Prisoner of conscience

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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'.^[1]

“

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 organization and was renamed 'Amnesty International'.

Under British law, Amnesty International was classed as a political organisation and therefore excluded from tax-free charity status.^[2] 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.^[3]

Amnesty International has, since its founding, pressured governments to release those persons it considers to be prisoners of conscience.^[4][5] Governments, conversely, tend to deny that the specific prisoners identified by Amnesty International are, in fact, being held on the grounds Amnesty claims and possess a genuine threat to the security of their country.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[6]

[edit] See also

• Closet Land

People

• Mohamed Nasheed, Current President, former journalist and MP, detained sporadically from 1991-2006 in the Maldives.^[7]
• Aung San Suu Kyi, opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, detained 1989-1995, 2000-2002, 2003- in Burma^[8]
• Kareem Amer, detained 2005, 2006- in Egypt for seditious Internet postings and atheism^[9]
• Anwar Ibrahim, opposition leader, detained 1998-2004, 2008 for corruption and sodomy in Malaysia, currently charged with sodomy^[10]
• Chia Thye Poh, former opposition MP, detained 1966-1998 in Singapore on suspicion of ties with the Malayan Communist Party^[11]
• Angela Davis^{[citation needed]}
• Gus Hall^{[citation needed]}
• Angelo Herndon^{[citation needed]}
• George Jackson^{[citation needed]}
• Jacinta Francisco Marcial, detained 2006-2009 in Mexico for kidnapping AFI agents^[12]
• Leonard Peltier^{[citation needed]}
• Simon Sheppard^{[citation needed]}
• Karpal Singh, opposition MP and lawyer, detained 1987-1989 for sedition in Malaysia, currently charged with sedition^[13]
• Sanjar Umarov^{[citation needed]}
• Woo Yong Gak^{[citation needed]}
• Ayşe Nur Zarakolu, detained sporadically 1982 until her death in 2002 in Turkey for violations of press laws^[14]

[edit] References

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (September 2009)

[edit] External links

• Amnesty International resource about prisoners of conscience
• Prisoners of Conscience Appeal Fund
• Foundation for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience
• Amnesty International Urgent Action Network

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