A youth fundraising update for March 2017 featuring news of some Give it Up for Human Rights Events and of an exciting idea that came out of the recent Amnesty Youth Conference

Men believed to be gay are being abducted, tortured or even killed in Chechnya as part of a coordinated campaign with impunity.

The UN Committee against Torture requested the Moroccan authorities to improve detention conditions for Belgian-Moroccan Ali Aarrass, who has been held in solitary confinement for nearly six months. Appeal proceedings in his case are also underway.

On 29 March, the Federal Appeal Court in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sentenced prominent Emirati economist and academic, Dr Nasser bin Ghaith to ten years in prison. He was convicted on various charges including “insulting the UAE”.

A family of four human rights defenders were arrested in Holguín, south-east Cuba, following the death of Fidel Castro. T

Kenneth Williams, aged 38, is due to be executed in Arkansas on 27 April for a murder committed during a prison escape in 1999.

Human rights lawyer Robert Sann Aung has been receiving death threats and insulting messages since the assassination of another prominent lawyer in Myanmar.

Two days after Fidel Castro’s death, a family of four human rights defenders were arrested in Holguín, south-east Cuba. They received a one-year sentence, and the three siblings are currently on hunger strike.

Dr Ali Esa Mansoor al-Ekri, a Bahraini consultant surgeon and activist, has been released after completing his five-year prison sentence. He was a prisoner of conscience.

Paul Storey, aged 32, is scheduled to be executed in Texas on 12 April. Among those who are calling for clemency are the parents of the man he was convicted of killing in 2006. One of the jurors who voted for the death sentence also opposes the execution.