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[[it:Prigioniero politico]]
[[it:Prigioniero politico]]
[[ja:政治犯]]
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[[no:Politisk fange]]
[[ru:Политический заключённый]]
[[ru:Политический заключённый]]
[[sk:Politický väzeň]]
[[sk:Politický väzeň]]

Revision as of 15:48, 22 May 2007

Template:Legal status 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. It may be a prisoner of conscience, deprived of freedom of speech.

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 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.

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]. 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 for civilians. [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.

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 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 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.

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

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.
  • 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 arrested again for a long term (1962-1990) where after he negotiated the end of Apartheid and soon became President of South Africa.
  • Zhang Xueliang served a very long term (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 lengthy sentence.
  • Bobby Sands, an Irish Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member went on hunger strike and died fro his rights

Political prisoners in particular countries

Further reading

  • 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

See also

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