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Political prisoner

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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

  • Leonard Peltier - United States. Peltier was convicted of murdering two FBI agents, but his guilt is disputed by many, some of whom consider him a political prisoner. He has received support from individuals and groups including Nelson Mandela, Rigoberta Menchú, Amnesty International, the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama), the European Parliament[4], the Belgian Parliament[5], the Italian Parliament, the Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Coretta Scott King, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
  • Woo Yong Gak - South Korea. A North Korean man captured by South Korea, convicted of espionage, and who refused to sign an oath of obedience to his captors' National Security Law. He served 40 years, 7 months and 13 days in solitary confinement. At the time of his release in 1999 he was acknowledged by Amnesty International as the longest-serving political prisoner in the world.[1]
  • Chia Thye Poh - Singapore. He was arrested in 1966 and imprisoned without charge or trial until 1989 upon suspicion that he was a member of the Communist Party of Malaysia and therefore a threat to the security of Singapore. He spent another 3-and-a-half years confined on the island of Sentosa: for which he was charged rent and required to procure his own food. The last of the restrictions limiting his civil and political rights were lifted in 1998.
  • Oscar Elías Biscet- Cuba : A Human rights activist sentenced to 25 years imprisonment [3].
  • Gerard Jean-Juste - Haiti: Liberation theologian and prominent member of the Fanmi Lavalas party. Has been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International [4][5].
  • Aung San Suu Kyi - Myanmar: Leader of political party victorious in last Burmese elections the results of which were ignored by military government. Ordered under house arrest by Burmese military tribunal.
  • Arnaldo Otegi - Spain: Spokesman for the Basque nationalist party Batasuna, which was declared illegal in 2002.
  • Pasteur Bizimungu - Rwanda
  • Matt Pearce - Hong Kong
  • Phuntsok Nyidron - Tibet
  • Gedhun Choekyi Nyima - Tibet
  • Andrei Ivanţoc - Transnistria: one of the four leaders of the pro-Romanian Christian-Democratic People's Party of Moldova who were accused of terrorism
  • Mikhail Trepashkin - Russia: Convicted for his investigation of the involvement of the FSB in Russian apartment bombings.
  • Cho Sung-hye - North Korea: Returned to North Korea against her will by China.
  • Akbar Ganji - Iran: Former Revolutionary Guard and journalist imprisoned in Evin Prison since April 22, 2000. He was imprisoned for his participating in the Berlin conference "Iran after the elections" after the Iranian Majlis election in 2000.
  • Adolfo Fernandez Sainz - Cuba: Journalist for the Moscow based news agency PRIMA. He was arrested on March 20, 2005, as a result of the government’s crackdown on independent journalists. He was accused of giving interviews to foreign radio stations and posting “subversive” articles on the Internet, and sentenced to 15 years in prison under infamous Law 88, better known as the “gag law”.
  • Jennifer Latheef - Maldives: Opposition political activist Jennifer Latheef was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment on October 18, 2003, convicted of "terrorism" for joining a protest in September 2003 against deaths in prison and political repression.
  • Mikhail Marynich - Belarus: On December 30, 2005, the Minsk district court found the former Minister of Foreign Economic Relations, and Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Belarus, Mikhail Marynich, guilty of the misappropriation of office equipment, which the United States Embassy had given to the Belarusian public association “Business Initiative”. The politician has been sentenced to five years detention in a medium-security colony and his property has been confiscated. His arrest was clearly politically motivated.
  • Soebandrio - Indonesia: Minister of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia under Sukarno. He was detained by Soeharto in 1966 after the so-called "communist" coup d'etat in 1965, sentenced to death by a military tribunal. His sentence was commuted to life, but he was released in 1995.
  • Pramoedya Ananta Toer - Indonesia: prominent leftist writer. Detained by Soeharto and was never brought to trial. Instead he was sent to Buru and released in 1979 but remained in house arrest until 1992.
  • Loncos Pascual Pichún Paillalao and Aniceto Norín Catriman (liders of Mapuche people) - Chile
  • Crispin Beltran: Labour organizer and Congressman of the Philippines detained on charges of rebellion.

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 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.

References

  1. ^ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/02/25/world/main36530.shtml

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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