Group Category: Criminal Justice & Political Prisoners

Jacqueline Moudeïna, a Chadian lawyer and human rights activist, leads the effort to bring to trial the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré and to achieve justice for his victims.

Habré, president of Chad from 1982 to 1990, is accused of eliminating anyone who threatened his authority.  The files of his dreaded political police, recovered by Human Rights Watch, reveal the names of 1,208 people who were killed or died in detention and 12,321 victims of human rights violations. After he was deposed and fled to Senegal, Habré lived in quiet luxury in Dakar for 22 years.

Based in Oakland, CA, Courage to Resist aims to provide political, emotional, legal, and material support to GI resisters and all military objectors critical of the U.S. government’s current policies. Among its current efforts, Courage to Resist hosts the Bradley Manning Defense Fund in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network. This Network is a grassroots initiative formed to defend and support whistleblower Pfc. Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning), both in court and in prison—for example, by subsidizing visits from family and friends.

The Innocence Project (IP) was founded in 1992 to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. Since 1989 post-conviction DNA testing of forensic evidence has exonerated 274 wrongfully convicted people in the United States, including seventeen who were sentenced to death. The Innocence Project was either the attorney-of-record or assisted in the majority of cases.

The Free My Family Campaign was created to support the many Iranian citizens who are imprisoned for having expressed ideas contrary to those of their ruling government. In addition to these violations of freedom of speech, families of Iranian prisoners of conscience are also banned from giving interviews, and often harassed, threatened, and sometimes arrested. The goal of Free My Family is to use global solidarity networks to advocate for these prisoners’ freedom.

EarthRights International (ERI) combines the power of law and the power of people in defense of earth rights. We define earth rights as those rights that demonstrate the connection between human well-being and a sound environment, and include the right to a healthy environment, the right to speak out and act to protect the environment, and the right to participate in development decisions. We specialize in fact-finding and legal actions against perpetrators of earth rights abuses, training for grassroots and community leaders, and advocacy campaigns.

Burmese political prisoners, which currently number 2,076, have been subjected to severe torture, cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment for many years under the oppressive military dictatorship in Burma. AAPP, or The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), was formed in 2000 to provide vital humanitarian assistance to current political prisoners and their families inside Burma, as well as former political prisoners both inside Burma and on the Thai-Burma border.

Amnesty International’s (AI) mission is to undertake targeted research, advocacy, and campaigning focused on preventing and ending grave human rights abuses. AI investigates, monitors, and exposes human rights abuses, educates people, and mobilizes our 3 million activists globally to help transform societies and create a safer, more just world. Our vision is of a world in which every person—regardless of race, religion, gender, or ethnicity—enjoys all of the rights enshrined in international human rights law.Amnesty International is a multi-year grantee.