Talk:Political prisoner/Merger draft

The term "political prisoner" is used by persons or groups challenging the legitimacy of the detention of a prisoner. Supporters of the term define a political prisoner as someone who is imprisoned for his or her participation in political activity. If a political offence was not the official reason for detention, the term would imply that the detention was motivated by the prisoner's politics.

Various definitions

Some understand the term political prisoner narrowly, equating it with the term prisoner of conscience (POC). Amnesty International campaigns for the release of prisoners of conscience, 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 organisation's policy applies only to prisoners who have not committed or advocated violence. Thus, there are political prisoners who do not fit the narrower criteria for POCs.

In the parlance of many political movements that utilise armed resistance, guerrilla warfare, and other forms of political violence, a political prisoner includes people who are imprisoned because they are awaiting trial for, or have been convicted of, actions which states they oppose deem (accurately or otherwise) terrorism. These movements may consider the actions of political prisoners morally justified against some system of governance, may claim innocence, or have varying understandings of what types of violence are morally and ethically justified. For instance, French anarchist groups typically call the former members of Action Directe held in France political prisoners. While the French government deemed Action Directe illegal, the group fashioned itself as an urban guerrilla movement, claiming a legitimate armed struggle. In this sense, "political prisoner" can be used to describe any politically active prisoner who is held in custody for a violent action which supporters deem ethically justified.

Some also include all convicted for treason and espionage in the category of political prisoners. Political prisoners can also be imprisoned with no legal veneer by extra-judicial processes. Some political prisoners need not be imprisoned at all. Supporters of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima in the 11th Panchen Lama controversy have called him a "political prisoner", despite the fact that he is not accused of a political offence and simply lives under secluded state protection.

However, political prisoners are arrested and tried with a veneer of legality where false criminal charges, manufactured evidence, and unfair trials (kangaroo courts, show 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 or suppression 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.

Variants

• 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.
• 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.

Prisoner of conscience

Prisoner of conscience (POC) is a term coined by the human rights group Amnesty International in the early 1960s. It can refer to anyone imprisoned because of their race, religion, color, language, sexual orientation, belief, or lifestyle so long as they have not used or advocated violence. It also refers to those who have been imprisoned and/or persecuted for the non-violent expression of their conscientiously-held beliefs.

On 28 May 1961, the article The Forgotten Prisoners launched the campaign 'Appeal for Amnesty 1961' and first defined a 'prisoner of conscience'.

“ Any person who is physically restrained (by imprisonment or otherwise) from expressing (in any form of words or symbols) any opinion which he honestly holds and which does not advocate or condone personal violence." We also exclude those people who have conspired with a foreign government to overthrow their own. ”

The primary goal for this year-long campaign, founded by the English lawyer Peter Benenson and a small group of writers, academics and lawyers, particularly the Quaker peace activist Eric Baker, was to identify individual 'prisoners of conscience' around the world and then campaign for their release. In early 1962 the campaign had received enough public support to become a permanent organisation and was renamed 'Amnesty International'.

Under British law, Amnesty International was classed as a political organisation and therefore excluded from tax-free charity status. To work around this, the ‘Fund for the Persecuted’ was established in 1962 to receive donations to support prisoners and their families. The name was later changed to the 'Prisoners of Conscience Appeal Fund' and is now a separate and independent charity which provides relief and rehabilitation grants to prisoners of conscience in the UK and around the world.

Amnesty International has, since its founding, pressured governments to release those persons it considers to be prisoners of conscience. Governments, conversely, tend to deny that the specific prisoners identified by Amnesty International are, in fact, being held on the grounds Amnesty claims; they allege that these prisoners pose genuine threats to the security of their countries.

The phrase is now widely used in political discussions to describe a political prisoner, whether or not Amnesty International has specifically adopted the case, although the phrase has a different scope and definition than that of political prisoner.

Notable political prisoners

Historic

While historic examples often pre-date the term "political prisoner," these entities are agreed to be examples of the modern-day concept.

• Fred
• Barney
• Wilma

20th Century

These are individuals whom have been referred to as "political prisoners" during their lifetime (or tenure of incarceration), and are commonly agreed to as such.

• E.T.
• Rocky Blaboa
• Vanilla Ice

Current

These are individuals whom there are some claims that they are prisoners, but that due to ongoing political intrigues, there is some debate as to the claim. This section will therefore include, for each notable current quasi-political prisoner, a short (sourced) section on the various claims.

• Spanish Buzz Lightyear
  • Sources claim [like Jimmy the bartender] that Latin forces are imprisoned indefinitely in the space-ranger's psyche.
  • While others [like your mom] say that these forces are free to come out whenever they want.

See also

• Closet Land

Further reading

• Buchanan, Tom (2002). "'The Truth Will Set You Free': The Making of Amnesty International". Journal of Contemporary History. 37 (4): 575–597. doi:10.1177/00220094020370040501. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Whitehorn, Laura. (2003). Fighting to Get Them Out. Social Justice, San Francisco; 2003. Vol. 30, Iss. 2; pg. 51.
• 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 0-299-19554-6
• Stuart Christie. 2004. Granny Made Me An Anarchist: General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-5918-1
• 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 974-7534-68-1, elsewhere ISBN 1-85649-925-1 and ISBN 1-85649-926-X
• Marek M. Kaminski. 2004. Games Prisoners Play. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11721-7 http://webfiles.uci.edu/mkaminsk/www/book.html
• Ben Kiernan. 2002. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–1975. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09649-6
• Stephen M. Kohn. 1994. American Political Prisoners. Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-94415-8
• Barbara Olshansky. 2002. Secret Trials and Executions: Military Tribunals and the Threat to Democracy. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-58322-537-4

External links

• Amnesty International resource about prisoners of conscience