Bahraini student Ali Mohamed Hakeem al-Arab was arrested on 9 February and taken to the Criminal Investigations Directorate where he alleges he was tortured and forced to “confess”. He has been denied access to a lawyer. Upon transfer to Dry Dock Prison on 7 March, he said he was repeatedly beaten on both legs. He remains at risk of further torture and other ill-treatment.

Lee Ming-cheh is the first foreign NGO worker to be detained after the new Foreign NGO Management Law went into effect and is under investigation for “endangering national security”. No direct contact has been made with him since he first went missing on 19 March 2017 after crossing the border into China. His whereabouts remain unknown.

Stacey Johnson, aged 47, is scheduled to be executed in Arkansas on 20 April for a 1993 murder. Three state Supreme Court Justices argued that he was deprived of a fair trial by being denied access to information regarding the credibility of a key witness against him.

Jack Jones, aged 52, is scheduled to be executed in Arkansas on 24 April for a murder committed in 1995. The jurors who sentenced him to death did not know he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a serious mental disability, shortly before the crime.

Gamila Seryel-Dain, the last jailed activist from the group of five activists sentenced in the ‘Abdeen case’ to two years in prison for violating Egypt’s repressive 2013 protest law, was released on 14 March after receiving a presidential pardon. All five activists have now been released.

Despite the fact that the oral trial scheduled for 20 March against three members of the Chañaral Wichí Indigenous community for defending their territory was suspended, the legal proceedings which violate their right to defence and access to justice remain open.

Cuban authorities sentenced human rights defender Eduardo Cardet to three years in prison after holding him in provisional prison in Holguín, south-east Cuba, since November 2016. He is a prisoner of conscience who must be released immediately and unconditionally.

The Mexican lower house of Congress has until 30 April to vote on the General Law on Torture. The current version of the bill has amendments that, if passed, would increase impunity for torture and undermine access to justice in relation to torture complaints.

Morocco’s Court of Cassation will hear Ali Aarrass on 29 March, four years after he lodged an appeal. He is serving a 12-year prison sentence after being unfairly convicted based on evidence obtained under torture. He has been in solitary confinement since October 2016.

Over 4000 residents of Otodogbame waterfront community in Lagos, Nigeria were on 26 March forcibly evicted from their homes by Lagos State officials. No notice was issued to the residents prior to the forced eviction. Several residents were injured during the incident as police used excessive force.