From Havana to Beijing: Making Political Prisoners Visible

At Democratic Spaces, we believe that the defense of fundamental rights and freedoms is universal and that confronting authoritarianism, from Havana to Beijing, concerns us all. Amid Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States, the Human Rights Foundation launched a powerful campaign in Washington, D.C., bringing trucks displaying the faces and stories of eight prisoners of conscience held in China and Hong Kong to the streets of the U.S. capital.

Their cases, including those of Joshua Wong, Owen Chow, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, Ilham Tohti, artist Gao Zhen, and Christian pastors Wang Lin, Gao Yingjia, and Gao Quanfu, are a powerful reminder of the many people imprisoned for peacefully exercising and defending fundamental freedoms through teaching, writing, worshipping, and speaking out.

At Democratic Spaces, we believe that making political prisoners visible helps protect them, and we commend this creative initiative for ensuring that their voices are neither forgotten nor silenced.

A world in which human rights are not defended is a world in which autocrats prevail.

Learn more at the Human Rights Foundation.