Biography:

Bagir Kazikhanov was born on September 9, 1983 in the Republic of Dagestan, an administrative entity of the Russian Federation.

Mr. Kazikhanov organized regular Islamic study sessions in rented flats between 2012 and 2014. During these sessions, he and his fellow Muslims studied the works of the Turkish Islamic revivalist theologian Said Nursi, along with watching football. Nursi, who died in 1960, was an ethnic Kurd who wrote a body of Quranic commentary advocating the modernization of Islamic education. Nursi also criticized the secular character of the post-Ottoman Turkish government, for which he was persecuted. Nursi’s emphasis on the integration of modern science into Islamic learning is said to have been an inspiration to Fethullah Gülen, the prominent exiled Turkish Islamic preacher. Although Nursi’s writings do not advocate hatred, violence, or the violation of human rights, many of Nursi’s works are banned in Russia, reportedly due to state opposition to foreign spiritual and cultural influence.

Mr. Kazikhanov was arrested in the city of Ulyanovsk on April 9, 2014, after participating in one of these study sessions, which authorities deemed to be the “organization of extremist activity” under the Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 1. He was accused of recruiting a terrorist cell of Nursi followers as part of a supposed “Nurdzhular” movement, which officially was banned in Russia in 2008 but is widely believed to be a legal fiction invented for the purpose of prosecuting Nursi adherents. Mr. Kazikhanov was held in a pre-trial detention center from April to October 2014, and then placed under house arrest until his February 25, 2015, conviction by Judge Natalya Damayeva at the Lenin District Court in Ulyanovsk.  The Judge sentenced him to three and a half years’ imprisonment.

After three and a half years' imprisonment, Bagir Kazikhanov was reportedly released in October 2017.

Biography:

Fariba Kamalabadi was born on September 12, 1962, in Tehran, Iran. Ms. Kamalabadi graduated from high school with honors but was barred from attending university due to her Baha’i faith.

In her mid-30s, Ms. Kamalabadi embarked on an eight-year period of informal study and eventually received an advanced degree in developmental psychology from the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE), an alternative institution the Baha’i community of Iran established to provide higher education for its young people. The Iranian government does not recognize the BIHE.

Ms. Kamalabadi is one of the seven Baha’i leaders known as “Yaran” or “Friends,” who tended to the spiritual and social needs of the Iranian Baha’i community in the absence of formally elected Baha’i leadership due to restrictions by the Iranian government. The other six members are Mahvash Sabet, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm.

Ms. Kamalabadi was arrested on May 14, 2008 after an early morning raid on her home. Ms. Kamalabadi and the other Baha’i Seven were held incommunicado for weeks, placed in solitary confinement for months, and spent a year behind bars without access to legal counsel. In 2010, the seven were tried and convicted of charges of “espionage” and “spreading propaganda against the regime.” The Seven were sentenced to 20 years in prison, the longest of any current prisoner of conscience in Iran.

In 2013, Iran passed a reformed Islamic Penal Code that stipulated that courts may carry out only the most severe punishment assigned to a prisoner, rather than carrying out multiple, similar punishments for related crimes. In early 2016, the Baha’i 7 were informed that this rule would be applied to their cases, reducing their imprisonment from 20 years to 10 years.

Ms. Kamalabadi was released in October 2017 after serving her full 10-year sentence under false charges.

Ms. Kamalabadi was held in Tehran’s Evin prison, along with other female prisoners of conscience, including Mahvash Sabet.

Ms. Kamalabadi married fellow Baha’i Ruhollah Taefi in 1982 and they have three children, Vargha, Alhan, and Taraneh. Ms. Kamalabadi's father was fired from his job in the government health service in the 1980s because he was a Baha’i; he was later imprisoned and tortured.

Biography:

Nguyen Cong Chinh is an evangelical pastor originally from the Quang Nam province, and has lived in the Central Highland provinces of Kon Tum and Gia Lai since 1985.  He is a long-time pro-democracy activist and critic of the Vietnamese government’s ban on preaching in the Central Highlands. He is also the founder of the Vietnamese People’s Evangelical Fellowship, a charitable organization that ministers to ethnic minority communities in the central highlands, including ethnic minority prisoners and their families.  He and his wife, Mrs. Tran Thi Hong, a Lutheran member of the Vietnamese Women for Human Rights organization, have five children.

In 2011, Pastor Chinh was imprisoned on false charges of undermining national solidarity.Prison authorities reportedly physically and verbally abused him, and he spent approximately one month in solitary confinement. His health rapidly declined: he suffered from high blood pressure, acute nasal sinusitis, arthritis, and stomach inflammation and was denied treatment or access to medication.

While the Vietnamese government unjustly imprisoned Pastor Chinh, they also harassed his wife, Mrs. Tran Thi Hong, monitoring her closely, sealing up her house, and preventing her from meeting with her husband or procuring medicine for her sick daughter.  On March 30, 2016, local authorities violently prevented Mrs. Hong from meeting with then U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein.  Although she eventually was able to meet with the Ambassador, she suffered for this meeting: she endured a beating which left her with injuries to her head, knee, leg, hand and foot. This visit was followed by a three-day interrogation during which Mrs. Train Thi Hong was pressured to sign a document stating that her meeting with the Ambassador was illegal and that she was a member of an illegal and subversive church due to her Lutheran faith. After refusing to sign, she was abused for four hours by female officers.

Pastor Chinh was released from prison on July 28, 2017, almost six years before the end of his sentence. The Vietnamese government released him on the condition that he immediately leave the country in exile.  He and his family now reside in the United States.