Their applications have usually led to dismissals from work, years of waiting and an increase in harassment.

Thus, the general public was afraid to openly support the dissidents for fear of dismissal from work or school.

The opposition accused the government of having a system of buying votes and using threats of dismissal from work unless people voted the right way.

There also were credible reports of ballot stuffing, vote count fraud, voter intimidation or bribery, dismissals from work, withholding of salaries, detentions, abductions, and killings.

The harassment, said Stanislaw Kocjan, a former Solidarity leader who now heads a small human rights group, consists of dismissals from work on trumped-up grounds, or heavy fines.

Thus, prospective emigrants requested permission to emigrate at great personal risk, knowing that an official refusal would often be accompanied by dismissal from work and other forms of social ostracism and economic pressure.

Secondly, a change in a defendant's domestic circumstances - eviction from rented accommodation, dismissal from work, loss of family ties - could well have an adverse effect on the choice of sentence following conviction.

From 1990 to 2004 Mao repeatedly petitioned the authorities for redress for her dismissal from work, her forced abortion, and the denial of other basic rights including that of freedom of expression.

Several means of retaliation were used against the signatories, including dismissal from work, denial of educational opportunities for their children, suspension of drivers' licenses, forced exile, loss of citizenship, and detention, trial, and imprisonment.

Such disputes over rights to real-life stories have arisen before: notably, Geoffrey F. Bowers, a lawyer with AIDS who fought his dismissal from work, accused the makers of the 1993 movie "Philadelphia" of stealing his story.

In some jurisdictions (for instance, in the city of Buenos Aires), sexual harassment may lead to the abuser's dismissal from work, whereas in other areas (such as Santa Fe Province), the maximum penalty is five days in prison.