Dissident
[3] In totalitarian countries, dissidents are often incarcerated or executed without explicit political accusations, or due to infringements of the very same laws they are opposing, or because they are supporting civil liberties such as freedom of speech.
[4] It was used to refer to small groups of marginalized intellectuals whose modest challenges to the Soviet regime met protection and encouragement from correspondents.
[15] Czechoslovak dissidents became significant after the 1948 Communist coup and especially after the Warsaw Pact invasion, which ended the liberalizing moment of the Prague spring and led to much of the elite being removed from political and intellectual positions.
Stacy Gilbert, who served in the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration resigned in protest because of a report that she contributed to was falsified by the Biden administration.
[23] Moreover, anti-government dissidents in Lebanon, Mauritania, as well as other nations affected by the Arab Spring, widely used Tor in order to stay safe while exchanging their ideas and agendas.
In mid-December 2020, the panel published a report stating its findings, which claimed that the collective detention of political prisoners by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a violation of the country's international legal obligations, as the authorities are holding the detainees without charge and not allowing them a chance to challenge their imprisonment.
[27][28] The Human Rights Watch World Report 2021 also highlighted that Bahrain continued its repressive actions against the dissidents, including acts against online activities, peaceful critics and opposition activists.
[29] In January 2021, forty cross-party MPs of the UK wrote a letter to the vice-chancellor of an educational institution, the University of Huddersfield, stating that it was at risk of “indirect implication in human rights abuse”.
The university was running a master's course, MSc in security science, for the officers of Bahrain's Royal Academy of Policing, the building which was also being used for torturing dissidents.
[30] In April 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Bahrain, especially concerning the cases of detained dissidents Nabeel Rajab, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and Ibrahim Sharif.
The European Parliament also demanded that the Bahraini government take all necessary measures to respect the law and make sure that its actions remain in full compliance with the international standards of human rights.
[33] Iranian dissidents are composed of scattered groups that reject the current government and by extension the previous regime, instead seeking the establishment of democratic institutions.
[34] A partnership council called Mahsa had formed between Reza Pahlavi and other opposition groups in support of the future of Iran’s democracy movement [fa] in 2022.
[41] A March 2023 report by HRW stated that Egyptian authorities systematically refused to issue or renew ID cards for dozens of foreign dissidents, journalists and human rights activists over the past few years.
By arbitrarily denying citizens valid passports and other overseas identification documents, Egyptian authorities violated both the constitution and international human rights law.
