ARBITRARY DETENTION 

Mr. Anoosheh Ashoori, a British citizen with dual nationality who has been held hostage in Iran since August 2017, returned home to his family in the UK on March 16th, 2022. Global Rights Advocacy worked with Anoosheh’s family, Sherry Izadi, Elika and Aryan Ashoori, and his partners in the UK, to bring him home. GRA represented the family before the United Nations. Recently the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) ruled that Anoosheh's  detention was arbitrary, and ordered his immediate release. We are thrilled to see the family reunited and express our solidarity with other families still hoping for this outcome.

Xiyue Wang lived with his mother in Seattle. He is a US citizen, University of Washington alum and current Princeton PhD candidate who was a hostage in Iran in an attack of academic freedom and his US Citizenship. GRA represented his mother and worked with his family in a campaign for his release, which included advocacy before the United Nations and the State of Washington and a partnership with Scholars at Risk.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a legal opinion on his case in August 2018. He was released in December 2019. 

Ananias Laparra Martinez was sentenced to 28 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. GRA director  Alejandra Gonza is a co-counsel along with Thomas Antkowiak from Seattle University International Human Rights Clinic and Ricardo Lagunes Gasca from Defensa Legal del Sur in Chiapas, reaching a groundbreaking settlement with Mexico, providing his exoneration through international litigation. Reparations included legislative changes and extensive remedies to his family.

GRA is representing Maria Millacura Llaipén, Iván Torres Millacura's mother  from Argentina before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. She is seeking his son and wants to end the impunity on the arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance by the Argentinian police. The Inter-American Court is supervising its 2014 judgement. 

Nestora Salgado was a political prisoner in Mexico, with strong ties to Washington State, where she lived in Renton with her family. She spent 2 and 1/2 years in prison in Mexico until her release in 2016 after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights recommended Mexico to protect her life and release her.  GRA director Alejandra Gonza and co-counsel Thomas Antkowiak from Seattle University Human Rights Clinic took the case internationally and worked with the US and Mexican government to secure her release. She became an elected Senator for the State of Guerrero and lives in Mexico City.