As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama said he would "work for the release of jailed scholars, activists, and opposition party leaders such as Ayman Nour in Egypt."

As we wrote in a previous update, Nour was released on Feb. 18, 2009, shortly after Obama was inaugurated. What about other dissidents?

The best-known dissident to win freedom during Obama's tenure is Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader who spent years under house arrest and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

As we have noted, Obama visited Burma -- sometimes called Myanmar -- shortly after winning reelection in 2012. It included a stop at the home where she was held in house arrest until November 2010.

Obama's visit was widely considered a way for the United States to encourage further reforms initiated by the Burmese government in 2011. "This remarkable journey has just begun, and has much further to go," Obama said. "Reforms launched from the top of society must meet the aspirations of citizens who form its foundation."
   
Alan D. Romberg, director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center, a foreign-policy think tank, said that "the dramatic turnaround in Burma has a lot to do with the U.S."

We asked Amnesty International for a list of other dissidents who had been freed during Obama"s tenure, as well as a list of others who have not been freed. While negotiations over the fate of dissidents are often not disclosed publicly, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International said it is widely believed that the U.S. government had made efforts to push for the release of most if not all of the people on the following lists, either directly or indirectly.

Dissidents freed

Azerbaijan

• Jabbar Savalan, blogger and political activist

Burma

• Zargarnar, comedian and film director

Cameroon

• Jean-Claude Mbede, jailed on charges of homosexuality

China

• Mao Hengfeng, women's rights activist
• Wang Xiaoning, pro-democracy activist

Russia

• Yekaterina Samutsevich, member of the punk rock band Pussy Riot

Dissidents who remain in custody

China

• Liu Xiaobo, writer, professor and pro-democracy activist

Indonesia

• Filep Karma, advocate for the Papuan ethnic group

Iran

• Behrouz Ghobadi, brother of an exiled Iranian filmmaker, Bahman Ghobadi, whose work has often criticized the government.

Russia

• Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, member of the punk rock band Pussy Riot
• Maria Alyokhina, member of the punk rock band Pussy Riot

Amnesty International also noted that there are 55 detainees at Guantanamo who are cleared for release but who have not been released yet, often because a country cannot be found to take them.

The Obama administration's record in securing the release of dissidents isn't perfect, but given the difficulty of dealing with sometimes hostile governments, it's still pretty impressive. Because he did say the U.S. would "work for the release" of dissidents, we think it's appropriate to give the administration a Promise Kept.