A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not solid food.
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during The Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. In 1978, the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980, seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days.
The Cuban dissident movement is a political movement in Cuba whose aim is "to replace the current regime with a more democratic form of government". According to Human Rights Watch, the Cuban government represses nearly all forms of political dissent.
Nasser Zarafshan is an Iranian writer, translator, and attorney. He is most famous internationally for having been arrested while acting as the legal envoy of two of the families of dissident Iranian writers who were assassinated in November 1998 in what came to be known in Iran as the "Chain Murders" or "serial murders" case. The arrest was widely condemned by human rights groups. It is reported that Zarafshan had been tremendously critical of the shortcomings in the official examination into these killings. In 2002 he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and was released from prison in March 2007.
Bernard Fox is a former member of the Army Council of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Jackie "Teapot" McMullan is a former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Zouhair Yahyaoui was the first cyber-dissident to be pursued and condemned in Tunisia, a country that is often rated at the top of lists of Internet policing by independent third-party sources such as the OpenNet Initiative. He is the nephew of the judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui, who is also a vocal critic of the Tunisian regime and its lack of respect for judiciary processes. His cousin Amira Yahyaoui founded the NGO Al Bawsala.
Black Spring refers to the 2003 crackdown on Cuban dissidents. The government imprisoned 75 dissidents, that included 29 journalists, as well as librarians, human rights activists, and democracy activists, on the basis that they were acting as agents of the United States by accepting aid from the US government. Although Amnesty International adopted 75 Cubans as prisoners of conscience, according to Cuba "the 75 individuals arrested, tried and sentenced in March/April 2003 ... who were jailed are demonstrably not independent thinkers, writers or human rights activists, but persons directly in the pay of the US government ... those who were arrested and tried were charged not with criticizing the government, but for receiving American government funds and collaborating with U.S diplomats."
Manuel Vázquez Portal is a Cuban poet, writer and journalist known for his 2003 imprisonment.
Juan Adolfo Fernández Saínz is a Cuban journalist. Before his imprisonment, he was an independent journalist with the Patria news agency. Adolfo Fernández Sainz also contributed to foreign publications, particularly in Sweden. He was correspondent of the Russian human rights news agency Prima since 2001.
Fesshaye Yohannes was an Eritrean journalist who founded the weekly journal Setit and was a recipient of the Committee to Protect Journalists' 2002 International Press Freedom Award. Fesshaye was imprisoned without charges in September 2001, and died in government custody.
Masoud Lavasani, is an Iranian journalist and blogger. Lavasani was the culture editor of the newspaper Aftab-e-Yazd in Tehran and has also worked for Shargh, Hamshahri and Etemad as well as the Mehr News agency.
Kouhyar Goudarzi is an Iranian human rights activist, journalist and blogger who was imprisoned several times by the government of Iran. He previously served as an editor of Radio Zamane. He is a member of Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), serving as the head from 2005-2009.
Mohammad Davari is an Iranian journalist. After he documented abuses of prisoners at Kahrizak detention center, he was sentenced to five years in prison by the Iranian government, drawing international protest on his behalf.
Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández is a Cuban journalist who was imprisoned by the Cuban government from 1999-2001. His imprisonment attracted protest from several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, which named him a prisoner of conscience.
Abduljalil Abdulla al-Singace (52-year-old) is a Bahraini engineer, blogger, and human rights activist. He was arrested in 2009 and 2010 for his human rights activities and released later. In 2011, he was arrested, allegedly tortured and sexually abused, and sentenced to life imprisonment for pro-democracy activism during the Bahraini uprising.
Bahman Ahmadi Amouee is an Iranian journalist. He served as an editor at the pro-reform business daily Sarmayeh before the paper's 2009 closing and his own imprisonment on state security charges. He is married to fellow journalist Jila Baniyaghoob, who was also imprisoned for her journalistic work.
Kasra Nouri, is an Iranian lawyer and Sufi’s rights activist. He is the editor of Website "Majzooban-e noor" covers news about the Gonabadi dervishes religious community also He supported Mehdi Karroubi in 2009 Iranian presidential election.
Tomislav Kezarovski is a Macedonian journalist. He was jailed for allegedly revealing the identity of a protected witness in an article published in 2008 in the magazine Reporter 92. He was employed at the Skopje-based daily newspaper Nova Makedonija. His imprisonment drew harsh reactions from international non-governmental organizations and media requesting Macedonian courts to drop charges and release him.
Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, an Egyptian photojournalist, was arrested for taking photos at the Rabaa massacre 14 August 2013 in Cairo, Egypt and imprisoned during the post-coup unrest by the Egyptian government since 2013, where he faces the death penalty. By September 2018 he had been sentenced to a 5-year prison term and was expected to be released shortly thereafter; he was released on 4 March 2019.
