The trial of Buzurgmekhr Yorov, a lawyer representing members of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), began in May.

Amendments to Austria’s asylum law were signed into law by the outgoing federal president and entered into force.

Human rights defender Mohammed Saleh al-Bajadi was released on 7 April from a rehabilitation centre where he had spent four months after being discharged from prison in November 2015.

Cairo judges ordered on 5 June the renewed detention of two human rights defenders, Dr Ahmed Abdullah and Mina Thabet. Both are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their human rights work with the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms.

Three men remain in detention and now face criminal charges for planning peaceful demonstrations in Kazakhstan. They are prisoners of conscience detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

A group of hooded people attacked the vehicle in which human rights defenders Raquel Sánchez and Oscar Alfredo Ríos Santos were traveling. Raquel Sánchez was hit on the head, which caused a severe wound. There are concerns that the attack was an attempt to stop the pair from carrying out their human rights work.

Imprisoned human rights defender and lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, began a hunger strike on 7 June to protest the prison authorities’ refusal to provide him with adequate medical care and because of his ongoing ill-treatment.

Kamal Foroughi, a 76-year-old British-Iranian serving an eight-year prison term in Tehran’s Evin Prison, was taken to hospital and received a number of medical tests in November 2015.

A 76-year-old British-Iranian businessman, Kamal Foroughi, is serving an eight-year prison term on charges including espionage

Blogger and pioneering anti-censorship activist Hossein Ronaghi Maleki was released on temporary medical leave on 4 May.