Dr. Aref Dalila, leading economist, writer and dissident was freed on 7 August, after seven years in prison. He was arrested in 2001, and sentenced in early 2002 to 10 years in prison with hard labour for calling for democracy and the end of corruption in Syria.
Despite his Supreme Court hearing violating all international standards of a fair trial he was imprisoned for seven years. Poor prison conditions and harsh treatment led to Dr Aref suffering poor health while detained.
Soon after his release, Dr. Aref told the BBC that ‘his views on the system had not changed and that he would continue to voice them.'
"I am thankful for all the efforts made by everyone at Amnesty International and all those who took part in actions on my behalf. We are united in the struggle for the causes of justice and democracy. This struggle is still ongoing”.
Uzbekistani human rights defender Mutabar Tadzhibaeva, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2006, was unexpectedly released on Monday, 2 June, 2008.
The prisoner of conscience, who won the 2008 Martin Ennals Award for human rights defenders last month, was driven to her home in Margilan and reunited with her family. According to Mutabar's oldest brother, she did not know that she was being released, but instead thought she was being taken to hospital for medical tests. Tadzhibaeva passed her thanks to NGOs including Amnesty International, which had campaigned for her release.
"I spent 900 days on a "torture island"; 700 of those days I spent in solitary confinement," she revealed. "I endured only because of the support of people who were concerned about my fate. Only this gave me strength. I want to thank them for not forgetting those nearest and dearest to me - that knowledge helped me remain determined."
On 24 May 1984 Billy Moore was seven hours away from dying on the electric chair when he was given a stay of execution. He had spent the previous three days under “death watch”, housed in a single cell where his every word and movement were recorded by two guards. The execution date was the 13th he had received; he was to receive two more before his death sentence was finally commuted on 21 August 1990.
A few days before his scheduled execution, two officers showed him the electric chair. They took off the sheet and said: “Billy look at this. You need to see how beautiful this chair is… you’re not going to be able to appreciate none of this when we’re strapping you down in it.”
Since his release from prison in 1992, Billy Moore, a committed Christian, has devoted his time to campaigning against the death penalty.
In December 1990 Amnesty International raised the case of the imprisoned Sudanese poet Mahjoub Sharif. He had not even been allowed to see his wife when the cards started arriving, brought in to him by sympathetic prison guards. He received some 2,000 cards, which he shared with the other prisoners and hung to decorate the drab walls of the cell. The constant message for the prisoners on most cards was “You are not forgotten”.
After Mahjoub Sharif left the prison, he managed to hide the cards from the Sudanese security services throughout 11 house searches, and in August 2008 carried them back to London, writing letters to every address there was to invite the senders, after 17 years, to a thank you party.
Two of the original letter writers came with friends to the celebration organized by Mahjoub in a church hall in London. Many others wrote back to say how happy they were to hear from him.
Amnesty supporters stop website being censored during China Olympic Games
During the opening week of the China Olympics in August journalists based at the Beijing media centre advised that certain websites including Amnesty International’s was blocked - despite assurances internet access would not be censored. The media attention and resulting global outrage this act generated saw an immediate unblocking of some sites including Amnesty. However Fulan Gong and Tibetans sites remained blocked throughout and continue to be blocked today.
Within the first four hours it was unblocked www.amnesty.org had some14 000 hits from Chinese residents. The numbers of visitors over the following days dramatically increased. Amnesty responded by ensuring relevant updates in Mandarin continued to be uploaded – able for the first time to access China’s 253 million internet users.
