In Brief Ilham Tohti, a public Uyghur intellectual and professor of economics at the Central Minorities University, was detained at the Beijing Capital International Airport on his way to the US on February 2, 2013. Tohti was later sentenced to life imprisonment on September 23, 2014 on charges of "separatism" by a court in China's Xinjiang region. Case History Tohti was with his daughter when police stopped them during security checks at the airport and prevented them from b

In Brief Mohammad Hossein Rafiee, a retired Tehran University professor and member of the Meli-Mazhabi (National-Religious) Alliance and Iran’s National Peace Council, was sentenced to six years in prison on May 25, 2015. He was released on September 21, 2016. Case History Rafiee, 71, was charged with leading propaganda against the state and with active membership in the Council of Nationalist-Religious Activists, which had been deemed illegal. However, because Rafiee suffers

In Brief Homa Hoodfar, a professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, was detained in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison on June 6, 2016. She was released on September 26, 2016. Case History Hoodfar, who is Iranian-Canadian and was 65 years old at the time of her detention, suffers from a rare neurological disease that causes severe muscle weakness. She was hospitalized at one point before being returned to her cell, according to her family. She was detained by authoriti

In Brief In June 2013 sociologist and political activist Saeed Madani was sentenced to six years in prison and ten years in exile on charges of “propaganda against the state” and “acting against national security.” Mandani been held without charge since January 7, 2012. Case History Security forces arrested Saeed Madani in 2012 for his political activism and membership in the now-banned Nationalist-Religious Alliance political opposition group. Following Madani's arrest, he s

In Brief Sidig Noreen Ali Abdalla, a professor at West Kordofan University who served as a supervisor of the Greater Darfur Students' Association, was arrested on January 16, 2014 for his alleged advocacy on the situation in Darfur. Formal charges have yet to be pressed. Case History Despite the lack of charges, Abdalla has been detained without charge by the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) in El-Obeid, town in the state of North Kordofan. The peri

In Brief (updated April 5, 2021) Abdul Jalil Al-Singace, a prominent human rights activist in Bahrain, was first arrested on March 17, 2011 during the Arab Spring revolution, and charged with plotting to "topple the government.” He was sentenced to life in Jau Prison on June 22, 2011. Since 2011, Al-Singace has been in Jau Prison—Bahrain’s largest prison, where the lack of adequate sanitation led to a scabies outbreak in December 2011—on a life sentence for allegedly “plottin

In Brief Abdul Kareem Yousef Al-Khodr, a professor of Comparative Jurisprudence at Qassim University in Saudi Arabia, was sentenced in June 2013 to eight years in prison and given a 10-year travel ban. Case History In February 2013, when the first session of the trial was set to begin, Al-Khodr authorized his lawyer, Abdulaziz Al-Shubaili, to attend in his place. In spite of repeated pleas to push back the date of the trial, supported by evidence of Al-Khodr’s father’s deteri

In Brief Syed Hamid Hussein, a 34-year-old chemistry professor at Bacha Khan University in northwest Pakistan, died on January 20, 2016 when militants stormed the campus, killing 22 people and injuring 51. Case History Hamid has been hailed as a hero by his students. As Zahoor Ahmed, a student of geology, told AFP, when he heard the first gunshots, Hamid told him not to leave the building. Ahmed continued to describe the following: “[Dr Hamid] was holding a pistol in his hand

In Brief Naqib Khpulwak, an assistant law professor at the American University in Kabul, Afghanistan, was among the 16 students and faculty killed in a terrorist attack on the campus in August 24, 2016. Case History Khpulwak taught courses on property rights and family law, and he cotaught courses in alternative conflict resolution and international law. He also worked as a counselor and volunteer lecturer for organizations in Afghanistan, including NRC Afghanistan and Nangar

On November 30, Ethiopian security forces arrested Merera Gudina on the basis of rendering support to terrorism and attempting to “disrupt constitutional order.” He had just returned to Ethiopia after participating in a hearing at the European parliament about the crisis in his home country. Ethiopia’s Communication Affairs Minister, Negeri Lencho, says his government has been providing Merera with protection as a prominent member of a legal opposition party. Lencho acknowle

A professor of English was hacked to death and nearly beheaded near his home in northwestern Bangladesh on Saturday, in what the police said they suspected was the latest in a series of targeted killings by Islamist militants. The professor, Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, 61, was attacked by assailants about 60 yards from his home and died at the scene, said Mohammad Shamsuddin, the commissioner of the metropolitan police in the city of Rajshahi. Neighbors said they had heard the vi

An Egyptian court sentenced ousted President Mohammed Morsi to death, and this ruling also applies to another 106 people. Among them is Emad Shahin, the editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and the professor of political science. Shahin was accused of colluding with Iran and the Palestinian group Hama to destabilize Egypt and was thus sentenced in absentia to death. The scholar currently lives in the US and is a visiting professor at Georgetown University's Sch