Fighting for individuals’ rights
Across all of our work, Amnesty International exposes individual cases of human rights abuses – and fights for freedom.
At any given time, we are campaigning for hundreds of people. In many cases, we work for years to win someone’s freedom, and in some cases we’re the only organization fighting for them.
Throughout our history, we have helped secure freedom for thousands of people who were imprisoned simply for exercising their human rights.
Below are some of the cases we’re campaigning for right now – cases where your activism today can make a difference.
Leonard Peltier, an Anishinabe-Lakota Native American, is a federal prisoner serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in 1975. Amnesty International (AI) has studied his case extensively over many years and remains seriously concerned about the fairness of proceedings leading to his trial and conviction.
Toffiq al-Bihani is a 45-year-old Yemeni national who has been held at Guantánamo Bay since early 2003 without being charged with a crime.
Mustafa al-Hawsawi was captured in Pakistan by Pakistani agents in March 2003 and was transferred to the custody of the United States. He was held in secret CIA black sites until September 2006, when he was transferred to Guantánamo Bay and U.S. officials finally acknowledged his imprisonment.
Obaidullah was captured from his home in Afghanistan during a night raid by U.S. Special Forces in July 2002. The raid was conducted on a tip from an unknown source. For more than 13 years, he has been incarcerated without trial some 8,000 miles from his home and family in Afghanistan.
In May 2014, Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years behind bars, 1,000 lashes, a 10-year travel ban, and a lifetime ban from appearing in the media. He was convicted of violating Saudi Arabia's draconian information technology law and "insulting Islam."
Bahareh Hedayat is an Iranian student activist in prison for 10 years on charges including "insulting the president."
On February 19, 2016, Albert Woodfox, the last imprisoned member of the Angola 3, was released after more than four decades in solitary confinement.
Tural Abbasli, aged 29, is a blogger and youth leader in Azerbaijan. In April 2011, he was arrested and later sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison. Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience, and demands his release.
The state of Georgia shamefully executed Troy Davis on September 21, 2011 despite serious doubts about his guilt. But our fight to abolish the death penalty lives on.
Jalila al-Salman and Mahdi 'Issa Mahdi Abu Dheeb, leaders of the Bahrain Teachers' Association (BTA), were arrested in March and April 2011 in connection with the BTA's calls for strikes amid the protests at that time, and have been sentenced by a military court to 3 and 10 years in prison, respectively.
