More than 60 heavily armed individuals entered Asháninka Meantari Indigenous community territory in the Central Peruvian rainforest and forced out 21 families by subjecting them to death threats.

Letter-writing changes lives. A letter from you could help free a prisoner, stop an execution or help a bereaved family receive justice. This edition of Real Lives is produced for those wishing to write more letters in support of individuals at risk.

Russian activists Seroe Fioletovoe and Viktoriya Miroshnichenko were released unharmed after spending 15 days in detention in the pro-Russian separatist-controlled Donetsk, in Ukraine. The activists have now returned to Russia.

Within 10 days of each other, three unassociated Vietnamese human rights defenders were arrested in January and are currently being held in incommunicado pre-trial detention.

Four months after the launch of major security operations in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State, the fate and whereabouts of hundreds of detained Rohingya are still unknown.

17-year-old Palestinian Ahmad Azmi Abdurrahman Hanatsheh was arrested by Israeli forces on 1 August 2016. He was initially placed under a six month administrative detention order, which was renewed by a further two months on 31 January.

The execution of Hamid Ahmadi, an Iranian man arrested when he was just 17 years old, has been rescheduled for 18 February. He continues to be held in solitary confinement in Lakan prison in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, further exacerbating his mental anguish.

Musasa Tshibanda, an activist from the youth movement Lutte pour le Changement (LUCHA) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was released on 8 February.

Jordanian poet and journalist Tayseer Salman al-Najjar appeared before the Criminal Chamber of the Federal Appeal Court in Abu Dhabi on 18 January, and again on 1 February, facing charges of “damaging the reputation and prestige of the Emirati state”, in connection with a comment he posted on Facebook.

A group of paramilitaries entered the Humanitarian Zone of Nueva Esperanza en Dios in the Cacarica river basin in north-west Colombia looking for several individuals which they claimed were on a death list.