Our first case was a Syrian opposition party member, Naser al’ Ali, who was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. We wrote letters to Syrian officials in Syria, and visited Washington DC to speak with U.S. and Syrian officials. We publicized the plight of Naser al’ Ali with other groups working on Syrian POC’s with a full page ad in the New York Times.  In 1995, he was released. 

From 1995 to 1999, we worked to determine if Harjit Singh in India was secretly held by the police, or if he had been killed, as the police maintained. Harjit Singh was arrested in the early 1990’s for involvement in anti-government political activities. After four years, we concluded that Harjit Singh had been killed.

From 1999–2000, we worked to release 18 prisoners of conscience in Zanzibar (part of Tanzania).  These men and women were supporters of the Civic United Front (CUF), an opposition party.  On November 9, 2000, a newly elected president of Zanzibar gave amnesty to all 18 prisoners.

Adopted in February of 2001, we investigated why Sheikh ‘Ali bin ‘Ali al-Ghanim was arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison after a secret trial.  In September 2002, he was released from jail.

We worked for the release of Yue Tianxiang, a Chinese labor rights activist, sentenced to 10 years in prison speaking out, organizing labor, protesting the condition of laid off workers and exposing corruption.  He was released in 2008.

Leyla Zana became the first and only Kurdish woman elected to parliament since the foundation of the Turkish republic. She shocked the nation at her inauguration by saying in Kurdish, after reciting the Turkish loyalty oath that she would "struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish peoples may live together in a democratic framework."  She was sentenced to 15 years in prison for her non-violent actions to struggle against the annihilation of Kurdish ethnic identity. In June 2004, after almost a decade of imprisonment, Leyla Zana, along with three other former deputies of the Turkish parliament, were released from Ankara's Ulucanlar Prison.

In February 2005, we took on the case of Yury Bandazhevsky from Belarus, who devoted much of his working life to investigating the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion on the people of southern Belarus.  With his knowledge of the situation and as a respected medical academic, he was compelled to criticize the government’s response to the disaster.  Authorities responded to his criticism by arresting him in 1999.  He was successfully released in August 2005.

In 2006, we received the case of Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev, a citizen of Turkmenistan.  In February 2004, Mr. Durdykuliev, age 64, was arrested and confined to a psychiatric hospital solely to punish him for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression. He was release from prison in April, 2006.

In December 2006, we adopted the case of Mesfin Woldemariam, who had been convicted of inciting violence in an attempt to overthrow the government following 2005 elections amid allegations that the balloting was rigged. Woldemariam and 37 other opposition politicians and activists were pardoned in July, 2007.

In February 2008, we began writing letters on behalf of Mutabar Tadzhibaeva, chairwoman of the independent non-registered human rights organization Utiuraklar (Fiery Hearts) Club.  She was charged with “membership of an illegal organization” and “using funds from Western governments to prepare or distribute materials containing a threat to public order and security.” She denied all charges against her. In June, 2008, Mutabar Tadzhibaeva was released from Tashkent Womens' Prison and taken to her home in Margilan.  The remaining six years of her eight-year sentence were commuted to a three-year suspended sentence.  She was told that officially she had been released for health reasons.