ZHANG Guiqi (Pen name, Lu Yang)
A poet, teacher and member of the ICPC, Zhang Guiqi is serving a six-year prison term imposed on 26 July 2022 after a trial behind closed doors where…
Mehmet Osman KAVALA
Publisher, civil and cultural rights activist, and philanthropist Osman Kavala continues to serve a life sentence upheld on 28 September 2023 by Türkiye’s Court of Cassation. The court also upheld 18-year prison sentences against his co-defendants Çiğdem Mater, Can Atalay, Mine Özerden and Tayfun Kahraman (three other defendants – Mücella Yapıcı, Hakan Altınay and Yiğit Ali Ekmekçi – were acquitted in February 2025)…
Selahattin DEMIRTAŞ
On 16 May 2024, the Ankara 22nd Heavy Penal Court found writer and former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, guilty of ‘aiding in undermining the unity and integrity of the state’, ‘incitement to commit a crime’ and ‘making terrorist propaganda’, sentencing him to a combined total of 42 years in prison…
DONG Yuyu
A writer and journalist, Dong Yuyu is currently serving a seven-year prison term after conviction of ‘espionage’. Police initially detained Dong on 21 February…
Arnon Nampha
Poet and lawyer imprisoned for royal defamation after peacefully calling for the law’s repeal
A poet and human…
Go Sherab Gyatso (known as Gosher)
A prominent Tibetan writer, educator and public intellectual, Gosher is serving a 10-year prison sentence reportedly imposed following a secret…
Yuri Alexeyevich DMITRIEV
Historian, author and head of the Karelian branch of the human rights centre Memorial, north-western Russia, Yuri Dmitriev continues to serve a 15-year prison sentence in a high-security penal colony after conviction of alleged sexual offences his supporters…
Yevgenia BERKOVICH & Svetlana PETRIYCHUK
Theatre director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk are each serving lengthy prison sentences handed down by a military court in Moscow in July 2024, on fabricated ‘terrorism’ grounds…
Maksim ZNAK
Andrzej POCZOBUT
A board member of the Union of Poles in Belarus, Andrzej Poczobut continued to be held in solitary confinement, serving an eight-year prison term in connection with his coverage of 2020 anti-government protests in Belarus…
