Urgent Action Network blog

Here in the UK and in my home country, USA, women are often put in positions in which our physical safety and bodily autonomy are at risk, but at the same time, we haven’t really had to fight for our rights in the way many other women...

After more than two years of unfair hearings, 11 activists arrested for standing up for human rights in Turkey will finally hear the court’s decision on their case on 19 February 2020. The charges they’re facing brand them as terrorist

On 9 May, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known as Ahok, was convicted of blasphemy. He was immediately sentenced to two years in prison. This is despite evidence that his words had been twisted for political purposes. Ahok, who is a...

This morning I left the house as the sun was rising, resenting the onset of winter. Dark mornings, dark evenings, and only being able to see daylight through my office window. But as I walked to work, the sunrise, with its pink and...

By Richard Ratcliffe Today marks six months since my wife, Nazanin, was taken and put in an Iranian prison. It marks six months since Gabriella, our two-year-old daughter, had her passport confiscated so that she would be kept in Iran...

Two sons murdered. A third son shot. No one brought to justice. A family torn apart by Brazil’s culture of violence. It’s hard to imagine a more heartbreaking story than that of Jorge Lazaro Samba Nunes dos Santos. His family has been...

On Tuesday I was meant to see my father for the first time in five years. Instead he is spending his 1,918th night in prison in Iran. I am heartbroken. My father is 76 years old. He is a British-Iranian citizen and was arrested in Iran...

Today marks 100 days since British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran’s airport as she prepared to fly home to the UK with her young daughter. She’s been detained ever since. One hundred days...

On 17 August the Supreme Court of Tucumán, a state in north Argentina, said there were not enough reasons to keep Belén, 27, in pre-trial detention. The Supreme Court of Tucumán is yet to issue a final ruling on the eight-year sentence...

Having a miscarriage is a traumatic and painful experience for any woman. How did Argentina care for one young woman who went to hospital in agony? By putting her in prison – for eight years. Call for Belén's freedom now 25-year old...

By Kamran Foroughi Five years next week. More than 1,800 groundhog days and counting. The wait is endless. How many more days are left? It could be one. It could be as many as the rest of my dad’s life. We all feel dad’s sentence every...

Update 4 April 2016: Good news! Today, Mahdi Abu Deeb finally walked free after five unjust years in a Bahraini prison. Thank you so much to everyone who campaigned for his release – your actions, tweets and letters have played a vital...

In many ways 2015 has been a great year for LGBTI rights. We have seen same sex marriage legalised in Ireland and the USA (and many other countries), decriminalisation of homosexuality in Mozambique, and new anti-discrimination laws in...

To say that Beyonce stole the spotlight at the Super Bowl 50 half-time show is an understatement. Coldplay’s indie rock best was no match for Beyonce’s powerful performance of ‘Formation’, reaffirming her status as one of the world's...

Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, known as 'Shawkan', is facing imprisonment for documenting Egyptian security forces crushing a mass sit-in in Cairo, for British photo agency Demotix. He will be tried on 26 March in Cairo...

Does this set of circumstances sound familiar? A man from a poor background , with an IQ below 70; a score so low that he has difficulty comprehending what is happening to him. His implication in a serious crime , in which a dominant...

'When the worshippers saw the police van outside the mosque, they knew someone would be flogged today.' On this day last year, just after noon, security officials in Saudi Arabia led a 30-year-old man into a square in Jeddah. A crowd...

'The oppressor dies and he is forgotten, the free man is jailed and he is mentioned everywhere.' Waleed Abu al-Khair Today is Human Rights Day – marking the day when, 67 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights came into...

The end was almost in sight for Albert Woodfox this year. First sent to solitary confinement in Louisiana, USA, in 1972, his four decades in isolation looked like they would be over when Albert’s original conviction was overturned (for...

Samar Badawi's husband is Waleed Abu al-Khair, a prominent human rights lawyer in Saudi Arabia. Waleed is in prison, serving a 15-year sentence for speaking out about human rights. Words are not enough for me to express how proud I am...