I would like to turn whole buildings, streets and cities into "memorials“, "remembrances“, into "acts of solidarity". It is a commentary in these times to shift attention from our sensitivities and inconveniences to those who are currently locked up and forgotten in the prison cells of this world. People who have actively stood up for freedom, truth, and justice and have now lost their freedom for political reasons. It is a call not to forget these people.
-Nasan Tur-





JULIAN PAUL ASSANGE is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. A series of leaks provided by U.S. Army intel- ligence analyst Chelsea Manning were published On WikiLeaks in 2010. These leaks included the Baghdad Airstrike Collateral Murder Video, the Af- ghanistan War Logs between others and blamed the U.S. Army of war crimes. After the leaks, the United States government launched a criminal in- vestigation into WikiLeaks. In 2012 Assange took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London and stayed there 7 years. On April 11, 2019, Assange’s asylum was withdrawn and he was arrested by the London police. Since then he has been held in Bel- marsh Maximum Security Prison.

JOSHUA WONG is a dissident, student activist and politi- cian. He co-founded the high school and college student activist group Scholarism in Hong Kong in 2011 and gained widespread international attention in 2014 as one of the spokespersons for the Umbrella Movement. In 2017, he was nomi- nated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Since December 2, 2020, Wong has been detained for holding an unauthorised vigil to commemorate the victims of the Tian’anmen massacre in Beijing.

SHAKIRO (Djeukam Loi Midrel) is an influencer, LGBT activist, and transgender woman who is ar- rested in Cameroon due to ‘attempted homosexu- ality’. She has been arrested on the 8th of February and cestodes at the Douala New Bell Prison until the court makes further decisions. She is facing a possible penalty of six months up to five years im- prisonment.

RAIF MUHAMMAD BADAWI is a Saudi blogger, dissident and activist, as well as the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals. Badawi was arrested in 2012 on a charge of „insulting Islam through electro- nic channels“ and brought to court on several char- ges, including apostasy. In 2013 he was sentenced to seven years in prison, torture and 600 lashes. In 2014 his sentence was increased to 10 years in pri- son,1,000lashes,andafine.

ABDULHADI AL-KHAWAJA is a Bahraini human rights activist. In 2011 he publicly criticized the government’s brutal response to anti-government protests. After that he was attacked in his home by masked men and got beaten until he lost conscious- ness. On June 22, 2011 al-Khawaja was sentenced to life in prison among eight other prodemocracy activists.

DARYA CHULTSOVA is a journalist from Belarus. She worked for the television channel Belsat TV. She and her colleague Katsyaryna Andreyeva were arrested on November 15, 2020 for reporting live on a violent dispersal of a rally in Minsk memo- rating murdered protester Raman Bandarenka and the destruction of a national memorial in the so-called Square of Change by security forces. Three months later Chultsova and Andrejeva were sentenced to two years in a prison camp

FRENCHIE MAE CUMPIO is a journalist, radio anchor woman and community broadcaster from the Philippines. She is the executive director of the Eastern Vista news website. In February of 2020 police raided Eastern Vista’s office, and arrested Cumpio along with four other activ- ists. Before her arrest Cumpio has covered many stories about alleged military and police abuses. As of late 2021 no trial date has yet been set for the case.

SELAHATTIN DEMIRTAŞ is a Kurdish politician and has been member of the parliament of Tur- key since 2007. He was co-leader of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). Demirtaş was the presidential candidate of the HDP in the 2014 presidential election, finishing
in third place. He became one of the most popu- lar politicians with serious chances in the 2018 presidential elections. On 3 November 2016 he got arrested and is still kept in prison. The Euro- pean Court of Human Rights called for releasing Demirtaş, stating that his arrest in 2016 violated his freedom of speech and his right to participate in the elections.

OSMAN KAVALA is a Turkish human rights ac- tivist and businessman. He has been supporting numerous civil society organizations since the early 1990s and is the founder and the chairman of the board of directors of the cultural institution Anadolu Kültür. In 2019 he received the 21st Euro- pean Archaeological Heritage Prize and the 17th Ayşenur Zarakolu Freedom of Thought and Ex- pression Award. On October 18, 2017 Kavala was detained at the Istanbul Atatürk Airport after visi- ting to Gaziantep for a joint project with Goethe Institute. In December 2019, the European Court of Human Rights called for Kavala’s release. On February 18, 2020, Kavala was surprisingly acquitted for lack of evidence. A few hours later, the Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office issued a new arrest warrant for Kavala. He is still in custody.

NARGES MOHAMMADI is an Iranian human rights activist and the vice president of the Defen- ders of Human Rights Center (DHRC). Following the nationwide protests in November 2019 and the unlawful killing of hundreds of protesters, Nar- ges Mohammadi vocally supported the bereaved family members seeking truth and justice for their killed loved ones. In May 2021, Tehran’s Second Criminal Court sentenced Narges Mohammadi to two-and-a-half years in prison, 80 lashes and two separate fines for charges for “spreading pro- paganda against the system.”

ALEXEI ANATOLIEVICH NAVALNY is a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anticorruption ac- tivist. He gained international public awareness by organizing antigovernment demonstrations and campaigning for reforms against corruption in Russia and the politics of President Vladimir Pu- tin. He is chairman of the Russia Future Party and founder of the AntiCorruption Foundation (FBK). In December 2016, Navalny launched his presi- dential campaign for the 2018 presidential electi- on but he was barred by Russia’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) due to prior criminal convicti- ons. In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in serious condition after he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok. On January 17, 2021, he was detained on accusations of violating parole conditions and given more than three-and-a-half years of jail

AUNG SAN SUU KYI Is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar from 2016 to 2021. On February 1, 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested by the military during the 2021 coup d’état after the military declared the November 2020 Myanmar general election results to be fraudulent. On December 6, 2021, she was sentenced to four years in prison for inciting violence and violating Corona Measures, which was reduced to two years by the military junta. On January 10, 2022, she was sen- tenced to an additional four years in prison for importing and possessing walkie-talkies. The United Nations, most European countries, and the United States of America condemned the arrests, trials, and sentences as politically motivated.

ILHAM TOHTI is an Uighur economist, writer and scholar. He is serving a life sentence on charges of separatism. He is the founder of the Uighur news website Uighurbiz, which was published in Chinese and Uighur and focused on Uighur rights and social issues, and has been denied freedom since 2014.

ZHANG ZHAN is an independent video journalist, jailed 2020 after reporting on the Covid pandemic in Wuhan. Her reports challenged official claims about the Wuhan lockdown and the outbreak, and reveales facts which authorities had attempted to cover-up. Zhang is currently being held at the Shanghai City Women’s Prison.

NASRIN SOTOUDEH is a human rights lawyer in Iran who represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians as well as prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. She has also re- presented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab and fight an ongoing battle against rights of women, children and minorities. Sotoudeh was arrested in Septem- ber 2010 on charges of spreading propaganda and conspi- ring to harm state security and spend 6 years in jail. In June 2018 she was again arrested, sentenced to a 10-year jail period in Tehran, after being charged with several national security-related offences.