We were involved in the case of Homa Hoodfar, as so many were, and that's why she was released. I think that hers is a case study as well of the effectiveness of public advocacy and private diplomacy that brought about her release.
Another case we're involved in is that of Judge Afiuni in Venezuela, who has been held under house arrest as part of a certain culture of repression, which regrettably has engaged a democratic country even like Venezuela in that regard.
I think we must always keep in mind—and Ms. Bazilli, I think has been the best and most eloquent representation of that today—the specificity of gender-based violence and the manner in which women are targeted, not only because they are women in terms of human rights defenders, but in fact because, as spouses of people who are imprisoned, they themselves are harassed and intimidated and the like.
I have seen up close the pain of the spouses. When we work on behalf of someone like Raif Badawi, we work very closely with the wife of Raif Badawi, Ensaf Haidar, because she suffers on a daily basis the pain and plight of his imprisonment. It's very important when we're defending a political prisoner to work very closely with the family of that political prisoner to mobilize civil society in the best way they can be mobilized.
Also, with respect to the struggle for human rights in the former Soviet Union, when Anatoly Shcharansky was released, he was asked, “What do you owe your release to?” He used what now would be seen to be politically incorrect language and said, “I owe my release to housewives and to students.”
What he meant was that a focal point of advocacy with respect to the struggle for human rights reforms at that time were the groups called the “35s”. These were women of 35 years of age who had organized in Canada, in the U.S., in Europe, and elsewhere to advocate on behalf of the political prisoners in the former Soviet Union and on behalf of the human rights struggles that were going on in the former Soviet Union. At the end of the day—there were songs that came out about it—a small group transformed the world. If I can use a Marxist metaphor, it led to the withering away of the former Soviet Union. When that story is told and read, we see the critical role played by these women's group activists in the release of political prisoners and, effectively, in helping to bring down the former Soviet Union.