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In February 2007, Egyptian authorities sentenced blogger Karim Amer to four years' imprisonment for the "crime" of publishing material on the internet that was critical of Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The former al-Azhar University student was sentenced on 22 February 2007 and the Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence on 12 March of the same year. He was 23 years old at the time.
Human rights defenders working to end violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) do so in the face of grave threats of violence against themselves and their families. Justine Masika Bihamba is coordinator for Synergy of Women for Victims of Sexual Violence (Synergie des femmes contre les violence sexuelles), a women's human rights organization working in the DRC. Because of her work, Justine and her family have been targeted.
Authorities arrested Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy Khadzhiev in June 2006 on account of their human rights activism. By September of that year, Mr. Amanklychev and Mr. Khadzhiev were serving seven-year prison terms on fabricated charges. Their plight illustrates all too well the grave risks faced by human rights defenders in Turkmenistan.
Mohammed Mohammed Hassan Odaini remains detained in Guantanamo despite being cleared for release over 2 years ago. Odaini was detained in March 2002 along with several other Yemeni nationals, and sent to the detention camp at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In June 2005 he was deemed suitable for release from Guantanamo, yet he continues to be unjustly detained. He has not been interrogated for nearly two years and the reason for his continued detention is unclear.
For more than a year, Turkish authorities have imprisoned Mehmet Desde for the peaceful expression of his political views. Following an unfair trial, authorities convicted him in June 2007 of having a connection with the Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan/Turkey), which is a small, non-violent political party. His conviction was based largely on statements allegedly extracted under torture.
On December 1, 2004, some 200 people participated in a nonviolent ceremony in Papua Province during which the Morning Star flag, a symbol of Papuan independence, was raised in commemoration of the declaration of Papuan independence in 1962. For peacefully raising this flag, Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage may spend the next decade or more in prison in Indonesia.
The military rulers of Myanmar have jailed thousands of people in their continuing efforts to crush all dissenting views. Most prominent of those detained is Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has spent 13 of the past 18 years under some form of detention.
When the women left their homes that May morning in 2006, they never imagined the horrific experience that lay ahead of them. During a police operation in response to protests by activists from a local peasant organization in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico, over 45 women were arrested without explanation.
The activists of the human rights organization Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) know the price of freedom. For organizing peaceful demonstrations to protest the worsening social, economic and human rights situation in Zimbabwe, WOZA members have been repeatedly harassed, intimidated, beaten and jailed by authorities.
In April 2004, the Chinese journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo! email account to send a message to a U.S.-based pro-democracy website. In his email, he summarized a government order directing media organizations in China to downplay the upcoming 15th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists. Police arrested him in November 2004, charging him with "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities."
Libyan authorities arrested Fathi el-Jahmi in 2002 after he called for free speech and political reforms during a conference in Tripoli. For that "crime," he was sentenced to five years in prison, but was released in March 2004 following international pressure. Mr. el-Jahmi's freedom proved short-lived, however, as authorities detained him again just weeks later after he repeated his call for democracy during a television interview.
