Urgent Action update: 529 patients are still awaiting medical evacuation in Syria
29 of the 558 patients awaiting medical evacuation in besieged Eastern Ghouta have been evacuated and transferred.
Urgent Action update: Chinese lawyer refused access to detained activist
Liu Feiyue who is facing charges of “inciting subversion of state power”, has been again unable to meet his lawyer.
Urgent Action update: Sentenced activist remains at risk of torture in China
Activist Wu Gan (better known by his pen name Tufu, ‘The Butcher’) was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.
Urgent Action good news: Missing Bangladeshi academic returned home
Mubashar Hasan, a well-known Bangladeshi academic who went missing was returned home on 22 December, after 44 days.
Urgent Action: Environmental activists arbitrarily jailed in Cambodia
Two environmental activists were arrested in Cambodia for filming two vessels they suspected of illegally exporting sand.
Urgent Action: Mother loses custody of kids for son's long hair in Russia
Russian authorities have removed seven children from their adoptive mother after she allowed their hair to grow long.
End Action: Poland's President approves judicial overhaul bills
On 8 December, Poland’s Parliament passed two bills which increase the government’s control of the judiciary.
Urgent Action: Head of dissolved main opposition party jailed
On 3 September, Kem Sokha, president of the dissolved main opposition party, was arrested at his house in Tuol Kork
Urgent Action: Egypt continues to arrest government critics
On 16 November, security agents in plain clothes arrested Egyptian social media figure Islam al-Refaei
Urgent Action: Venezuela to run out of antiretrovirals in 2018
The government has reportedly not yet signed an urgently needed order for the purchase of vital antiretroviral medication