Hiroji Yamashiro remains in detention following the denial of his Special Appeal for bail by the Supreme Court on 20 February 2017. Arrested for his role in protests against new U.S. military construction projects in Okinawa, Hiroji Yamashiro has not been able to see his family since 17 October 2016. His next court hearing is scheduled for 17 March 2017.

Loghman Sawari, an Iranian refugee, was granted bail on 14 February but continues to face criminal charges for using false information to obtain a passport after he flew to Fiji on around 24 January 2017 and attempted to claim asylum there.

Suthar Batumalai and B. Rames Batumalai are scheduled to be executed on Friday, 24 February 2017. The brothers were convicted of murder in 2010 on the basis of circumstantial evidence and sentenced to the mandatory death penalty.

British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is suffering with severe arm, neck and back pain and needs urgent hospitalization.

Azizi Mirmahaleh, a 60-year old woman from Iran, is currently in a detention centre in Laval, Québec, awaiting her scheduled deportation on 28 February.

Human rights defender and former prisoner of conscience Anas Barghouti has agreed to a plea bargain to avoid prison.

Prisoner of conscience Nabeel Rajab remains on trial for comments posted on Twitter. The verdict pursuant to his trial has been repeatedly postponed since October 2016. He also faces a new trial on separate charges related to TV interviews he gave. He faces up to 18 years in prison if convicted in both cases.

Amnesty International interviewed 31 men who were detained at Saydnaya, four prison officials or guards who previously worked at Saydnaya, three Syrian former judges, three doctors who worked at Tishreen Military Hospital, four Syrian lawyers, 17 international and national experts on detention in Syria and 22 family members of people who were or still are detained at Saydnaya.
Names have been changed to protect identities.

Petition calling on Russia and the USA to use their global influence to ensure that independent prison monitors are allowed in to investigate conditions in Syria’s torture prisons.

Bahraini activist Nader Abdulemam was arrested on 18 February and taken to Jaw prison to serve the remaining four and a half months of a prison sentence handed down to him for participating in and calling on people to join an illegal march in Manama in 2013. He is a prisoner of conscience.