6. Liu Xiaobo
Xiaobo was a Chinese teacher, writer, and human rights activist. He called for political reforms and to end the single-party rule. He was imprisoned for his work on the Charter 08 manifesto, which called for the end of the single rule party, an independent legal system, and freedom of association.
While he was imprisoned, he won the Nobel Prize for his fight to gain human rights in China. He was released after he was diagnosed with cancer, and he died a year later.
5. Roxana Saberi
Saberi is an American journalist who went on a trip to Iran to detail her book regarding Iranian society. She was believed to be a spy and was detained for that.
The authorities threatened her with a 20-year prison sentence or even death if she wouldn’t admit she was a spy, and under pressure, she gave in. The minute she realized what she had done, Saberi recanted her statement, but she went to trial anyway.
She was sentenced to prison foresight years. However, she started a hunger strike, resulting in her release, and her sentence was cut short to two suspended years.
4. Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks changed the world by taking a seat. In 1955, she rode the bus home and took a seat, she was then asked to give up her seat for a white passenger. When she refused she was arrested for disobeying Alabama law.
Her arrest caused a boycott of the Montgomery bus system that lasted for more than a year. A year later bus segregation was banned.
3. Nelson Mandela
At the beginning of the ’40s, he joined the African National Congress and began his fight against apartheid in South Africa. For this, he would, later on, be arrested multiple times and in 1962 he was given a life sentence. His activism continued while he was imprisoned.
He completed 27 years of it when he was released. His work paid off when apartheid was abolished and he was elected president in 1994.
