President Barack Obama scored an early victory on this promise when Egyptian authorities announced on Feb. 18, 2009, the release of Ayman Nour. Nour, who challenged Egypt's longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, in a 2005 election, was sentenced to five years in prison on widely criticized charges of forgery related to the election. Although due to be held until 2010, Egyptian officials said Nour was released early for medical reasons. The move was widely regarded as a goodwill gesture to Obama, who had been inaugurated just a few weeks earlier.
But victories on the release of international dissidents have been infrequent since then.
Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said Obama has mostly adopted a behind-the-scenes diplomatic approach in seeking the release of dissidents.
"Overall, his approach in the first year has been to press for releases in a more quiet, private way," Malinowski said. "So you haven't seen him out there very often demanding the release of particular political prisoners. For the most part, he has tried to build up relationships with governments around the world, and then use those relationships to encourage the release of political prisoners. But I would say, he hasn't been all that successful."
There have been a few exceptions to Obama's private efforts.
On several occasions, for example, Obama has publicly called on Mynamar, also called Burma, to immediately release political dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, although she remains under house arrest.
And on the May 1 World Press Freedom Day, Obama publicly singled out J.S. Tissainayagam, a Sri Lankan journalist sentenced to 20 years in jail for "causing communal disharmony."
"That's one they (members of the Obama administration) have worked hard on," Malinowski said.
More often, however, Obama has tried to seek the release of international dissidents in private meetings with various world leaders. Such was the case, for example, when Obama visited China in November and in private discussions with Chinese officials pressed for the release of a number of political dissidents. One of the most prominent of the group was Liu Xiaobo, a Beijing writer who organized a petition seeking greater democracy for China. Despite those private discussions, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced on Dec. 25, 2009, to 11 years in prison after being found guilty by a Beijing court of ''inciting subversion of state power.''
Obama spoke to his approach in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway on Dec. 10, 2009.
"The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone," Obama said. "At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach -- condemnation without discussion -- can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door."
Said Malinowski: "I couldn't say Obama hasn't tried hard. He has. But he has done it in a fairly private way thus far."
It remains to be seen, Malinowski said, what Obama will do if those private, diplomatic efforts continue to be largely fruitless.
In this promise, Obama promised to work toward the release of international dissidents, and although results are spotty, we think he has done enough to move this one to In the Works.