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Alireza Asgari is a labor activist and member of Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations. Alireza Asgari was violently arrested along with 60 Coordinating Committee members on June 15, 2012 after security forces raided the annual general membership of the Coordinating Committee. Alireza was put on trial on August 4, 2012 and received a one-year prison sentence. Due to torture and abuse while imprisoned, he is now in very poor health.

Mansoureh Behkish is a member of Mothers for Peace, a group of Iranian women that campaigns for peace and stability in the region, and the Mourning Mothers, a group of women whose children have been killed, disappeared or detained by the Iranian authorities, and their supporters. She is also a signatory of a letter sent to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki -Moon dated October 30, 2009 which highlighted the violations of the rights of political prisoners in Iran and called on the United Nations to reestablish the office of the Special Representative for Iran and to save the lives of prisoners sentenced to death in Iran. On June 12, 2011 she was arrested and has been held since. She was sentenced in December 2011 to four and a half years in prison, with three and a half of those years suspended for five years.

Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeini Bouroujerdi is a Shia cleric who rejects the principle of political leadership by the clergy (Velayat-e Faqih), which is a central feature of Iran’s constitution. He advocates the removal of religion from the political basis of the state. He has summoned by the Special Clerical Court, which handles charges against the clergy, on several occasions, starting in 1994 when he began speaking out. In 2006, when he was last summoned by the Special Clerical Court, he refused to appear. A warrant was issued October 7, 2006 for his arrest and over a thousand of his supporters surrounded him to protect him. He was arrested the next day along with approximately 400 supporters. In June 2007, he was found guilty of many charges against him, including moharebeh (“enmity towards God”) and publicly calling political leadership by clergy unlawful and sentenced to eleven years in prison. During his time in prison, he has developed heart and kidney problems as a result of torture and abuse by the regime. He has also lost a significant amount of weight, possibly as much as 80 pounds, and 80 percent of his vision due to cataracts, torture or ill treatment.

Fakhrabad, a web developer and humorist, was sentenced to death in January 2012 on charges of moharebeh (“enmity towards God). He was first arrested summer of 2008. Released in the spring of 2009, he was rearrested in March 2011.

Abdolreza Ghanbari is a Persian literature teacher. He was arrested after participating in street protests December 27, 2009 and was tried January 30, 2010 without the knowledge of his family or access to a defense lawyer. Abdolreza Ghanbari is currently inside Evin Prison. He was reportedly beaten during his interrogations and was denied contact with his family and access to a defense lawyer. He has developed kidney disease in prison and has been denied treatment while on death row.

A website administrator, Hashempour was arrested in 2007. During his detention, Hashempour has reportedly been tortured and abused, and forced to make televised confessions. In January 2012, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s imposition of the death sentence.

Omid Kokabee is an Iranian experimental laser physicist at the University of Texas at Austin who was arrested in Iran after returning from the United States to visit his family in February 2011. He was charged with “communicating with a hostile government” and “illegitimate/illegal earnings” and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He has not been allowed to meet with his lawyer. Omid Kokabee says that he made fake confessions under pressure during interrogation. He also said that he had been approached several times by Iran’s nuclear program and agents of the IRGC to work with them, but that he had refused.

Maleki, a blogger, was first arrested in December 2009 during the post-election protests. He spent more than 300 days in solitary confinement, and was severely beaten while in prison, suffering severe kidney damage. He was released in July 2012 on medical furlough, but re-arrested in August with 34 other earthquake aid workers in northwestern Iran. Despite his medical problems, officials have refused to release him for medical treatment. Maleki’s father has reported security officials have threatened his family if they continue to campaign on Maleki’s behalf. In late October 2012, Maleki was reportedly taken to a Tehran hospital, which refused to admit him.

Malekpour, a permanent resident of Canada, faces death for his alleged role in writing software used by others to upload pornographic photographs. Arrested in 2008, he has reportedly been tortured, abused, and forced to make a televised confession. Iranian officials first sentenced him to death in December 2010 for “insulting the sanctity of Islam,” among other charges. The Canadian government protested the verdict, leading to an annulment in June 2011, with the case being remanded to a lower court. The death sentence was imposed again, and the Supreme Court rejected Malekpour’s appeal in January 2012. In September 2012, Malekpour’s lawyer said his client had “expressed remorse and repented,” allowing him to apply for clemency.

Marzieh Vafamehr is an Iranian actress. She was arrested June 29, 2011, reportedly due to her acting in the 2009 Iranian-Australian film My Tehran for Sale that is critical of the regime. She was released October 24, 2011 after posting bail. She was sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison for appearing in the movie as an actress whose work is banned by the Iranian authorities. Upon appeal, her prison sentence was reduced to three months and the flogging sentence overturned. Marzieh Vafamehr was released after 118 days, but she was banned from making or playing in films and any forms of cultural activities as well as from leaving Iran.

All seven were members of Yaran, the coordinating group that handles the religious and social needs of Iran’s Baha’i community. Mahvash Sabet was arrested March 8, 2008 and the other leaders on May 14, 2008. They were not allowed to contact their legal advisors for more than a year. They were sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on August 7, 2010. After the trial they were moved from Evin Prison in Tehran to Raja’i Shahr (Gohardasht) Prison in Karaj. Their sentence was reduced to ten years in September 2010, but in late March 2011 their twenty-year sentence was reinstated.

Wife of jailed journalist Masoud Bastani, Amrabadi began a year in prison in May 2012, after she was arrested in June 2009 and imprisoned for two months. Amrabadi’s activities such as participating in Qur’an reading gatherings with families of political prisoners, interviews, and writing reports for newspapers, visits with independent Grand Ayatollahs, and defending her imprisoned husband were cited as evidence of her charges.

Husband of jailed activist Mahsa Amrabadi, Bastani is an Iranian reformist journalist. Throughout his career, he was arrested several times, most recently on July 5, 2009. He has suffered torture and abuse while in custody, and there are serious concerns about his health.

Khosravani is a reformist journalist who has worked with Norooz, Bahar, Doran-e Emrooz, Kargozaran, and Sarmayeh newspapers, as well as Aftab News Agency. Arrested on November 3, 2010, she was convicted of “assembly and collusion to act against national security and to propagate against the state” on April 17, 2011, and began serving her six year sentence on March 5, 2012.

Arrested on September 16, 2009, Mahmoudian, a political journalist and blogger, played a significant role in documenting complaints of rape and abuse of detainees at the Kahrizak Detention Center, closed in July 2009 after Mahmoudian and revealed the abuses there. Held at Rajaee Shahr Prison, Mahmoudian is in poor health and suffers from kidney ailments.

Saeed Matinpour is an Azerbaijani civil activist and journalist. He was arrested on May 25, 2007 for having participated in a seminar in defense of the rights of Turkish-speaking people in Turkey. While in prison, he has developed acute spinal problems.

Mohammadi is a journalist and human rights activist who worked with the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC). She was sentenced on September 26, 2011, but remained free on bail until March 4, 2012, and was arrested at her home on April 21, 2012. She is currently imprisoned and has been experiencing abuse.

Saharkhiz worked for 15 years for IRNA, Iran’s official news agency. He returned to Iran in 1997 to work in Mohammad Khatami’s Ministry of Islamic Guidance, in charge of domestic publications. As the regime took a more conservative bent, Saharkhiz was forced to leave the ministry and was eventually banned from government service. He founded a reformist newspaper, Akhbar-e-Eghtesad, and monthly magazine, Aftab, both of which were banned. He was arrested on June 20, 2009 and sentence to a term of three years. Upon completion of his three-year sentence, he was retried on old charges stemming from the original case. He is now serving an additional year and a half sentence (reduced from two years on appeal). During his time in prison, he was tortured, abused, and denied access to blood-pressure medications. As a result, he is in poor health. He waged a hunger strike in October 2011.

Tajik is a journalist who prepared reports for the Center for Human Rights Defenders. He has been arrested three times since the 2009 election. He was last arrested on June 12, 2010, released on bail on December 22, 2010, and sentenced to six years in prison on March 14, 2011. According to his sister, on his first night in detention, he was “violated” in the presence of senior judiciary officials.

Mohammad Ali Dadkhah is a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer. He is a co-founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), which the Iranian regime has sought to suppress. In the aftermath of Iran’s disputed June 2009 elections, Dadkhah represented jailed political and human rights activists. In July 2011, he was tried and sentenced to nine years in prison and banned from practicing law for 10 years. His sentence was upheld in April 2012, and on 29 September, he was called to prison to begin his sentence.

Karampour, a lawyer who has represented many Gonabadi Dervishes, was arrested in September 2011 with more than 60 others members of the Gonabadi community. He was reportedly charged in December 2011 with “insulting the Supreme Leader,” spreading lies,” and “membership in a deviant group.” His trial began in May 2012, but he refused to participate as he and the other defendants considered the trial procedures unfair. Karampour is currently being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison. He reportedly broke his leg in custody, and prison officials have allegedly denied him adequate medical treatment.

Javid Houtan Kiyan is a human rights lawyer whose clients included Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted of adultery who was sentenced to death by stoning. He was arrested in October 2010 and convicted in February 2012. According to reports from human rights organizations, he was tortured and forced to give televised confessions against himself.

Mohammad Seifzadeh is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge, human rights activist and a cofounder of Centre for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran. Seifzadeh was a member of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi’s legal team in 2004 when she represented the mother of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who had been murdered in an Iranian prison, allegedly by an Iranian security officer. In October 2010, Seifzadeh arrested and sentenced to 9 years of prison and 10 years of ban from the practice of law. While appealing the ruling, Seifzahed remained free. In April 2011, he visited Urumiyeh on the Turkish border and was arrested by Iranian officials on charges of attempting to leave the country illegally.

Mr Soltani is a lawyer and human rights activist. He is spokesman and a cofounder, along with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, which offers legal aid and representation to those who could not afford it or found it difficult to access because of the risks involved, particularly members of religious minorities, journalists, women and student activists. He represented members of the Baha’I faith, academic Haleh Esfadiari, journalist Akbar Ganji, and the family of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist who was killed in custody. He was arrested in September of 2011, when he was preparing to defend members of the Baha’i faith. He was sentenced initially to 18 years in 2012, which was reduced to 13 upon appeal.

Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer known for defending juveniles facing death penalty, prisoners of conscience, human rights activists and children victims of abuse and a member of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC). She was arrested in September 2010 and sentenced to six years in prison and a ban from the practice of law for ten years after the end of her prison sentence in January 2011. Ms. Sotoudeh’s has been frequently deprived of visits with her family and banned from making telephone calls. She was been denied access to her lawyer suffered from torture and long periods of solitary confinement. Her family has been denied the ability to travel abroad. Ms. Sotoudeh is on a hunger strike and has been since October 17th to protest her inability to have her family visit her without difficulties.

Mir Hossein-Mousavi was the reform candidate for the 2009 presidential election and leader of the opposition in the unrest in the aftermath of the disputed election, which was marred by allegations of vote-rigging and manipulation. Early in the revolution, he was the Foreign Minister and then Prime Minister until 1989, when the post was abolished. He then went into semi-retirement for the next 20 years prior to the election. He was placed under house arrest along with fellow opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard in February 2011. He has been held incommunicado since then, with no access to newspapers or media, or the ability to go outside. He has had no access to visitors, aside from close family members.

Since the inception of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, Mehdi Karroubi held high government offices, including serving as Speaker of the Parliament and member of the Expediency Council. As Chairman of the Etemad-e Melli Party, he ran in both the 2005 and 2009 presidential elections in Iran. In the aftermath of the disputed 2009 presidential election, Mehdi Karroubi and fellow candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi objected to election results and were subsequently put under house arrest in February 2011, following repeated physical attacks on his self and his property. His wife, Fatemeh Karroubi, was at first put under house arrest with her husband but she was released for medical treatment and is now forbidden to join him at the small apartment to which he’s been transferred. Karroubi’s family was forced to rent an apartment for Mehdi Karroubi and cover the cost of the government guards who hold him under constant surveillance. While never formally charged, both Mehdi Karroubi and Mr. Mousavi have been accused of sedition. Mehdi Karroubi has also been targeted by the regime for alleging that prisoners have been raped by guards. They are occasionally permitted a visit from their immediate family. Karroubi is reportedly being denied fresh air and the opportunity to leave the apartment for any physical activity. They are denied any access to newspapers or the media.

Zahra Rahnavard is a former advisor to President Mohammad Khatami, chancellor of Alzahra University, and wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi. Sh was placed under house arrest along with opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi and her husband in February 2011. She has been held incommunicado since then, with no access to newspapers or media, or the ability to go outside. She has had no access to visitors, aside from close family members.

Mohammad Tavassoli was the first mayor of Tehran after the 1979 Revolution and is the political director of the outlawed political party Freedom Movement of Iran. He was arrested in November 2011 after he and 142 other activists wrote a letter to Mohammad Khatami saying that there was little hope that the authorities would hold free and fair parliamentary elections in March 2012.

Asghari, an ethnic Kurd, is a blogger and information technology student who had hosted websites containing anti-government material. Authorities arrested him at Tehran Airport in May 2008 for possession of multiple credit cards. In October 2009, he wrote from prison that he had been tortured, forced to make a televised confession, and forced to make espionage allegations against fellow blogger Hossein Derakhshan. He was sentenced for allegedly hosting a pornography network.

Majid Dorri is a student activist who has been banned from continuing his education, sentenced to 6.5 years in prison, and exiled to Behbahan Prison. He was arrested on July 9, 2009 after holding protests during the 2009 elections. In Fall 2010 he was transferred to Behbahan Prison, where he has remained since. His family, residents of Karaj, have to travel 15 hours in each direction to visit him in prison. In January 2011, Majid Dorri’s parents were summoned to Karaj Intelligence Office and threatened not to disseminate information about their son’s case.

A day after his arrest, his mother was also arrested, fined, and imprisoned for several months. On February 26, 2012, Goudarzi was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in internal exile in the southeastern city of Zabul. He was convicted of “propaganda against the system” because of an interview he gave to the German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he spoke about his hunger strike in solidarity with prisoners and his former cellmates. He was also convicted of “assembly and collusion against the system.” On April 12, 2012 Goudarzi was released on bail pending his trial on appeal.

Bahareh Hedayat is a student and women’s rights activist, member of the Central Council and Spokesperson for the Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat student union, and an activist with the One Million Signatures Campaign for the Change of Discriminatory Laws Against Women. She was arrested by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence for the fifth time in four years at midnight on 31 December 2009. While in prison, she has developed kidney disease and gastrointestinal disorders.

Ali Akbar Mohammadzadeh was secretary of Sharif University’s Islamic Students Association. He was arrested in February 2011 and has been severely tortured.

Abdollah Momeni is an Iranian student leader and pro-democracy activist. He became involved in activism in the July 1999 protests, when large numbers of students across the country protested the abolition of pro-reform newspaper Salam. He worked as a longtime spokesman of the Alumni Association of Iran (Advar-e Tahkim Vahdat) organization, which focuses on enforcement of democracy and human rights protection. He was arrested during protests after the election in June 2009 and later sentenced to eight years in prison for his presence at post-election gatherings and activities against national security. He has experienced abuse while in prison and has been denied medical treatment for heart and back problems.

Nabavi co-founded the Advocacy Council for the Right to Education, an organization of students barred from studying as a result of their political activities, in 2007. He was arrested shortly after Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election for attending a mass protest, and is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Karoun Prison in southwest Iran.

Majid Tavvakoli is a student activist and member of the Islamic Students’ Association at Tehran’s Amirkabir University of Technology. He has been arrested at least three times, with the last on 7 December 2009, during student protests over the disputed 2009 Presidential Election. In 2010, he went on a hunger strike, during which time his mother joined him and he suffered from stomach hemorraging. He currently suffers from a respiratory disease, which has worsened while in custody.