Religious Leaders

​

1. Wang Yi — China

Role: Pastor, Early Rain Covenant Church, Chengdu

Status: Imprisoned since December 2018; sentence not due to end until 2027

​

Wang Yi, a former human-rights lawyer and legal scholar who converted to Christianity and founded one of China's most prominent unregistered "house churches," was arrested along with over 100 congregants when police raided Early Rain's Sunday service in December 2018. He was sentenced in 2019 to nine years for "inciting subversion of state power" and "illegal business operations", charges widely seen as a pretext for refusing to register his congregation with the state-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement. He has been held largely incommunicado, reportedly in solitary confinement, and has not been seen or heard from publicly since January 2024. Early Rain's remaining members continue to face raids; the church reported a fresh crackdown as recently as June 2026, with elders detained and children among those held during a police raid on a Sunday gathering. Amnesty International, CSW, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have all called the conviction baseless.

​

​

2. Salman al-Odah — Saudi Arabia

Role: Islamic scholar and reformist cleric

Status: Imprisoned since September 2017; prosecution is seeking the death penalty

​

Al-Odah, one of the Arab world's most influential religious scholars, was arrested hours after tweeting a prayer for reconciliation during the 2017 Saudi-Qatar diplomatic rift. He faces 37 charges before Saudi Arabia's Specialized Criminal Court, including alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and "seeking to corrupt society", charges rights groups say are a pretext for punishing his moderate, reform-minded religious views and past sympathy for Arab Spring protests. He has been held in solitary confinement for the entire duration of his detention (Amnesty International classifies this as amounting to torture), has lost roughly half his hearing and eyesight due to alleged medical neglect, and as of 2026 has still not received a final verdict, nearly nine years after his arrest, with the death penalty still formally on the table. Saudi authorities have refused UN experts access to assess his condition.

​

​

3. Mahvash Sabet — Iran

Role: Former member of the "Yaran" (Baha'i community leadership), poet and educator

Status: Under house arrest recovering from surgery; remains legally subject to recall to prison

​

Sabet is a member of Iran's Baha'i religious minority, systematically persecuted since the 1979 revolution. She was first imprisoned in 2008–2017 as part of the "Baha'i Seven," a group of national-level religious coordinators arrested for their faith. Rearrested in 2022 alongside fellow former Yaran member Fariba Kamalabadi (released in early 2026), she received a second 10-year sentence on national-security charges after a trial lasting roughly one hour. She has alleged torture in detention, including broken knees during an Evin Prison interrogation. In December 2024, after her health seriously deteriorated, she underwent emergency open-heart surgery and was released on medical furlough to her home in Tehran, but her sentence has not been overturned, and Baha'i advocacy groups warn she could be returned to prison once authorities deem her "recovered."

​

​

4. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima (the Panchen Lama) — China/Tibet

Role: Panchen Lama, second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism

Status: Whereabouts unknown; disappeared at age six in 1995 and never publicly seen since

​

In May 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama. Within days, Chinese authorities took him and his family into custody and installed their own candidate in his place. Beijing has since stated only that he is a "normal Chinese citizen" living a private life, but has never allowed independent access to confirm his identity, location, or wellbeing, despite decades of requests from the UN, foreign governments, and human rights organizations. Now approaching age 37, he would be the world's longest-held political/religious prisoner if his detention is confirmed as ongoing, a case rights groups describe as an enforced disappearance rather than an ordinary prosecution, precisely because no charges have ever been filed.

​

 

Political Figures

​

1. Jimmy Lai — Hong Kong

Role: Founder, Apple Daily newspaper; pro-democracy media figure

Status: Sentenced to 20 years in February 2026

​

Lai, a British citizen and outspoken critic of Beijing, was arrested in August 2020 shortly after China imposed its national security law on Hong Kong following the 2019 protests. In December 2025, after a trial lasting nearly two years, he was convicted of "collusion with foreign forces" and conspiracy to publish seditious material, largely over his calls for international sanctions and his newspaper's critical coverage of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments. He was sentenced on February 9, 2026 to 20 years. His case has drawn condemnation from the U.S. State Department, the UK government, and press-freedom organizations, who call it emblematic of the collapse of judicial independence and free expression in Hong Kong under the security law. Hong Kong and Chinese authorities maintain the conviction was a lawful response to genuine national-security threats. Lai, now in his late 70s and reportedly in poor health, remains a top diplomatic priority for both the UK and the Trump administration, which has raised his case directly with Beijing.

​
 

2. Osman Kavala — Turkey

Role: Philanthropist and civil-society organizer, founder of Anadolu Kültür

Status: Serving a life sentence without parole; detained continuously since October 2017

​

Kavala, a prominent supporter of cultural and civil-society projects in Turkey, was arrested in 2017 and accused of financing the 2013 Gezi Park protests in an attempt to overthrow the government. He was acquitted in 2020, but the acquittal was overturned on appeal, and in April 2022 he was convicted and given an aggravated life sentence. The European Court of Human Rights ruled as early as 2019 that his detention violated his rights and ordered his release; Turkey's refusal to comply led the Council of Europe to take the rare step of opening infringement proceedings against a member state in 2022. His case is now before the ECHR's Grand Chamber, which heard new arguments in March 2026. Nine years on, Kavala continues to be held in Istanbul's Marmara Prison.

​
 

3. Ilham Tohti — China

Role: Economist and Uyghur-rights advocate, former professor at Minzu University

Status: Serving a life sentence since September 2014

​

Tohti, an economics professor who founded the website Uyghur Online to promote dialogue between Uyghur and Han communities, was arrested in 2014 and convicted of "separatism" after a two-day trial, despite advocating consistently for peaceful engagement and regional autonomy rather than independence. He has been held largely incommunicado, his family has not been permitted to visit since 2017, and is believed to have spent much of his imprisonment in solitary confinement. He won the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2019 and the Martin Ennals Award in 2016. As of a March 2026 EU statement, he remains imprisoned, one of several Chinese human-rights figures, alongside Pastor Wang Yi and Jimmy Lai, named by EU officials in calls for release.

​
 

4. Alexei Gorinov — Russia

Role: Former municipal councillor, Krasnoselsky District, Moscow

Status: Imprisoned since April 2022; sentence now totals roughly ten years

​

Gorinov was the first person in Russia convicted under the wartime censorship laws passed after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, sentenced to seven years for telling a March 2022 council meeting that Russia was waging a war, not a "special operation", and that Ukrainian children were dying. While already imprisoned, he was hit with a second case in 2024, convicted of "justifying terrorism" over conversations with fellow inmates about the war, adding three more years. Rights groups describe his prison conditions, repeated stints in punishment cells, sleep deprivation, and reported denial of treatment for a chronic lung condition, as amounting to torture. The UN Special Rapporteur on Russia has repeatedly called for his immediate release, calling him a symbol of the price paid by peaceful anti-war voices in Russia.

​
 

5. Tundu Lissu — Tanzania

Role: Chairman, Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), Tanzania's main opposition party

Status: Held without trial since April 2025 on a capital charge; trial ongoing as of July 2026

​

Lissu, Tanzania's best-known opposition figure and a lawyer by training, survived an assassination attempt in 2017 that left him needing more than twenty operations; no one has ever been convicted over the shooting. He was arrested in April 2025, shortly after calling for electoral reform at a rally, and charged with treason, a capital offense in Tanzania that carries no right to bail. Days after his arrest, the electoral commission barred Chadema from contesting the October 2025 general election after the party refused to sign an electoral code of conduct without reform guarantees; the High Court later suspended the party from political activity altogether. The election went ahead with no major opposition candidate and returned President Samia Suluhu with over 97% of the vote; the aftermath saw the country's first major wave of election-related violence, with hundreds reportedly killed in protests and a national internet shutdown. Lissu's trial has since been postponed repeatedly, by five months as of last August, and it remains unresolved almost a year later, with disputes over secret witnesses testifying from concealed booths, a tactic a Tanzanian court itself ruled unconstitutional in February 2026 to the extent it denied the defense equivalent protections. As of late July 2026, reports indicate Tanzanian authorities may be preparing to add a second, non-bailable terrorism charge against him, and Lissu's own account issued an urgent statement warning that his life is at serious risk. Human Rights Watch has called the prosecution politically motivated; Lissu has never been convicted of any offense.