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Shakiro

Shakiro (Djeukam Loi Midrel) is an influencer, LGBT activist, and transgender woman who is arrested in Cameroon due to ‘attempted homosexuality’. She has been arrested on the 8th of February and cestodes at the Douala New Bell Prison until the court makes further decisions. She is facing a possible penalty of six months up to five years imprisonment.

 

Julian Assange

Julian Paul Assange is an australian editor, publisher, and activist who found WikiLeaks in 2006. 

WikiLeaks published 2010 a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the "Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video“, the "Afghanistan war logs" between others and blamed the U.S. Army of war crimes. After the leaks, the United States government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks. In 2012 he took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London and stayed there 7 years. On 11 April 2019, Assange's asylum was withdrawn and he was arrested by the London police. Since then he has been held in Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison.

 

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2021. She has served as the president of the National League for Democracy (NLD) since 2011 and played a vital role in Myanmar's transition from military junta to partial democracy in the 2010s. 

On 1 February 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested by the military during the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état after it declared the November 2020 Myanmar general election results fraudulent.

 

Selahattin Demirtaş

Selahattin Demirtaş is a Kurdish politician and member of the parliament of Turkey since 2007. He was co-leader of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). Demirtaş was the presidential candidate of the HDP in the 2014 presidential election, coming in third place with 9.77% of the vote. He became one of the most popular politicians with serious chances for the presidential elections in 2018. On 4 November 2016 he got arrested and is still in prison. The European Court of Human Rights called for releasing Demirtaş and stated that his arrest in 2016 violated his freedom of speech and the right of joining to the elections.

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Alexei Navalny

Alexei Anatolievich Navalny is a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption activist. He came to international prominence by organizing anti-government demonstrations and running for office to advocate reforms against corruption in Russia, President Vladimir Putin and his government. He is the leader of the Russia of the Future party and the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). In December 2016, Navalny launched his presidential campaign for the 2018 presidential election but he was barred by Russia's Central Electoral Commission (CEC) due to prior criminal convictions. In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in serious condition after he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.

On 17 January 2021, he was detained on accusations of violating parole conditions and given more than 2,5 years of jailtime. 

 

Osman Kavala

Osman Kavala is a Turkish rights defender, philanthropist and activist. He supported numerous civil society organizations since the early 1990s and is founder and chair of the board of directors of Anadolu Kültür. In 2019 he received the 21st European Archaeological Heritage Prize and the 17th Ayşenur Zarakolu Freedom of Thought and Expression Award. On 18 October 2017 Osman Kavala was detained at the Istanbul Atatürk Airport after his visit to Gaziantep for a joint project with Goethe Institute. In December 2019, the European Court of Human Rights called for Kavala's release. On 18 February 2020, Kavala was surprisingly acquitted for lack of evidence. A few hours later, the Istanbul Public Prosecutor's Office issued a new arrest warrant for Kavala. He is still in custody.

 

Joshua Wong

Joshua Wong Chi-fung is a dissident, student activist and politician. He co-founded the high school and college student activist group Scholarism in Hong Kong in 2011 and gained widespread international attention in 2014 as one of the spokespersons for the "Umbrella Movement". In 2017, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Since 2 December 2020, Wong has been detained for an unauthorised vigil in memory of the victims of the Tian'anmen massacre in Beijing.

 

Nasrin Sotoudeh

Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer in Iran who represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians as well as prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. She has also represented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab and fight an ongoing battle against rights of women, children and minorities. Sotoudeh was arrested in September 2010 on charges of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security and spend 6 years in jail. In June 2018 she was again arrested, sentenced to a 10-year jail period in Tehran, after being charged with several national security-related offences.

 

Raif Badawi

Raif Muhammad Badawi is a Saudi blogger, dissident and activist, as well as the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals. Badawi was arrested in 2012 on a charge of "insulting Islam through electronic channels" and brought to court on several charges, including apostasy. In 2013 he was sentenced to seven years in prison, torture and 600 lashes. In 2014 his sentence was increased to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes, and a fine.