Human Rights Watch

The prestigious Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism celebrates the valor of people who put their lives on the line to create a world free from abuse, discrimination, and oppression.

Burundian intelligence officials, police, and youth from the ruling party have arbitrarily arrested and ill-treated scores of suspected opponents.

Gao, 71, has been incarcerated since her apprehension in April 2014 for allegedly leaking an internal Chinese Communist Party document disparaging human rights. She suffers from chronic heart pain, high blood pressure, and other diseases.

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, forcibly took him from his home in the city of Taizz on August 5, 2015, and have yet to respond to inquiries from his family about his whereabouts or why they are holding him.

In addition to the well-publicized arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of opposition politicians, Venezuelan authorities brought criminal charges against dozens of lesser-known critics over the past year.

The undersigned organizations denounce the continued attacks on and threats to journalists, media workers and human rights defenders, most recently the incidents in which human rights defender Pierre Claver Mbonimpa survived an attempt on his life, while journalist Esdras Ndikumana was the victim of a brutal attack by police and intelligence officials.

A leading Burundian human rights defender, Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, was shot and injured on the evening of August 3, 2015, in the capital, Bujumbura. He is in intensive care.

In a gesture of either craven capitulation to Beijing or inexcusable ignorance, UK immigration officials have denied a six-month business visa to the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei on the grounds that he failed to declare “a criminal conviction in China.”