In December 2025, an Additional Sessions Court in Lalian, Punjab, Pakistan, convicted Mubarak Ahmad Sani, an Ahmadi Muslim, to life imprisonment for blasphemy because of his memorization of the Quran and religious interpretation and teaching as an Ahmadi Muslim. The court treated this status — being a Hafiz-e-Qur’an — not as an act of devotion, but as incriminating…
On 27 December 2025, eight Baha’i women from Isfahan were arrested after reporting to Branch 2 of the Sentence Enforcement Office of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court to begin serving their prison sentences. They were transferred to Dolat Abad Prison in Isfahan. The women are Neda Badakhsh, Neda Emadi, Parastou Hakim, Shana Shoghifar, Mojgan Shahrezaie, Negin…
In September 2025, an İstanbul court convicted 19 women and girls on terrorism-related charges due to their alleged association with the faith-based Gülen movement, which the Turkish government designates as a terrorist organisation. The case, known as the “girls’ trial,” involved women and girls, including high school students, accused solely on the basis of routine…
Gao Zhisheng is a Chinese human rights lawyer who was first detained by the Chinese authorities in 2006. Before this, he was notable for frequently taking on human rights cases, and was known for defending religious minorities. Between 2006 and 2011 he was disappeared multiple times and suffered beatings and torture. From 2011-2014 he served…
Aida is an Iranian Christian convert from Islam detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, who recently suffered a spinal fracture after falling from her bunk bed in the early hours of 31 October. She was sent back to prison later that day, denied proper medical treatment, despite the severe nature of her injuries and ongoing health…
Hakop Gochumyan was arrested on 15 August 2023 by the authorities in Pardis, while his family was having dinner at a friend’s home. The authorities confiscated religious material during the arrest. In February 2024, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “engaging in deviant proselytising activity that contradicts the sacred law of Islam”…
Pastor Huang Yizi is a well-known church leader in Wenzhou, Zheiajang Province. He was taken into custody by Pingyang Public Security alongside four other church members from Ningbo, Quzhou and Taizhou, all also in Zhejiang Province, on 26 June 2025. Two members were released on bail in July, while two others remained in detention. Pastor Huang…
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, once the de facto leader of Myanmar and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, spent her 80th birthday imprisoned under harsh conditions, serving a 27-year sentence following the 2021 military coup that overthrew her elected government. Once celebrated for her decades-long nonviolent struggle for democracy, Suu Kyi has now been held incommunicado…
Junaid Hafeez, a university lecturer in Pakistan, was sentenced to death in December 2019 on blasphemy charges after allegedly posting derogatory comments about the Prophet Muhammad on social media. Arrested in 2013, he has since faced repeated trial delays and has been held in solitary confinement due to attacks by fellow prisoners. His first lawyer,…
Renagul Gheni is imprisoned for her Uyghur identity and religious beliefs. In 2018, Chinese authorities detained Renagul, an elementary school art teacher and mother of two, in Cherchen (Qiemo) county, Xinjiang. She was reportedly arrested for offering funeral prayers for her father and possessing a Qur’an, which she had also loaned to others. Gheni was…