Current RPOCs
Through the Religious Prisoners of Conscience (RPOC) Project, USCIRF Commissioners advocate for the release of individuals imprisoned for their religious belief/non-belief, religious activity, religious freedom advocacy, and other related issues. The project seeks to raise public awareness of these prisoners, reduce the overall number of prisoners in captivity, and highlight religious freedom conditions in their country of imprisonment. RPOCs represented in the project are only a snapshot of the thousands of religious prisoners of conscience around the globe as exhibited in USCIRF’s Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Victims List.
Prisoners included in the RPOC Project are part of USCIRF’s FoRB Victims List, a database that documents individuals who have been detained, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, placed under house arrest, or subjected to forced renunciation of faith for their religion or belief in countries USCIRF recommends for designation by the U.S. Department of State as Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs) or for placement on its Special Watch List (SWL), as well as in countries USCIRF recommends nonstate actors for designation as Entities of Particular Concern (EPCs). Learn more about the FoRB Victims List here.
Read the RPOC Project section of USCIRF's 2022 Annual Report here
Current Religious Prisoners of Conscience
Mubarak Bala Nigeria
USCIRF Advocate: Frederick A. Davie
Mubarak Bala is a self-identified atheist from Kano State in northeast Nigeria. He became well known in 2014 when the media reported that he had been forcibly drugged and committed to a psychiatric unit by his family members after telling them he was atheist.
Read more >Gulmira Imin China
Gulmira Imin is a Uyghur Muslim and former web administrator for the Uighur-language website Salkin. Ms. Imin was also a government employee in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwest China.
Read more >Raymond Koh Malaysia
Pastor Raymond Koh (Pastor Koh), is a Christian pastor from Malaysia. Prior to his abduction, he ran an NGO focused on people living with HIV/AIDs, recovering addicts, and single mothers and children.
Read more >Jimmy Lai China
Jimmy Lai escaped communist China to Hong Kong at the age of 12. Despite his UK citizenship, he chose to remain in Hong Kong to advocate against the encroachment of the Chinese communist government on Hong Kong’s freedoms.
Read more >Gedhun Choekyi Nyima – The Panchen Lama China
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was born on April 25, 1989, in Lhari County, Tibet. After the death of the 10th Panchen Lama, His Holiness the Dalai Lama chose Gedhun on May 14, 1995, to be the 11th Panchen Lama, which is the second highest position in Tibetan Buddhism.
Read more >Leah Sharibu Nigeria
On February 19, 2018, ISWAP attacked the Government Girls Science and Technical School in Dapchi, Yobe State, Nigeria. ISWAP abducted 110 girls, five of whom were reported killed in the abduction.
Read more >Yahaya Sharif-Aminu Nigeria
USCIRF Advocate: Frederick A. Davie
Yahaya Sharif-Aminu is a little-known Islamic gospel musician from Kano State, northern Nigeria. He belongs to the Tijaniyya order, a popular Sufi Islamic order across North and West Africa.
Read more >Deacon Zhang Wen Shi North Korea
Deacon Jang Moon Seok, also known by his Chinese name, Zhang Wen Shi, is an ethnically Korean Chinese citizen who lived in Changbai, China, a town on the border between China and North Korea.
Read more >Adil Tuniyaz China
USCIRF Advocate: Nury Turkel
Adil Tuniyaz is a well-known Uyghur poet, reporter at the state-run People's Radio, and author of the books Questions for an Apple and Manifesto for Universal Poetry. Tuniyaz and his wife, Nezire Muhammad Salih, were both arrested in December 2017.
Read more >