On the International Day of the Endangered Lawyer, we honor the lawyers who defend human rights and uphold the rule of law despite facing grave personal risk. Authoritarian leaders increasingly seek to criminalize legal defense.

At the Human Rights Foundation, we advocate year-round for those who stand against tyranny, including the growing number of lawyers targeted simply for doing their jobs.

This includes advocacy on behalf of Vadim Kobzev and Alexei Liptser, the lawyers who represented Alexei @navalny and were later imprisoned for their professional work—cases highlighted by  @yulia_navalnaya and emblematic of a broader global pattern in which legal defenders are persecuted for standing up to authoritarian abuse. When authoritarians punish lawyers for defending their clients, they attack the rule of law itself.