Sahrawi activist Ali Salem Tamek.
Aung San Suu Kyi
Nelson Mandela
Emma Goldman
Mahatma Gandhi

A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.

There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although numerous similar definitions have been proposed by various organizations and scholars, and there is a general consensus among scholars that "individuals have been sanctioned by legal systems and imprisoned by political regimes not for their violation of codified laws but for their thoughts and ideas that have fundamentally challenged existing power relations".[1] The status of a political prisoner is generally awarded to individuals based on declarations of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International, on a case-by-case basis. While such status are often widely recognized by the international public opinion, they are often rejected by individual governments accused of holding political prisoners, which tend to deny any bias in their judicial systems.[1][2]

A related term is prisoner of conscience, popularized by Amnesty International. It describes someone who was prosecuted because of their personal beliefs.

Some prisons, known as political prisons, are focused or even dedicated solely to hosting political prisoners.[3]

Definitions

The concept of a political prisoner, like many concepts in social sciences, sports numerous definitions, and is undefined in international law and human right treaties.[2][1] Helen Taylor Greene and Shaun L. Gabbidon in 2009 that "standard legal definitions have remained elusive", but at the same time, observing that there is a general consensus that "individuals have been sanctioned by legal systems and imprisoned by political regimes not for their violation of codified laws but for their thoughts and ideas that have fundamentally challenged existing power relations".[1]

A number of organizations involved in human rights issues, as well as scholars studying them, have developed their own definitions,[2][1] some of which are presented below.

Organizations

Amnesty International

Amnesty International (AI) 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 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.[2][1] The organisation defines the differences as follows:[4]

AI uses the term "political prisoner" broadly. It does not use it, as some others do, to imply that all such prisoners have a special status or should be released. It uses the term only to define a category of prisoners for whom AI demands a fair and prompt trial.

In AI's usage, the term includes any prisoner whose case has a significant political element: whether the motivation of the prisoner's acts, the acts in themselves, or the motivation of the authorities.

"Political" is used by AI to refer to aspects of human relations related to "politics": the mechanisms of society and civil order, the principles, organization, or conduct of government or public affairs, and the relation of all these to questions of language, ethnic origin, sex or religion, status or influence (among other factors).

The category of political prisoners embraces the category of prisoners of conscience, the only prisoners who AI demands should be immediately and unconditionally released, as well as people who resort to criminal violence for a political motive.

In AI's use of the term, here are some examples of political prisoners:

  • a person accused or convicted of an ordinary crime carried out for political motives, such as murder or robbery carried out to support the objectives of an opposition group;
  • a person accused or convicted of an ordinary crime committed in a political context, such as at a demonstration by a trade union or a peasants' organization;
  • a member or suspected member of an armed opposition group who has been charged with treason or "subversion".

Governments often say they have no political prisoners, only prisoners held under the normal criminal law. AI however describes cases like the examples given above as "political" and uses the terms "political trial" and "political imprisonment" when referring to them. But by doing so AI does not oppose the imprisonment, except where it further maintains that the prisoner is a prisoner of conscience, or condemn the trial, except where it concludes that it was unfair.

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has the following definition:

A person deprived of their personal liberty is to be regarded as a 'political prisoner':

  1. if the detention has been imposed in violation of one of the fundamental guarantees set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols, in particular freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom of assembly and association;
  2. if the detention has been imposed for purely political reasons without connection to any offence;
  3. if, for political motives, the length of the detention or its conditions are clearly out of proportion to the offence the person has been found guilty of or is suspected of;
  4. if, for political motives, he or she is detained in a discriminatory manner as compared to other persons; or,
  5. if the detention is the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and this appears to be connected with political motives of the authorities.[5]

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners

Burmese Assistance Association for Political Prisoners defines a political prisoner as "anyone who is arrested because of [their] perceived or real involvement in or supporting role in opposition movements with peaceful or resistance means."[6]

Congressional-Executive Commission on China

The US Congressional-Executive Commission on China defines a political prisoner broadly as any individual who is detained for exercising “[their] human rights under international law, such as peaceable assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of association, free expression including the freedom to advocate peaceable social or political change, and to criticize government policy or government officials.”.[1]

Academics

Steinert (2020)

Christoph Valentin Steinert, who in 2020 reviewed 366 definitions of political prisoners used in (mainly English language) academic literature in 1956 and 2019, argued that any definition of political prisoner needs to avoid focusing on prisoners' individual motivations and the term "should be exclusively reserved for victims of politically biased trials" (in other words, "victims of state repression"), to avoid delegitimizing the term by diluting it with applications to prisoners of any possibly politically motivated action (which on extreme end of spectrum would include, for example, Ku Klux Klanners, neo-Nazis, and jihadist terrorists). He specifically criticizes definitions of political prisoners as "individuals imprisoned for politically motivated actions" or "committing a political offense". He proposed the following definition:[2]

Political prisoners are defined as individuals that are convicted and incarcerated in politically biased trials (or executive decisions in absence of any trials). Trials are deemed politically biased if they are endorsed by the government and (a) lack a domestic legal basis, (b) violate principles of procedural justice, or (c) violate universal human rights.[2]

Steinert noted that his definition does extend to prisoners "imprisoned for nonpolitical identities such as their religious beliefs or their sexual orientations", as well as individuals engaged in violent actions, arguing that the neutral "classification as a political prisoner neither entails an a priori judgment about the moral legitimacy of prisoners' actions nor does it imply that individuals committed politically motivated crimes".[2]

Other aspects

The purpose of political prisons and of imprisoning dissidents is to demonstrate the strength of the regime to the dissidents. The regime's opponents are isolated and stigmatised, frequently abused and tortured. The goal of such treatment is not just punish those opposing the regime, but to frighten those who consider opposing the regime by demonstrating the power of the regime by sending a clear warning that objecting is not tolerated, and that the regime is well prepared and ready to punish the objectors through creation of total institutions dedicated to hosting political prisoners.[3][7]

The status of a political prisoner is conferred to one only after their detention. Before that, potential political prisoners may be considered "dissidents, revolutionaries, social reformers, or radical thinkers". The nature of the behavior that leads to political imprisonment is hard to define and can be roughly described as any "activity deemed questionable by ruling elites".[1] Therefore, political prisoners are officially detained and sentenced for multitude of different transgressions, instead of for a single well defined crime.[1] Political prisoners are frequently 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.[2] For example, AAPP states that "the motivation behind the arrest of every individual in AAPP's database is political, regardless of the laws they have been sentenced under".[6] This is common in situations which may otherwise be decried nationally and internationally as a human rights violation or suppression of a political dissident, and Steinert notes that "objective evidence about politically biased imprisonments is chronically sparse considering that governments face substantial incentives to hide repressive practices".[2] In fact, all governments habitually deny accusations that they imprison any individuals for political activities.[1]

Turkish journalists protesting imprisonment of their colleagues on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2016

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. Political prisoners can also be imprisoned with no legal veneer by extrajudicial processes or through executive decisions in absence of any trials[2] or even charges.[1] Some political prisoners need not be imprisoned at all, as they can be subject to prolonged pre-trial detainment instead. Steinert noted that technically, political detainees should be distinguished from political prisoners, but they are often grouped together, and in practical terms, he recommends treating them as special types of political prisoners.[2] Examples of such detainees can include individuals such as the former Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, detained for many years without a trial.[2] Likewise, supporters of Tibetan spiritual leader 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 offense. He is held under secluded house arrest.[8]

The status of a political prisoner can be significant, as such inmates can become the subjects of international advocacy and receive aid from various non-governmental organizations.[2] Criticism from the international public opinion has been shown to facilitate release of political detainees, or reduce their sentences, but is less effective in securing release of already-sentenced individuals.[9] When the status of a prisoner as political is well known, it can be seen as a form of status symbol, some political prisoners purposefully frame themselves as "the imprisoned martyrs and leaders of their movement", and this status can also be seen as "providing a guarantee of their security and of respect for their rights behind the bars".[3]

History

Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates has been described as perhaps the earliest known political prisoner; imprisoned for allegedly “poisoning” the minds of Grecian youth through his critique of Athenian society and its rulers.[1] Early Christians, including Jesus Christ, and St. Peter, have also been described as such.[7] Another famous historical figure described as a political prisoner is the 15th century French heroine, Joan of Arc, whose final charge of heresy was seen as a legal justification for her real crime of "inconveniencing the elites".[1][10]

Padraic Kenney noted that "the emergence of modern political prisoners coincides with a fifty-year period (1860s–1910s) during which [modern] political movements matured around the world", also defining such movements as having "clearly articulated political and social programs" which forced the governments to develop a specific response to such movements (a response which often involved incarceration rather than dialogue, particularly under the less liberal regimes).[7]

In some places, political prisoners had their own customs, traditions, and semi-formal organizations and privileges; historically, this has been more common up to around the interwar period, as the many political prisoners came from higher social classes (in particular, nobility), and authorities often treated them better than common criminals. This changed with the emergence of the totalitarian regimes, which attempted to throughout indoctrinate or eliminate any opposition.[3][7]

Images of political prisoners from the Gestapo archives, Germany

In Poland, the concept and even traditions of political prisoners emerged around the second half of the 19th century in the Russian partition.[3][7]

While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 is not legally binding, it is generally recognized as "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations." Of particular relevance to political prisoners are its Articles 5, 6, 9 and 18. The UDHR and the later Helsinki Accords of 1975 have been used by a number of nongovernmental organizations as basis for arguing that some governments are in fact holding political prisoners.[1]

In the United States, the term political prisoner has been used during the mid-20th century civil rights struggle and has been occasionally applied to individuals like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr., and later used for individuals imprisoned for objecting to US involvement in the Vietnam War.[2][1]

Political prisoners sometimes write memoirs of their experiences and resulting insights. Some of these memoirs have become important political texts. For example, King's "Letter From a Birmingham City Jail" has been described as "one of the most important historical documents penned by a modern political prisoner".[1]

Advocacy

A number of nongovernmental organizations focuses on advocacy for political prisoners. The most prominent of those is Amnesty International, founded in 1961.[1]

Notable political prisoners

Groups

Individuals

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her staff at her home in Yangon

Due to the lack of single, internationally recognized legal definition of a political prisoner, nongovernmental organizations like Amnesty International, aided by legal scholars, determine whether prisoners meet their criteria of political prisoners on a case-by-case basis.[1]

Notable political prisons

The following prisons have been recognized as incarcerating primarily political prisoners, and have therefore been called "political prisons":

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Greene, Helen Taylor; Gabbidon, Shaun L. (14 April 2009). "Political Prisoners". Encyclopedia of Race and Crime. SAGE Publications. pp. 636–639. ISBN 978-1-4522-6609-1.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Steinert, Christoph Valentin (2021). "Who Is a Political Prisoner?". Journal of Global Security Studies. 6 (3). doi:10.1093/jogss/ogaa052. ISSN 2057-3170.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Machcewicz, Anna (2018). "Political Prisoners in Poland, 1944–56: The Sources and Strategies of Resistance in the Authoritarian State's Prison System". Acta Poloniae Historica. 118: 93–126. doi:10.12775/APH.2018.118.04. ISSN 0001-6829. S2CID 159274432.
  4. ↑ "AI's FOCUS". Amnesty International. Retrieved 5 April 2012.
  5. ↑ "The definition of political prisoner". Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. 3 October 2012. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  6. 1 2 "The recognition of political prisoners: essential to democratic and national reconciliation process" (PDF). Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). 9 November 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 September 2018. Retrieved 20 August 2012.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Kenney, Padraic (October 2012). ""I felt a kind of pleasure in seeing them treat us brutally." The Emergence of the Political Prisoner, 1865–1910". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 54 (4): 863–889. doi:10.1017/S0010417512000448. ISSN 0010-4175. S2CID 146560115.
  8. ↑ "Tibet's missing spiritual guide". BBC News. 16 May 2005. Retrieved 3 May 2010.
  9. ↑ Gruffydd-Jones, Jamie J (4 March 2021). "International Attention and the Treatment of Political Prisoners". International Studies Quarterly. 65 (4): 999–1011. doi:10.1093/isq/sqab017. ISSN 0020-8833.
  10. ↑ Pernoud, Regine; Clin, Narue-Veronique (15 October 1999). Joan of Arc: Her Story. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. xii, xix, 106, 150. ISBN 978-0-312-22730-2.
  11. ↑ "Pardons for the Wilmington 10". The New York Times Sunday Review. 22 December 2012. p. SR10.
  12. ↑ "The Wilmington 10: North Carolina Urged to Pardon Civil Rights Activists Falsely Jailed 40 Years Ago". Democracy Now!. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  13. ↑ "Convicts to Australia". Retrieved 20 August 2012.
  14. ↑ "No political prisoners freed as Egypt pardons thousands on Eid". Al-Jazeera. 24 May 2020.
  15. ↑ "Turkey arrests German for spreading Kurdish propaganda: Anadolu". Reuters. 25 July 2018.
  16. ↑ Cunha, Adelino (2020). Álvaro Cunhal: Retrato Pessoal E Íntimo (in Portuguese). Desassossego. ISBN 9789898892706.
  17. ↑ "Top 10 Political Prisoners". TIME. 15 August 2010. Archived from the original on 12 October 2010. Retrieved 1 January 2011. Full List FREEDOM FIGHTERS: Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel, Akbar Ganji, Benigno Aquino Jr., Ho Chi Minh
  18. ↑ Chen, Heather; Diamond, Cape (16 August 2022). "Former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to 6 more years in prison". CNN. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  19. ↑ Weaver, Mary Anne (2003). Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan. Macmillan Publishers. p. 73. Benazir Bhutto... was under house arrest at the time of her father's death; Zia made her a political prisoner for four years
  20. ↑ D'Alessandro, Dave (20 April 2014). "'Hurricane' Carter, boxer and NJ native, dies at 76". nj.com. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  21. ↑ Raab, Selwyn (20 April 2014). "Rubin (Hurricane) Carter, Boxer Found Wrongly Convicted, Dies at 76". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  22. ↑ Vivian Gornick (2011). Emma Goldman. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-17761-9.
  23. ↑ Germino, Dante L. (1990). Antonio Gramsci: Architect of a New Politics. Louisiana State University Press. p. 23. Gramsci carried with him from his Sardinian upbringing two qualities that were to enable him to stand... his long years as a political prisoner in Benito Mussolini's Italy
  24. ↑ Kim, Jack (18 August 2009). "Former South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung dies". Reuters. Seoul. Retrieved 1 January 2011. The former political prisoner, once sentenced to death under one of the country's early military rulers whom he relentlessly opposed, was elected South Korea's president in December 1997 on his fourth attempt.
  25. ↑ "Faces of Impunity: Leopoldo López". Amnesty International (Press release). Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  26. ↑ "The Struggle Continues". Spin. Vol. 5, no. 11. February 1990. The chimurenga of Thomas Mapfumo has made him both a pop star and political prisoner in Zimbabwe
  27. ↑ "Jawaharlal Nehru Biography" Encyclopedia Britannica
  28. ↑ Vellacott, Jo (1980). Bertrand Russell and the Pacifists in the First World War. Brighton: Harvester Press. ISBN 0-85527-454-9.
  29. ↑ "Liu Xiaobo, China's most famous political prisoner, 'close to death'". The Guardian. 6 July 2017. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  30. ↑ "Kazakhstan: Government Critic on Trial for 'Extremism' | Human Rights Watch". 8 November 2023. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
  31. ↑ Acta Poloniae Historica. Państwowe Wydawn. Naukowe. 2004. p. 180. Bereza Kartuska was a political prison with the hardest conditions in prewar Poland
  32. ↑ Talebi, Shahla (21 January 2014). "Children as Protectors: The Conditions of Parenthood in a Political Prison in Iran". Champ pénal/Penal field. XI. doi:10.4000/champpenal.8770. ISSN 1777-5272. Evin, one of the most notorious political prisons in Iran
  33. ↑ Bujalski, Nicholas (May 2020). Russia's Peter and Paul Fortress: From Heart of Empire to Museum of the Revolution, 1825–1930 (PhD thesis). Cornell University. doi:10.7298/6qr1-2g32. Russia's Peter and Paul Fortress – the founding site of St. Petersburg, the imperial mausoleum of the royal family, and the most notorious political prison of the Romanov regime
  34. ↑ "Шлиссельбургская крепость" [Shlisselburg Fortress]. Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in Russian). Retrieved 14 July 2021. После постройки Кронштадта (1703) утратила военное значение и превращена в политическую тюрьму.
  35. ↑ "Крепость Орешек" [Oreshek Fortress]. towns.ru (in Russian). 17 January 2005. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
  36. ↑ Eaton, Jonathan; Bllaci, Mirian; Petri, Nedi; Hadžić, Lejla; Mamani, Elena (2018). "Heritage-making and Democratic Ideals in Albania: Spaç Prison as a Site of Dialogue". ICOMOS 19th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium "Heritage and Democracy", 13–14th December 2017, New Delhi, India (in French). New Delhi, India. Spaç Prison developed into a notorious political prison and forced labour camp
  37. ↑ da Cruz, Carlos (2013). "Praça-Forte de Peniche". Fortalezas: Fortificações do Mundo. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  38. ↑ Carvalho, Patrícia; Miranda, Adriano (6 January 2019). "Cumpre-se o sonho dos presos: serem libertados e terem à sua espera uma multidão". Público. Retrieved 23 February 2023.

Further reading

  • 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
  • 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
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