79 of the Algerian Criminal Code) and “incitement to violence” (Article 74 of the same Code). On January 15, 2020, the appeal for his provisional release was rejected. On 4 February 2020, the investigating judge at the Sidi M’hamed Tribunal decided to extend his committal order and thus his pre-trial detention for another four months. At the hearing of March 23, 2020, the Prosecutor at the Sidi M’hamed Tribunal requested two years in prison and a fine of 100,000 DA (approximately 750 Euros) against Mr. Fersaoui. The Sidi M’hamed Court handed down its verdict on April 6, 2020 and sentenced Mr. Fersaoui to one year in prison.

The arbitrary arrest and detention of Mr. Abdelouahab Fersaoui comes against a backdrop of widespread repression of peaceful Hirak protesters, unprecedented since the start of Hirak in February 2019 in Algeria.

During his appeal trial, held on 17 May 2020, the Court of Ruisseau (Algiers) overturned the verdict of the Court of Sidi M’hamed and sentenced Mr. Fersaoui to 1 year in prison, 6 months of which were suspended. Having spent more than 7 months in detention on that date, he was released on 18 May 2020.

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Miyan Abdul Qayoom was been arbitrarily detained in India between August 5, 2019 and August 4, 2020 on charges of being a “most staunch advocate of secessionist ideology.”

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Mr. Miyan Abdul Qayoom, 70, is a human rights lawyer and President of Jammu & Kashmir High Court Bar Association. He was detained during the night of August 4 to 5, 2019, when Jammu & Kashmir police officers arrested him, along with many other Kashmiri human rights defenders, activists, and political workers, under the Public Safety Act (PSA).

This mass crackdown aimed to shut down any dissent arising out of the unilateral decision taken by the Government of India on August 5, 2019 to abrogate Jammu & Kashmir’s special status by repealing Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and splitting the State of Jammu & Kashmir into two Union Territories. As per his PSA dossier, he was accused of being a “most staunch advocate of secessionist ideology.” On August 8, 2019, Mr. Qayoom was transferred to Agra Central Jail, in Uttar Pradesh State, 1,048 kilometers away from his home, where he has been detained in an isolation cell. Mr. Qayoon suffers from several health conditions which were aggravated by his detention, including diabetes, double vessel heart disease and kidney problems. On January 29, 2020, he was transferred to Sarojini Naidu Medical College after complaining of chest pain, breathlessness and his pulse rate had significantly gone down to 44 beats per minute. The next day, he was taken back to the jail’s dispensary, even though his health condition had not improved. Mr. Qayoom has difficulty breathing, can barely walk, and is in urgent need of open-heart surgery. In recent months, Mr. Qayoom’s family approached Jammu & Kashmir High Court Srinagar bench several times regarding his deteriorating health condition and requested that he be transferred to Srinagar Central Jail, where they live, but the Court did not respond to the request.

On February 1, 2020, Mr. Qayoom was transferred from Agra Central Jail to the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) in New Delhi, for a medical check-up and was then transferred to Tihar Jail, New Delhi, which is 818 kilometres away from Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir State. A habeas corpus petition which demanded that Mr. Miyan Qayoom’s detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA) be quashed was filed on August 21, 2019.

The habeas corpus hearing at the Jammu & Kashmir High Court Srinagar bench did not take place before January 31, 2020 and this delay disregarded Mr. Qayoom’s deteriorating health and violated the Jammu & Kashmir High Court Case Management Flow Rules 2010, which stipulate that after the filing of a habeas corpus petition, the High Court should issue a notice within 48 hours.

During this hearing, the judge heard Mr. Qayoom’s lawyer’s arguments and scheduled the next hearing to February 2, 2020. On February 3, 2020, Jammu & Kashmir High Court Srinagar bench, after hearing the final arguments, reserved its judgement regarding Mr. Qayoom’s habeas corpus request. On February 6, 2020, the Jammu & Kashmir authorities extended his detention period by three months, up to May 6, 2020. The following day, the Srinagar bench of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court dismissed the habeas corpus petition and upheld the detention order issued by the State, arguing that the court was not “a proper forum to scrutinise the merits of administrative decision to detain a person.”

Mr. Qayoom was released on August 4, 2020 after his case came up for the hearing in the Supreme Court of India on the condition that he would not travel to Kashmir or make any public statement until August 7, 2020.

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Tran Thi Nga is a labour and land rights defender in Vietnam. Her human rights work has included providing assistance to victims of land confiscation by local authorities and supporting demonstrations calling for democratic reform.

Tran Thi Nga was arrested on January 21, 2017 at her home in Ha Nam Province. On July 25, 2017, the People’s Court in Ha Nam Province sentenced Tran Thi Nga to nine years’ imprisonment followed by an additional five years of house arrest under Article 88 of the Criminal Code (now Article 117 of the amended Criminal Code) for “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”. In the days leading up to her arrest, Tran Thi Nga had been subjected to increased police intimidation and harassment, including surveillance of her home and the use of physical force to keep her from leaving her house.

Her conviction and jail sentence is related to articles and videos she posted online, in which she condemned human rights violations committed by Vietnamese authorities.

Prior to her latest arrest in January 2017, Tran Thi Nga has suffered repeated intimidation, harassment, detention, interrogation, and physical assaults by security agents because of her human rights activities. In May 2014, a group of five men assaulted her in the street in Hanoi with iron rods, breaking her arm and leg. In August 2015, after visiting a former political prisoner, she was dragged from a bus and beaten by plainclothes police.

Tran Thi Nga’s health condition has deteriorated as a result of an injury she sustained when she was beaten in May 2014. According to her lawyer, she was refused proper medical treatment while detained at Ha Nam Police Detention Centre. Tran Thi Nga has been incarcerated since February 2018 in a remote prison in Gia Long Province, over 1,000 kilometers from her home in Ha Nam Province, where she was previously held.

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Since 2008 Eman al-Nafjan authors the blog Saudi Woman in which she discusses social and cultural issues with a focus on women in Saudi Arabia. Eman al-Nafjan is also a prominent figure in the campaign for the abolition of the driving ban on women and the male guardianship system. On multiple occasions since 2011, she drove a car through Riyadh and publicly denounced women’s rights violations in the country.

She was first arrested on October 26, 2013, while filming another woman driving. While in September 2017, it was announced that the ban on women driving would be lifted in June 2018, Saudi authorities warned Eman al-Nafjan and other activists to keep quiet. A prominent voice since the beginning of the campaign, she did not.

The wave of arrest on May 15, 2018, also targeted Eman al-Nafjan. Like her fellow women’s rights activists arrested ahead of the entry into force of the decree lifting the driving ban she has been accused of having “suspicious contact with foreign entities” and “financial support to enemies overseas”, although no formal charges have been filed against her yet.

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Aziza Al-Yousef is a Saudi retired professor of computer science from King Saud University where she practiced for 28 years. A prominent figure in Saudi Arabia, her long-standing commitment to the fight for women’s rights, workers’, civil and political rights in the country has been internationally praised.

In 2013, Aziza Al-Yousef launched a global awareness campaign following the rape of 5-year old girl by her father, a Saudi cleric. The same year, she was arrested after she and Eman al-Nafjan drove themselves in Riyadh defying the ban on women driving. An investigation was opened, but she was never formally charged. Instead, they were coerced to sign a pledge that they would not drive again. In 2016, she led a campaign to abolish the male guardianship system which requires Saudi women to obtain permission from their father, brother, son or closest male relative to attend university, travel or seek medical treatment. At the time, more than 14,700 people signed the petition. Following the campaign, she was targeted by various acts of harassment and summoned for interrogation by the Saudi authorities.

Most recently, she had tried to set up a refuge for battered women and girls who are not accepted back from government social care institutions by their families, but the authorities turned down her application. Pressure had mounted on Aziza al-Youssef since 2017, and she was increasingly called in for questioning. The authorities prevented her from commenting on the Royal Decree allowing women to drive – which she, together with other women’s rights activists, had brought about.

On May 15, 2018, Aziza Al-Yousef was arrested by Saudi authorities, along with other prominent women’s rights defenders, including Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan, Nouf Abdulaziz, Mayya Al-Zahrani, Aisha al-Mana, Madiha al-Ajroush, Hessah Al-Sheikh, Walaa Al-Shubbar, Mohammed al-Rabiah, Mohamed al-Bejadi, Abdulaziz Al-Mesha’al and Ibrahim al-Mudaimeegh. Saudi authorities have accused Aziza Al-Youssef of having “suspicious contact with foreign entities” and “financial support to enemies overseas”. Aziza Al-Yousef, as the other defenders arrested, has been detained incommunicado, without being granted her right to contact a lawyer or being permitted family visits.

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Christopher Ngoyi Mutamba is the National President of « Synergy Congo Culture and Development » (SCCD), an organisation affiliated to the movement “Save the Congo”.

He has been arbitrarily detained since his arrest on January 21, 2015, after demonstrations related to attempts by the President to revise the electoral law. On February 11, 2015, he appeared before the prosecutor on charges of « arson », « looting » and «incitement to racial hatred ». His trial opened on March 4, 2015 but he has not been officially sentenced yet. The trial was suspended, pending a decision by the Cassation Court regarding the violation of the principle of publicity of the debates.

Since his detention, his health has severely deteriorated. He is suffering of anaemia and blood pressure. He was hospitalized during 23 days in February, 2016. The doctors never communicated his analysis results to the patient.

In November 2015, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention published a decision asking the authorities to release him, describing his detention as arbitrary.

On August 29, 2016, the Supreme Court of Justice of Kinshasa ordered the conditional release of Mr. Christopher Ngoyi Mutamba. The decision was implemented the same day.

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Mr. Ny Chakrya is the former Head of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association’s (ADHOC) human rights section and current National Election Committee (NEC) Deputy Secretary-General. Ny Sokha, Nay Vanda, Yi Soksan, and Lim Mony  are  four senior staff of ADHOC.

Since May 2, 2016, they have been arbitrarily detained under trumped-up bribery charges. If convicted, the five human rights defenders could face up to ten years in prison.

In addition, since July 2015, Ny Chakrya has been charged with public defamation, “acts of slanderous denunciation”, and “publication of commentaries to put pressure on jurisdiction”. If found guilty of all charges, he could face a prison term of up to one-and-a-half year. In July 2016, his trial has been adjourned.

Family members of the five have expressed concern over poor detention conditions. They complained of overcrowded cells, insufficient and poor quality food, and inadequate medical care. Ny Sokha, Nay Vanda, and Yi Soksan are held in Prey Sar’s Correctional Center 1 (‘CC1’), while Lim Mony is detained in Prey Sar’s Correctional Center 2 (‘CC2’). Ny Chakrya is detained in Police Judiciaire prison. All three prisons are located in Phnom Penh.

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Ramazan Demir is a human rights lawyer and member of the Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD). As a lawyer, he has been involved in politically sensitive cases for many years and has been actively advocating for the respect of fair trial rights and the protection of lawyers.

In the early morning of March 16, 2016, he was arrested together with 8 other ÖHD lawyers. They were all charged with “membership of an illegal organisation” reportedly for events that took place between 2011 and 2014. Ramazan Demir was later released together with the other 8 ÖHD members.

On April 6, 2016, he was rearrested with Ayse Acinikli, under the same terrorism-related accusations. On June 22, 2016, Ramazan Demir and Ayse Acinikli appeared before the 14th Heavy Penal Court of Istanbul. Their lawyers argued that the detention of their clients had been ordered in contravention of Turkish Law and the evidence gathered against them such as phone-tapped conversations had been obtained in an illegal manner. In addition, as the criminal case file against Mr. Demir and Ms. Acinikli is confidential pursuant to Article 153.2 of the Turkish Criminal Procedure Code, their lawyers were still unable to access and challenge the charges levied against them, thereby seriously undermining the equality of arms principle.
Even the prosecutor declared that the pre-trial detention of Ramazan Demir and Ayse Acinikli had « lasted long enough », but the 14th Heavy Penal Court refused to release them.

On September 7, 2016, the court ordered their provisional release.

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Ayse Acinikli is a human rights lawyer and member of the Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD).

In the early morning of March 16, 2016, she was arrested together with 8 other ÖHD lawyers. They were all charged with membership of an illegal organisation reportedly for events that took place between 2011 and 2014. Ayşe Acinikli was later released together with the other 8 ÖHD members.

On April 6, 2016, he was rearrested with Ayse Acinikli, under the same terrorism-related accusations. On June 22, 2016, Ramazan Demir and Ayse Acinikli appeared before the 14th Heavy Penal Court of Istanbul. Their lawyers argued that the detention of their clients had been ordered in contravention of Turkish Law and the evidence gathered against them such as phone-tapped conversations had been obtained in an illegal manner. In addition, as the criminal case file against Mr. Demir and Ms. Acinikli is confidential pursuant to Article 153.2 of the Turkish Criminal Procedure Code, their lawyers were still unable to access and challenge the charges levied against them, thereby seriously undermining the equality of arms principle.
Even the prosecutor declared that the pre-trial detention of Ramazan Demir and Ayse Acinikli had « lasted long enough », but the 14th Heavy Penal Court refused to release them.

On September 7, 2016, the court ordered their provisional release.

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Khadija Ismayilova is a well-known independent reporter in Azerbaijan. Since 2010, she has published a series of articles relating to corruptions cases involving President Ilham Aliyev and his family. She investigated particularly on the president’s daughter relations within the banking sector and offshore companies.

On December 5, 2014, Ms. Khadija Ismayilova was sentenced to two months in preventive detention for “inciting” her ex-partner Tural Mustafayev “to commit suicide”.
On February 13, 2015, new charges of “large-scale embezzlement”, “illegal business”, “tax evasion” and “abusing official powers” were brought against Ms. Khadija Ismayilova. On September 1, 2015, she was sentenced to 7,5 years’ imprisonment.

On 25 May 2016, Khadija Ismayilova was released, following a decision of the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan to commute the remainder of her 7.5-year jail sentence to a three-year conditional sentence.

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The Angola15 are young activists arrested in June 2015 for discussing democratic reforms and peaceful protest: Henrique Luaty Beirão (a.k.a. Brigadeiro Mata-Frakuxz, a.k.a. Ikonoklasta), Manuel Nito Alves, Nuno Alvaro Dala, Nelson Dibango Mendes Dos Santos, Alfonso Jojo Matias (a.k.a. Mbanza Hamza), Sedrick de Carvalho, Fernando António Tómas (a.k.a. Nicola Radical), Hitler Chiconda (a.k.a. Samussuku), Italiano Arante Kivuvu, Benedito Dali (a.k.a. Dito Dali), Albano Bingobingo (a.k.a. Albano Liberdade), José Gomes Hata (a.k.a. Cheik Hata), Inocénio De Brito (a.k.a. Drux), Domingos da Cruz and Osvaldo Caholo.
Most of them are known pro-democracy activists, who have been organizing peaceful protests against the 35-year-regime of Angolan President Eduardo Dos Santos since 2011. These protests were often repressed by the authorities.

On September 16, 2015, they were charged with “preparatory acts to rebellion” and “plotting against the President and other institutions”, both of which constitute crimes against the security of the Angolan State. All were held in pre-trial detention until December 18, 2015, when they were finally placed under house arrest. Ms. Rosa Kusso Conde and Ms. Laurinda Manuel Gouveia, two regular attendees of the book club meetings, were also charged on similar accusations but were not detained.

On March 28, 2016, the Luanda Provincial Tribunal sentenced the 16 pro-democracy activists to jail terms ranging from two years and three months to eight years and six months for the alleged crimes of “preparatory acts of rebellion” and “association of criminals”, among other charges. The trial was marred with irregularities. Their lawyers decided to file an appeal. The 16 were sent to different prison facilities.
On June 29, 2016, the Supreme Court of Angola ordered their conditional release pending the outcome of the appeal trial. They are not allowed to leave the country and have to appear before the Luanda Provincial Court every month.

Disturbing allegations of ill-treatment of the activists during their detention and acts of intimidation against their families have been made. Some detainees have resorted to attempt suicide or to hunger strike in protest, triggering concerns about their health conditions.

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Rasul Jafarov is the founder and Chairman of the “Human Rights Club,” established in December 2010. He advocated for the rights of the most vulnerable. He notably monitored the trials of a number of journalists in Azerbaijan and participated in several initiatives such as “Art for Democracy” during the Eurovision song contest in Baku or “Sport for Rights” ahead of the European Games in Baku.

He was arbitrarily arrested and detained on August 2, 2014. On April 16, 2015, Rasul Jafarov was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison on charges of tax evasion, abuse of power, illegal business activities, and embezzlement. International trial observers repeatedly noted that no evidence of Rasul Jafarov’s guilt was presented.

On March 17, 2016, Rasul Jafarov was included into the list of pardoned prisoners signed by the President Ilham Aliyev and released after having spent more than 1.5 years in arbitrary detention.

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Hilal Mammadov is an editor and human rights activist who spoke-out publicly in support of Talysh rights and was critical of what he considered a government that discriminates non-Turkic minority groups in Azerbaijan.

He was arrested on June 21, 2012, and arbitrarily detained. Charged with “high treason”, “incitement to national, racial or religious hostility”, “illegal manufacturing, purchase, storage, transportation, transfer or selling of narcotics and psychotropic substances” and “spying”, he was sentenced to five years in prison following an unfair trial.

In its November 2013 report, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention requested his immediate release.

On March 17, 2016, Hilal Mammadov was included into the list of pardoned prisoners signed by the President Ilham Aliyev and released after spending more than 3.5 years in arbitrary detention.

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Intigam Aliyev is a prominent human rights lawyer who heads the Legal Education Society, an Azerbaijani NGO created in 1998. He has submitted a large number of complaints against the Azeri authorities to the European Court of Human Rights.

Intigam Aliyev was arrested on August 8, 2014, and initially placed in pre-trial detention. Accused of “tax evasion”, “illegal enterprise”, “abuse of authority”, “embezzlement” and “forgery”, he was sentenced to seven and a half years of jail on April 22, 2015.

On March 28, 2016, the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan commuted his jail term into 5-year suspended imprisonment. Intigam Aliyev was released on the same day.

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Amin Mekki Medani is an expert in international human rights law who advocated to bring justice to the victims of human rights abuses and is currently an Executive Board member of over six non-governmental human rights organisations. He was the Chairperson of the Sudan Human Rights Monitor, FIDH member organisation in Sudan.

On December 6, 2014, he was arrested from his home in Khartoum without a warrant and detained incommunicado until December 21, 2014. On February 23, 2015, he was tried on charges of “undermining the constitutional system” and “waging war against the state”.

He was released on April 9, 2015, after the Ministry of Justice decided to freeze the case.

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Leyla and Arif Yunus are respectively Director and Chief of the Department of conflictology of the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD). Ms. Leyla Yunus has been fighting to support human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan. Together, they have been been working for a reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On July 2014, Ms. Yunus was jailed under charges of “high treason”, “large-scale fraud”, “forgery”, “tax evasion” and “illegal business”. Leyla Yunus was arbitrarily detained since July 30, 2014. Her husband Arif Yunusov was arrested on August 5, 2014. On August 13, 2015, Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunusov were sentenced to 8.5 and 7 years in prison respectively.
While in detention, they were humiliated by police officers, put in overcrowded cells, beaten several times and deprived of much needed medical treatment. They were both suffering from serious medical conditions and were not able to access adequate medical treatment.

On November 12, 2015, Arif Yunusov was released under house arrest on health grounds. On December 9, 2015, the court changed their sentences into suspended sentences of 5 years, on probation. Leyla Yunus was in turn released from detention.

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Juan Carlos Flores Solís has been advocating for the respect of human rights of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and environment. He is a member of the People’s Front in Defence of the Water and Earth of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala (FPDATMPT). He investigated human rights violations and provided legal and political assistance to the indigenous peoples of Mexico.

Arrested on April 7, 2014, Juan Carlos Flores was held at the Centre for Social Rehabilitation (Cereso) in Cholula, Puebla.

Juan Carlos Flores was released on January 23, 2015 after nine months of arbitrary detention. The Federal Justice Department ordered his release as no proof of the charges held against him (intimidation, robbery, civil disorder, looting and assault on hydraulic structures) were provided.

Nonetheless, a court in Tlaxcala rescinded the suspended sentences against Juan Carlos Flores Solis which is revalidating the arrest warrant against him. He can be arrested at any moment.

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Javier Ramírez is an Ecuadorian farmer and President of the community of Junín, in the area of Intag, where he has been leading the opposition against contested mining projects and promoting sustainable development alternatives.

Accused of sabotage, terrorism and rebellion, Javier Ramirez was arrested on April 10, 2014 and further held at the Ibarra Social Rehabilitation Centre.

Javier was released on February 10, 2015 after having spent 10 months in pre-trial detention. Nevertheless, charges of aggression or resisting arrest remained pending against him.

On July 15, 2015, the National Court of Quito reviewing Javier Ramirez’s appeal against the twelve months sentence (two additional months to the initial sentence against Javier Ramirez were requested for allegedly insulting ENAMI’s public servants) handed down in April 2015 by the Imbabura Court of Appeal, ruled in favour of Javier Ramirez.

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Yara Sallam is a lawyer and women’s rights defender. She works as a transitional justice researcher with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Prior to that, Yara worked as the Director of the Women Human Rights Defenders program at Nazra for Feminist Studies and as a legal assistant to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) in Gambia.

She was arrested on June 21, 2014 on charges of “breaching the protest law” under the “Anti-Protest Law”, “sabotaging public properties”, “possession of inflammable materials” and “taking part in showing off force with the objective of terrorising the public” for her alleged participation in a peaceful march on December 28, 2014. She was sentenced to 2 years of prison in appeal.

Yara’s case is the first anti-protest case since the election of new Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. Even though Yara was not arrested while protesting but rather in a side-street, she has been targeted and detained because of her human rights work, as she was interrogated about EIPR’s activities and management. Her case is symbolic of the Egyptian authorities increasing crackdown against human rights organizations and human rights defenders, based on the Law 107 on demonstrations and public rallies (the “Anti-Protest Law”) enacted in 2013.

On September 23, 2015, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi issued a presidential pardon in favour of 100 imprisoned youths, including Yara Sallam. She was released on the same day.

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Mahnaz Mohammadi is a film-maker and women’s rights activist. She wrote the script for and directed her first film, “Women Without Shadows”, in 2003. She is also a member of the “One Million Signatures Campaign”, which calls to end legalised discrimination against women.

She was arbitrarily jailed on June 7, 2014, charged with ”endangering national security” and “propaganda against the Iranian regime” and sentenced to five years in prison.

Since 2007, Mahnaz Mohammadi has been arrested four times. Iranian authorities have accused her of cooperation with foreign media including the BBC, and endorsing the CEDAW by signing a petition that called on Iran to ratify the Convention.

She was conditionally released in July 2014.

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Bahareh Hedayat is a women’s rights activist. She is a member of the “One Million Signatures Campaign” which calls to end legalised discrimination against women. From 2005 to 2007, she was the first secretary of the Women’s Commission of the Office for Strengthening Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat), the largest student organisation in Iran. Hedayat Bahareh was awarded the Edelstam Human Rights prize (Sweden) in 2010.

On June 12, 2006, she was arrested for participating to a protest to celebrate International Women’s Day and on December 31st, 2009 Bahareh Hedayat was sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison for “spreading propaganda against the State” through interviews with foreign media, “disrupting public order” through participation in unlawful assemblies, “insulting the Leader and the President”, and “acting against national security”.

She was detained at Evin Prison’s Women’s Ward, in difficult conditions. She needs a regular medical treatment which was denied and is likely to cause irremediable damages such as infertility.

She was released on September 4, 2016 after serving 8 years in prison.

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Reza Shahabi Zakaria is the Treasurer of the workers union at the United Bus Company in Tehran.

He was arrested in 2010 and has been arbitrarily detained since in the Rajaishahr prison. In 2012, Reza Shahabi Zakaria was convicted under charges of “propaganda against the regime” and “conspiracy against the national security” to six years in prison. He was also banned from engaging in union activities for five years and condemned to a 70 million-rial fine (approximately 2,300 Euros).

Since the beginning of his detention, his health has severely deteriorated and the Iranian authorities have refused to provide him with the care he needs. On June 30,2014, his cell-mates took him to the prison clinic but clinic officials refused to offer him the needed care.

Reza Shahabi was released on March 13, 2018 after completing his sentence.

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Mohammad Seddiq Kaboudvand is a journalist, President and founder of the Human Rights Organisation of Kurdistan. He has particularly worked for the promotion and defence of the rights of the Kurdish minority in his country.

Mr. Kaboudvand has been serving a prison sentence totalling 10.5 years since July 1, 2007: 10 years for founding and administering the Human Rights Organisation of Kurdistan and six months for his work as a journalist and editor of the weekly Payam-e Mardom-e (Message of People of) Kurdistan. He was charged for “act against national security” through founding HROK, “widespread propaganda against the State”, “opposing Islamic penal laws” by publicising punishments such as stoning and executions and “advocating on behalf of political prisoners. On July 28, 2015, the Prosecutor of Tehran rejected outright the request of Evin prison’s governor who had recommended Mr. Kaboudvand’s “conditional release”.

Mohammad Seddiq Kaboudvand, is being held at the Evin prison where he has been tortured and is denied access to proper medical care. He has gone on hunger strike in June 2016 to protest against new charges for which he was later acquitted.

Mohammad Seddiq Kaboudvand was released from Evin Prison in Tehran on May 12, 2017 after serving a 10 year sentence.

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Do Thi Minh Hanh is a labour activist who assisted farmers in filling petitions with the government to demand the return of confiscated land. In 2005, she was detained by authorities for her political activities but was never formally charged.

In February 2010, she was arrested for helping workers organize a strike at a shoe factory in Tra Vinh Province. In October 2010, she was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of “disrupting security.” She has been tortured in detention and, as a result of the beatings, she is now deaf in one ear.

She was released on June 28, 2014.

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Abdolfattah Soltani is one of the most well-known human rights lawyers in Iran. He co-founded the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), a member organisation of FIDH, along with 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi. The DHRC was a prominent human rights organisation in Iran until its shut down in December 2008.

He has been arbitrarily detained since April 2011. Repeatedly imprisoned in Iran because of his activism and charged with “co-founding the anti-state DHRC”, “assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security”, “spreading propaganda against the state” and “earning illegitimate assets” by receiving the Nuremberg human rights prize, Abdolfattah Soltani was sentenced by the Tehran Islamic Revolution Court to 18 years of imprisonment in internal exile in Borazjan, imposing a 20 year ban on his engagement in professional practice. The sentence was reduced to 13 years of imprisonment and 10 year ban.

Abdolfattah Soltani, remains detained at the Evin prison in Tehran. Since his arrest, he has developed heart and digestive problems and is not given the appropriate medical care.

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Ta Phong Tan is a former police officer and member of the Communist party, and the co-founder of the Free Journalist Club. On her blog, she is fighting for social justice, restitution of lands and against corruption.

On September 2011, she was arrested for posting criticism about the Vietnamese government on her blog. In July 2012, her mother burnt herself to death to protest against the arbitrary detention. Two month later, she was sentenced to 10 years of prison for “propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”.

On September 19, 2015, she was released but forced to exile. From the United States, she keeps fighting to defend the rights of other journalists and writers detained in Vietnam for using their right to freedom of expression.

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Ales Bialiatski is an active promoter of democracy. He is the president of the Human Rights Center Viasna, FIDH member organisation in Belarus, which was de-registered in 2003 after its observation of the 2001 presidential elections. Because of his human rights activities, he was arrested 20 times.

In the aftermath of the contested December 2010 presidential elections, Ales Bialiatski was arrested on trumped up charges of “concealment of profits on an especially large scale” after using foreign funds to finance his human rights activities. In November 2011, he was sentenced to four and a half years of strict regime detention in a penal colony. Viasna’s offices, which had been purchased in Ales Bialiatski’s name, were seized and Ales himself was ordered to pay compensation of approx. US$85,000.

During his detention, he has been subjected to numerous arbitrary disciplinary sanctions, facing isolation and psychological pressure. In November 2012, the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his detention to be arbitrary under international law, and called for his immediate and unconditional release.

Ales Bialiatski was released on June 21, 2014. He was at last granted amnesty which had been refused for two consecutive years on the pretext of “multiple violations of the detention regime”.

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Ho Thi Bich Khuong is a farmer who used the internet to document land confiscation and campaign for land rights.

In April 2007, she was arrested in an Internet café in Nghe An Province and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison under Article 258 of the Criminal Code for “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State.” She was re-arrested in January 2011 and has been arbitrarily detained since. Charged under Article 88 of the Criminal Code for “propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” in December 2011, she was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of house arrest.

On January 15, 2016, she was released by the authorities after serving her sentence. Today she remains under strict police surveillance.

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Azam Formonov is a defender of farmers and land rights and more broadly of social and economic rights.

He was arrested by the police on April 29, 2006 and has been arbitrarily detained since. On June 15, 2006, he was charged with “ attempted blackmail “, tried without the presence of either his attorney of choice or a public defence attorney and sentenced to 9 years imprisonment for extortion. 15 days before his release from prison, Azam Formonov was transferred and new charges of “violation of prison rules” have been brought up against him. In May 2015, he was sentenced to an additional five years in prison.

Azam Formonov is being held under a strict security regime at the 64/71 Special Regime Colony, a Colony for religious prisoners and one of the worst prison in Uzbekistan. He has reportedly been tortured, beaten and humiliated.

On 3 October 2017, he was finally released.

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Gaybullo Jalilov has been an active defender of the right to freedom of religion particularly by documenting several violations of religious freedom and persecution of independent Muslims perpetrated by the Uzbek government.

He was arrested by the police on September 5, 2009 and held incommunicado for several days. He has been arbitrarily detained since. Charged with “infringement against the constitutional system of the Republic of Uzbekistan”, “production or dissemination of materials constituting a threat to public security and public order” and “founding, leading, participating in religious extremists, separatists, fundamentalists and other forbidden organizations”, on January 18, 2010, he was sentenced to nine years in detention. On August 4, 2011, his sentence was extended by 2 years, 1 month and 5 days.

During the summer of 2010, Gaybullo Jalilov reportedly received a heavy blow to the ear with a baton from a colony warden after he refused to comply with an order to sing the hymn of the Republic of Uzbekistan with other prisoners. As a result, he is now deaf in both ears.

Gaybullo Jalilov has been released on march 15, 2018.

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Hani Zaitani is a researcher and human rights activist. He is a member of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).

He was arrested on 16 February 2012, along with 15 other persons at SCM premises. In February 2013, Hani Zaitani was among five detainees who, along with SCM President, Mazen Darwish, were informed that they would be prosecuted before the Anti-Terrorism Court for “promoting terrorist acts” and faced up to 15 years in prison. Hani Zaitani and some of his colleagues were deemed “forcibly disappeared” and subjected to acts of torture over a period of approximately nine months. Then the trial hearings were postponed dozen of times.

In January 2014, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his detention to be arbitrary and called for his immediate release.
While the government announced his amnesty on June 9, 2014, he was not released until July 18, 2015 even if the charges were not dropped. He was finally acquitted on August 31, 2015.

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Hussain Ghrer is a blogger and was an active figure in numerous solidarity campaigns for Palestine, victims of honour crimes and against the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights.

On February 16, 2012, he was arrested along with 15 other persons at Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)’s premises. In February 2013, he was among five detainees who, along with SCM President, Mazen Darwish, were informed that they would be prosecuted before the Anti-Terrorism Court for “promoting terrorist acts” and faced up to 15 years in prison. Then the trial hearings were postponed dozen of times.

Hussain Ghrer and some of his colleagues were deemed “forcibly disappeared” and subjected to acts of torture over a period of approximately nine months. In January 2014, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his detention to be arbitrary and called for his immediate release.

Despite a presidential amnesty announced on June 9, 2014, including for the charges faced by Hussain Ghrer, he was only released on July 17, 2015 and finally acquitted on August 31, 2015.

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Mazen Darwish is a lawyer and journalist advocating free speech. In 2004, he founded the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), a human rights association that has been denied registration in Syria.

Arrested on 16 February 2012 along with 15 other persons, he spent three and a half years in detention. Mazen Darwish was deemed to have been “forcibly disappeared” and subjected to acts of torture for nine months following his arrest. He was prosecuted before the Anti-Terrorism Court for “promoting terrorist acts”, charges for which he were to face up to 15 years in prison. Whilst in jail, Mazen Darwish has been providing human rights courses, as well as reading and writing classes for his fellow inmates.

In January 2014, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found Mazen Darwish’s detention to be arbitrary and called for his immediate release.

On 9 June 2014, the government announced an amnesty, including for the charges Mazen Darwish was facing. However, then, he was not released.
On February 26, 2015, Mazen Darwish was named “World Press Freedom Hero” by the International Press Institute in recognition of “his efforts to ensure that the truth of what was happening in his country after conflict erupted in 2011 was known beyond its borders, and in his willingness to continue speaking out in support of free media from prison, despite the obvious danger to him in doing so”.
He was finally released on August 10, 2015 under the political amnesty issued in June 2014. The verdict of unconditional amnesty was delivered on August 31, 2015.

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Mohammad Seifzadeh is a lawyer, former judge, human rights activist and a co-founder of DHRC. He has stood by many victims of human rights violations in Iran.

He was arrested in April 2011 during a visit to Urumiyeh on the Turkish border, for “attempting to leave the country”.

The Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran charged Mohammad Seifzadeh with “collusion and assembly with intent to disrupt internal security,” “propagation activities against the regime,” and “establishing the Centre for Human Rights Defenders” and sentenced him to 9 years of imprisonment and a 10 year ban on professional practice. A court of appeal reduced this prison sentence to two years. However, whilst serving this two-year sentence, Mohammad Seifzadeh was subject to the imposition of a new set of charges. In late September 2013, a Court of Appeal upheld a six-year prison sentence imposed on him by the Islamic Revolutionary Court on February 20, 2013 on allegations of “collusion to take action against the national security” and “spreading propaganda against the system”.

After nearly five years in prison, Mohammad Seifzadeh was finally released on March 10, 2016.

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Muharrem Erbey worked as a human rights lawyer and advocate in South East Turkey. He was compiling reports on disappearances, torture and extra-judicial killings, and representing local individuals before courts. He was also a writer, editor and columnist.

On December 24, 2009, Muharrem Erbey was arrested by an anti-terrorism unit in Diyarbakır as part of a large-scale operation launched simultaneously in 11 provinces of Turkey. His arrest was based on his alleged membership to the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), an organisation said to be the “urban branch” of the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

After 1 570 days of pre-trial detention, Muharrem Erbey was released on April 12, 2014. He is the recipient of the “Freedom of Thought and Expression” award from PEN Norway Centre.

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Nasim Isakov monitored human rights abuses in Jizzakh city.

Arrested on October 27, 2005, Nasim Isakov was detained at the prison colony U/Ya 64/3 in Tavaskai. Charged with “extortion” and “hooliganism”, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison. His prison-term was extended in 2013 for “violations of prison rules”.

As a result of torture and ill-treatment endured during his provisional detention in August 2006, Nasim Isakov suffers from constant headaches and has difficulty hearing.

He was released in 2015.

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Reşit Teymur has been working with the Human Rights Association (İHD), FIDH member organisation in Turkey, since 2009. He was particularly involved in the fight against impunity, notably through his participation in the opening of mass graves in Siirt, as well as a march to demand the excavation of the mass grave in Newala Qesaba (Kasaplar Deresi), where 200 corpses thought to be members of the advance guard of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are allegedly buried.

As part of a large-scale operation in November 2011, Reşit Teymur was arrested by an anti-terrorism unit on allegations of “making propaganda” and being a “member of a criminal organisation”. His arrest was based on his alleged membership to the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), an organisation said to be the “urban branch” of the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Resit Teymur was released pending a trial on June 27, 2014.

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Somyot Prueksakasemsuk is a labour rights activist trying to unionise workers, providing them with legal training, and organising camp activities and public demonstrations. In his magazine Voice of Thaksin, Somyot Prueksakasemsuk has denounced human rights abuses and has been calling for the revision of the lèse-majesté law currently in force in the country.

In April 2011, he was arrested five days after launching a petition campaign to secure a review of this legislation and has been arbitrarily detained since. Somyot Prueksakasemsuk was convicted for allowing, as an editor, the publication of two satirical articles that were deemed to be “insulting the monarchy”. He is serving a 11-year sentence in Bangkok’s Remand Prison for lèse majesté and defamation.

Several UN human rights monitoring bodies have voiced concern over Somyot’s deprivation of liberty. In an opinion issued on August 30, 2012, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) affirmed that Somyot’s detention was arbitrary. The UN WGAD called on Thai authorities to release Somyot and award him compensation.

Somyot was released on April 30, 2018 after completing his sentence.

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Yuldosh Rasulov has worked to defend the rights of people persecuted for their religious beliefs and affiliations.

Originally arrested in May 2002 and sentenced to 7 years in prison, Yuldosh Rasulov was released after 7 months as a result of international pressure. Re-arrested in April 2007, he has been arbitrarily detained since. He was sentenced to 10 years of detention on fabricated charges of “threatening the constitutional order” and “membership in a banned religious organisation”.

He was kept at the 64/25 Special Regime Colony, in the town of Karaulbazar, Bukhara region, and finally released in march 2018.

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Mr. Nabeel Rajab, co-founder and President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), founding Director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR) and FIDH Deputy Secretary General has been one of the country’s most vocal human rights defenders, denouncing torture of detainees at Jaw prison and exposing the killing of civilians in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition, among many other issues. He has faced continuous judicial harassment for his peaceful and legitimate human rights work since his first arrest in June 2012 and has already served several prison terms.

Nabeel Rajab was arbitrarily detained between June 13, 2016 and June 9, 2020 in Jaw prison in a segregated wing: first with convicted ISIS terrorists, then with nine prisoners convicted of prostitution, and finally with five prisoners detained for debts, in conditions that he considered improved during his detention. Despite his deteriorating health conditions he has been held in solitary confinement for several periods of time.

On June 9, 2020, he was released from Jaw prison on a non-custodial sentence, after spending nearly four years in arbitrary detention. He now has to serve out the rest of his sentence at home.

He is currently serving a seven-year sentence following his conviction under several sets of charges:

- In the framework of the “Television interviews case”. On July 10, 2017, he was sentenced to two years in prison by the Manama’s Lower Criminal Court, on charges of “deliberately spreading false information and malicious rumours with the aim of discrediting the State”. This charge is related to three televised interviews made in 2015 and 2016 in which he exposed Bahrain’s poor human rights record. Manama’s Court of Cassation upheld his sentence on January 15, 2018.

- In the “Twitter case”. On February 21, 2018, Nabeel Najab was sentenced to five years in prison, on charges of “insulting a statutory body”, “disseminating false rumours in time of war” and “offending a foreign country [Saudi Arabia]”. Those charges are related to tweets he posted denouncing the torture of detainees in the Kingdom’s Jaw Prison and human rights violations perpetrated by the Saudi-led coalition air strikes in Yemen. The criminal case, which began in April 2015, was postponed 20 times and on several occasions the Court violated criminal procedure law by announcing the holding of the trial with only a few days’ notice, and no explanation to Rajab’s lawyers. His lawyers reported they were therefore unable to prepare his defence or call their witnesses to testify in court.

On May 12, 2017, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) said it was “deeply concerned” by the arbitrary imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment of detained human rights defenders, including Nabeel Rajab.

On June 18, 2018, Nabeel Rajab became an honorary citizen of the city of Paris.

On September 17, 2019, Manama’s High Court of Appeal rejected Mr. Nabeel Rajab’s request to overturn previous court decisions and replace his prison sentences by non-custodial ones.

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Pierre Claver Mbonimpa is the President of the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Incarcerated Persons (APRODH).

Accused of “being a danger to internal and external state security” after he denounced the existence of military training centres for youth league from Burundi in eastern DRC, he was arrested on May 15, 2014.

Pierre Claver Mbonimpa was granted provisional release on grounds of ill-health on September 29, 2014. He was briefly re-arrested on April 27, 2015 and released the next day following increased tension across the country as presidential elections approached. In 2015, he was leading the civil society campaign against a third mandate of current Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza.