In 2012, an appeals court affirmed the conviction of 29 human-rights activists on such charges as insulting the sultan and of unlawful assembly, and all but one of them began serving prison sentences. Amnesty International stated its belief “that many, if not all, of those imprisoned are held solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression or assembly and are therefore prisoners of conscience,” and called on Oman to immediately release all of those being “held simply for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression or assembly.” In September 2012, Freedom House criticized the “escalating efforts by the government to tighten its control online and offline following Arab Spring-inspired unrest,” and Front Line Defenders condemned “the ongoing judicial harassment of...human rights defenders and peaceful protesters” and expressed its view that this harassment “is directly related to their legitimate activities in the defense of human rights.”