Political prisoner

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A political prisoner is someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, for his or her involvement in political activity.

Contents

Controversy

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 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.

In the parlance of many violent groups and their sympathizers, political prisoner includes persons imprisoned because they await trial for, or have been convicted of, 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 some cases democratic governments. For instance, French anarchist groups typically call the former members of Action Directe held in France for murder "political prisoners."

Some also include all convicted for treason and espionage in the category of "political prisoners."

In many cases, political prisoners are imprisoned with no legal veneer directly through extrajudicial 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 (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 and 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.

Governments 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.citation needed 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.

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 [1][2].

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.§

Examples of individuals believed (or claiming) to be political prisoners

  • Leonard Peltier - United States. Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement. In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two FBI Agents who died during a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. There has been considerable debate over Peltier’s guilt and the fairness of his trial. Some supporters and organizations, including Amnesty International, consider him to be a political prisoner.
  • Mumia Abu-Jamal - United States The former Black Panther and journalists was sentenced to death after allegedly killing Officer Daniel Faukner of the Philadelphia PD in 1981. Since the conviction, supporters have rallied against the courts' alleged abuse of Mumia's civil rights; recently, a new movement has emerged focused on the evidence, or lack thereof, given at Mumia's first trial, proclaiming his innocence. Since his incarceration, Mumia has written eight books, continued working as a journalist, and made several radio appearances not about his own case, but about the criminal justice system and black communities. 1
  • Sanjar Umarov - Uzbekistan. Sanjar Guiess Umarov (born April 7, 1956) is a prominent Uzbek politician and businessman. He is the chairman of Sunshine Uzbekistan, the main party in opposition to president Islom Karimov's authoritarian rule. He was arrested in October 2005 for embezzlement — charges his supporters say were politically motivated — and went on trial in January 2006. He was sentenced to 14 years (later reduced to 10 years) in prison and fined $8 million.2

Famous historic political prisoners

  • Fidel Castro served approximately two years (1953-1955) for his participation in the Attack on Moncada Barracks before launching a successful rebellion in Cuba to become President.
  • Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned numerous times, in both South Africa and India, for his non-violent political activities.
  • Adolf Hitler served a short term (1924) for leading the Beer Hall Putsch to overthrow the government in Munich, wrote Mein Kampf while in prison, and went on to become Chancellor and Führer of Germany.
  • Kim Dae Jung served one term (1976-1979) and in 1980 was exiled to the United States, but returned in 1985 and became President of South Korea in 1998.
  • Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1956 and acquitted. He left the country and returned, only to be rearrested and imprisoned for a long term (1962-1990), after which he negotiated the end of Apartheid and went on to become President of South Africa.
  • Thomas Mapfumo was imprisoned without charges in 1979 by the Rhodesian government for his Shona-language music calling for revolution.
  • Zhang Xueliang served a lengthy sentence (1936-1990) for leading the Xi'an Incident in China in which he temporarily imprisoned Chiang Kai-shek, who, when later released, promptly arrested Zhang and brought him to Taiwan after the fall of the Nationalist government to continue his sentence.
  • Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto served prison sentences of two and five years respectively under General Zia ul Haq, Mr. Bhutto was later executed.
  • Bobby Sands was a Provisional IRA guerrilla imprisoned in 1977 after a shoot-out with British troops. While in prison he was elected to the British Parliament. He died in 1981 after taking part in a hunger strike for political status. 9 more men died on hungerstrike before political status was reinstated.

List of Tibetan political prisoners

Below are some names of political prisoners among the most well known in Tibet. Some of them died while in prison, or have been released:

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Mumia's case remains in the public eye, and the National Lawyer's Guild will be filing for a appeal to the Supreme Court within the next year. http://freemumia.com/
  2. ^ BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Uzbekistan jails opposition chief
  3. ^ http://www.westword.com/1995-07-12/news/end-of-the-line/ Prendergast, Alan. End of the line. Denver Westword, July 12, 1995. Retrieved on 2008-11-21

References

  • ^Whitehorn, Laura. (2003). Fighting to Get Them Out. Social Justice, San Francisco; 2003. Vol. 30, Iss. 2; pg. 51.

Further reading

External links

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Additional illustrations are available at the Russian version http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Политический_заключённый

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 29 November 2008, at 22:07.

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