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Political activist Jakarkhon Sheikho 'Ali, a member of Syria's Kurdish minority, is being held incommunicado at the Military Secruity Branch in Aleppo, Syria. He may be a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and association. He is at risk of torture and other ill-treatment.
Mohammed Mostafaei has been released on bail after being arrested in Tehran on June 25. He is likely to face prosecution, and if imprisoned he would be a prisoner of conscience detained solely for his human rights activities.
Yu Seong-jin was arrested on March 30 in North Korea at the industrial complex where he works. He is being kept incommunicado and attempts by the South Korean government to request his release have all been ignored.
At least 13 journalists were arbitrarily arrested in mid-June and most have been kept incommunicado. Some of the journalists were linked to foreign news outlets and are nationals of Canada and Greece. All detainees are in danger of torture and ill-treatment
At least 25 employees of the newspaper Kalameh Sabz have been arbitrarily arrested and kept incommunicado. The clear reasons for the arrests are unknown and Amnesty International fears the prisoners of conscience may be tortured or otherwise ill-treated.
Maskhud Abdullaev, a Russian national from Chechnya, was forcibly returned by the Egyptian authorities on June 19 to Moscow, where he was detained and taken for questioning. Efforts to find out what has happened to him have so far been unsuccessful.
Liu Xiaobo was formally arrested for "inciting subversion of state power" on June 23. Amnesty International fears that he will be tortured or otherwise ill-treated while in custody after his arbitrary arrest.
Yan Dongfei and Qiao Yongfang are husband and wife. They have been detained in the city of Hohhot in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China and are being held incommunicado. They are at serious risk of torture and ill-treatment.
Yusufjan and Memetjan, both ethnic Uighurs and students at Xinjiang University, were detained on May 10 while holding a meeting to discuss religious issues. Since the 1980s, the Uighurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority in northwest China, have been the target of systematic and extensive human rights violations.
Abakar Ibrahim Adam was arrested on April 14, along with a group of 13 other Darfuri people, after protests at Khartoum University against the execution of nine Darfuri men. They are known to be still in custody and are at risk of torture.
Yemeni national and Guantanamo Prisoner Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif has attempted suicide several times and been subjected to severe physical and psychological abuses. He and other prisoners are being denied medical services.
Eight men in Saudi Arabia continue to be detained without charge or trial and remain at risk of torture and ill-treatment. While university professor Dr Matrouk al-Faleh has been released, the other eight are still being held, one of whom has a worsening health condition.
Sichuan human rights activist Huang Qi has reportedly been tortured while awaiting trial. He suffers from a number of medical ailments, including two tumors on his stomach and chest, but he may not be receiving adequate medical treatment.
President Obama has tasked seven powerful members of his administration to review in detail US policy on “war on terror” detentions and interrogations—including Guantanamo and torture—and get back to him quickly with recommendations. These seven people have President Obama’s ear. Demand they recommend what’s right!
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.
Jamie Leigh Jones was reportedly drugged, gang-raped and imprisoned in a container by fellow KBR co-workers in 2005 while working in Iraq on a U.S. Defense Department contract. Like the Abu Ghraib torture victims who still have not seen justice after more than four years, the abuse Jones says she suffered at the hands of private contractors over two years ago has not seen the light of a criminal trial. Download the action Investigate and prosecute military contractors who torture, kill in PDF format | Download the action Investigate and prosecute military contractors who torture, kill in RTF format
Amnesty International has received consistent reports that U.S. authorities have a network of secret detention centers around the globe, holding an unknown number of "war on terror" detainees in unknown conditions. In September 2005, Amnesty International spoke with Muhammad al-Assad, a man who had been caught up in this sinister system. He was effectively "disappeared" by the United States for over 16 months.
