We, the undersigned civil society organisations, call for the immediate and unconditional release of Kashmiri journalist and human rights defender Irfan Mehraj. While on a professional assignment on 20 March 2023, Mehraj was summoned for questioning and arbitrarily detained by India’s National...

The Southern Transitional Council (STC) de facto authorities must immediately and unconditionally release human rights lawyer Sami Yassin Ka’id Marsh, who has been arbitrarily detained without charge for four months merely for his work seeking accountability and justice for human rights violations...

On 13 November 2023, Belay Manaye, co- founder and presenter of Ethio News, a YouTube based news channel, was arrested in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, by a group of uniformed police officers and other security personnel dressed in civilian clothing. To date, he has not been questioned or...

The Russian authorities are putting the health and life of Aleksei Gorinov at risk due to his treatment and conditions in detention, including being held in prolonged solitary confinement, not receiving adequate healthcare and forcing him to clear snow despite being ill. He was sentenced to seven...

On 1 March, Anacleto Micha Ndong, an Equatoguinean human rights defender, was transferred to the Malabo prison of Black Beach on pre-trial detention. He has been accused of outrage and calumny by a gendarme who Anacleto had accused of torturing him the last time he was detained in Black Beach, in...

On 30 January 2024, former opposition leader Job Sikhala was released after 595 days of arbitrary detention. Job Sikhala was arrested on 14 June 2022 and convicted on 3 May 2023 for obstruction of justice and given a suspended six-month sentence with an option of paying US$ 600 as fine. On 30...

In September 2023, the city of Derna in eastern Libya witnessed unprecedented and catastrophic flooding after Storm Daniel – an extreme weather event made more likely and intense by global warming – triggered the collapse of two ageing dams upstream from Derna. The torrents of water killed at least...

On the sixth month anniversary of the detention on trumped charges of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) journalist Stanis Bujakera, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, Sarah Jackson, said: “The release of Stanis Bujakera is well overdue. His continued...

The United Arab Emirates should immediately free and quash the sentence of the arbitrarily imprisoned Jordanian activist Ahmed al-Atoum, whose mother passed away on February 10, 2024 without saying her final goodbye to her son, MENA Rights Group, Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center (EDAC), Amnesty...

On 17 February, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) authorities released journalist Guhdar Zebari after more than three years of unjust imprisonment. Authorities in the KR-I arrested Guhdar Zebari in October 2020 along with four other journalists and activists. The Erbil Criminal Court sentenced...

In May 2022, the Gambian President accused human rights defender, Madi Jobarteh of being a “troublemaker” who wants to bring violence into the country. Since then, he has been receiving online threats, harassment and intimidation from the Gambian authorities (including unlawful surveillance) and...

Ukrainian citizen Oleksandr Marchenko, imprisoned in Russia on fabricated charges of espionage, continues to be harassed and ill-treated in custody. The penal authorities have intermittently placed Oleksandr Marchenko in punishment or confinement cells on spurious grounds and deny him contact with...