Political prisoner
A
political prisoner is someone held in
prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image are deemed by a
government to either challenge or threaten the authority of the
state.
In many cases, political prisoners are imprisoned with no legal veneer directly through
extrajudical processes.
However, it also happens that political prisoners are arrested and tried with a veneer of
legality, where false
criminal charges, manufactured evidence, and unfair trials are used to disguise the fact that an individual is a political prisoner. This is common in situations which may otherwise be decried nationally and internationally as a
human rights violation and supression of a
political dissident. A political prisoner can also be someone that has been denied
bail unfairly, denied
parole when it would reasonably have been given to a prisoner charged with a comparable crime, or special powers may be invoked by the judiciary.
Particularly in this latter situation, whether an individual is regarded as a political prisoner may depend upon subjective political perspective or interpretation of the evidence.
Governments of various regime types â€"
fascist,
communist and
theocratic â€" have held political prisoners. In the
Soviet Union, dubious
psychiatric diagnoses were sometimes used to confine political prisoners. In
Nazi Germany,
"Night and Fog" prisoners were among the first victims of fascist repression. In
North Korea, entire families are jailed if one family member is suspected of anti-government sentiments. IGovernments typically reject assertions that they hold political prisoners. For example, during the
Vietnam War, the Government of
South Vietnam denied that it held any political prisoners, despite the fact that approximately 100,000 civilians were imprisoned as inmates in 41 detention facilities for civilians. These included non-combatant members of the
National Liberation Front or NLF, including village chiefs, schoolteachers, tax collectors, postmen, medical personnel, as well as many peasants whose relatives were members of the NLF.
Political prisoners sometimes write memoirs of their experiences and resulting insights. See
list of memoirs of political prisoners. Some of these memoirs have become important political texts.
In the parlance of many violent groups and their sympathizers,
political prisoner includes persons imprisoned because they await trial for, or have been convicted for, actions usually qualified as
terrorism. The assumption is that these actions were morally justified by a legitimate fight against the government that imprisons the said persons, including in the case of democratic governments. For instance, French
anarchist groups typically call "political prisoners" the former members of
Action Directe held in
France for
murders.
Amnesty International campaigns for the release of
prisoners of conscience or POCs, which include both political prisoners as well as those imprisoned for their religious or philosophical beliefs. To reduce controversy and as a matter of principle, the organization's policy is to work only for prisoners who have not committed or advocated violence.Thus there are political prisoners who do not fit the narrower criteria for POCs.
*
Gerard Jean-Juste -
Haiti: Liberation theologian and prominent member of the
Fanmi Lavalas party. Has been declared a prisoner of conscience by
Amnesty International [
1][
2].
*
Aung San Suu Kyi -
Myanmar: Leader of political party victorious in last Burmese elections the results of which were ignored by military government. Ordered under house arrest by Burmese military tribunal.
*
Pasteur Bizimungu -
Rwanda*
Phuntsok Nyidron -
Tibet*
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima -
Tibet*
Andrei Ivanţoc -
Transnistria: one of the four leaders of the pro-Romanian Christian-Democratic People's Party of Moldova who were accused of terrorism
*
Mikhail Trepashkin -
Russia: Convicted for his investigation of the involvement of the
FSB in
Russian apartment bombings.
*
Leonard Peltier -
United States:
Native American and member of
AIM (American Indian Movement) thought by many to have been framed in the deaths of two FBI agents.
*
Cho Sung-hye -
North Korea: Returned to North Korea against her will by
China.
*
Akbar Ganji -
Iran: Former Revolutionary Guard and journalist imprisoned in Evin Prison since
2000-
04-22. He was imprisoned for his participating in the
Berlin conference "Iran after the elections" after the
Iranian Majlis election in 2000.
*
Adolfo Fernandez Sainz -
Cuba: Journalist for the
Moscow based news agency PRIMA. He was arrested on
2005-
03-20, as a result of the government's crackdown on independent journalists. He was accused of giving interviews to foreign radio stations and posting "subversive" articles on the Internet, and sentenced to 15 years in prison under infamous Law 88, better known as the "
gag law".
*
Jennifer Latheef -
Maldives: Opposition political activist Jennifer Latheef was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment on
2003-
10-18, convicted of "terrorism" for joining a protest in September 2003 against deaths in prison and political repression.
*
Mikhail Marynich -
Belarus: On
2005-
12-30, the
Minsk district court found the former Minister of Foreign Economic Relations, and Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Belarus, Mikhail Marynich, guilty of the misappropriation of office equipment, which the United States Embassy had given to the Belarusian public association "Business Initiative". The politician has been sentenced to five years detention in a medium-security colony and his property has been confiscated. His arrest was clearly politically motivated.
*
Soebandrio -
Indonesia: Minister of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia under
Sukarno. He was detained by
Soeharto in 1966 after the so-called "communist" coup d'etat in 1965, sentenced to death by a
military tribunal. His sentence was commuted to life, but he was released in 1995.
*
Pramoedya Ananta Toer -
Indonesia: prominent leftist writer. Detained by
Soeharto and was never brought to trial. Instead he was sent to
Buru and released in 1979 but remained in house arrest until 1992.
* n.a. 1973.
Political Prisoners in South Vietnam. London: Amnesty International Publications.
*
Luz Arce. 2003.
The Inferno: A Story of Terror and Survival in Chile. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0299195546
*
Stuart Christie. 2004.
Granny Made Me An Anarchist: General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0743259181
*
Christina Fink. 2001.
Living Silence: Burma Under Military Rule. Bangkok:
White Lotus Press and London:
Zed Press. (See in particular Chapter 8:
Prison: 'Life University' ). In Thailand ISBN 9747534681, elsewhere ISBN 1856499251 and ISBN 185649926X
*
Marek M. Kaminski. 2004.
Games Prisoners Play. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691117217
* Ben Kiernan. 2002.
The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1975. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300096496
* Stephen M. Kohn. 1994.
American Political Prisoners. Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 0275944158
* Barbara Olshansky. 2002.
Secret Trials and Executions: Military Tribunals and the Threat to Democracy. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1583225374
*
Amnesty International Calls For Retrial of Mumia-Abu Jamal*
Political Prisoners in the United States - The Jericho Movement
*
Political Prisoners in the United States address list from the Prison Activist Resource Center
*
The North American Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network*
Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network*
Support Daniel McGowan*
Politzeki.ru - political prisoners of the modern Russia
*
Anarchist Black Cross Network (ABCN) *
Anarchist Black Cross Federation (ABCF) *
Montreal Anarchist Black Cross Federation (ABCF) *
Prolibertad Support for Puerto Rican political prisoners
*
Break the Chains Political Prisoner support organization
*
Free Jeff Luers Support site for Jeff 'Free' Luers
*
Amnesty International*
Where Is Ms. Cho? - opinion piece about Cho Sung-hye and other North Koreans who attempt to leave North Korea.
*
Prisoners Overseas Campaigning for political prisoners
*
Veronza Bowers Jr. Support site for Veronza Bowers Jr.
*
Trepashkin.Ru Support site for Mikhail Trepashkin.
*
The Institute of Justice & Democracy in Haiti Support for Haitian political prisoners
