Political prisoner

Organizations

Academics

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 to 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 the creation of total institutions dedicated to hosting political prisoners.^[3][7]

The status of a political prisoner is conveyed to one only after their detention. Before that, potential political prisoners may be referred to as "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 may be officially detained and sentenced for a multitude of different transgressions, rather than 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. Steinert notes that "objective evidence about politically biased imprisonments is chronically sparse considering that governments face substantial incentives to hide repressive practices".^[2] As a rule, governments deny imprisoning individuals for their political activities.^[1]

A political prisoner can also be someone who 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 the subjective political perspective or interpretation of the evidence.^{[citation needed]} Political prisoners can also be imprisoned with no legal veneer by extrajudicial processes^{[citation needed]} or even through executive decisions in the absence of any trials or charges.^[1][2] 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]

Political prisoners may 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 the release of political detainees, or reduce their sentences, but is less effective in securing the release of already-sentenced individuals.^[9] When the status of political prisoner 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." Which can safeguard their well-being in prison.^[3]

Groups

• In the Soviet Union, dubious psychiatric diagnoses were sometimes used to confine political prisoners in the so-called "psikhushkas".
• In Nazi Germany, Marxists and social democrats were among the first victims of fascist repression, later groups included the "Night and Fog" prisoners and priests.^[11]
• In the United States, African-American activists such as the Wilmington Ten (which included Benjamin Chavis), have been wrongfully imprisoned.^[12][13]
• Approximately 3,600 British and Irish convicts were sent to Australia in the 1700–1800s.^[14]
• According to human rights groups, there are some 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt.^[15]
• The July 15, 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey led to over 77,000 people being formally arrested.^[16]
• Many victims of the Cambodian genocide have been described as political prisoners.^[1]

Individuals

Due to the lack of a 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]

• Alváro Barreirinhas Cunhal, former pro-Soviet leader of the Portuguese Communist Party, he was imprisoned thrice (first in June 1937, then in 1940 and later from 1949 to 1960) for his staunch opposition to Portuguese dictatorship and for his political beliefs as well as his close ties to Soviet Russia. He famously escaped Peniche Fortress, one of the regime's political prisons, with ten other men on the third of January 1960.^[17]
• Aung San Suu Kyi led the opposition National League for Democracy which was victorious in the 1990 general election. She was imprisoned or under house arrest for 15 out of the 21 years from 1990 to 2010.^[18] In 2021, she was imprisoned by the Myanmar military in a coup d'état. As of August 2022, she is being held in solitary confinement serving a 17-year sentence following a series of secret trials.^[19]
• Ninoy Aquino of the Philippines was imprisoned during the martial law in the Philippines because of his vocal opposition against then President Ferdinand Marcos.
• Benazir Bhutto was a political prisoner for four years under General Zia ul Haq.^[20]

  

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, accused of being associated with the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
• Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, African American boxer wrongfully imprisoned for 19 years in the US due to "an appeal to racism rather than reason".^[21][22]
• Eugene V. Debs, leader of the Socialist Party of the United States, was imprisoned by the US government for his opposition to the First World War.
• Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned numerous times by the British both in South Africa and India.
• Emma Goldman was imprisoned for two years and then deported by the US government for her opposition to the First World War.^[23]
• Antonio Gramsci was a leftist Italian writer, and political activist who was jailed and spent 8 years in prison. He was released conditionally due to his health situation and died shortly after.^[24]
• Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan Buddhist monk arrested during the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China for protesting, spent 33 years in Chinese prisons and labor camps where he was extensively tortured, serving the longest term of any Tibetan political prisoner.
• Anwar Ibrahim, a Malaysian opposition party leader, was imprisoned twice because of a sodomy case.
• 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.^[25]
• Liliʻuokalani, Queen of Hawaiʻi was placed under house arrest at ʻIolani Palace during the United States-backed overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Then, once Hawaiʻi was annexed as a territory, she was moved to Washington Place.
• Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned several times, most notoriously in Birmingham, Alabama.^[1]

  

• According to Amnesty International, Leopoldo López, a Venezuelan opposition leader, has been a prisoner of conscience.^[26]
• John Maclean was imprisoned by the British government for his opposition to the First World War.
• Heinrich Maier was a Roman Catholic priest and leader of one of the most important resistance groups against Nazi Germany.
• Nelson Mandela was imprisoned from 1963 until 1990 in South Africa due to his anti-apartheid activism and organizing attacks on several government targets. He later became the President of South Africa between 1994 and 1999.^[1]
• Thomas Mapfumo was imprisoned without charges in 1979 by the Rhodesian government in what is now Zimbabwe for his Shona-language music calling for revolution.^[27]
• Carlos Menem, a former Argentine president who was a political prisoner under the National Reorganization Process.
• Antonio Nariño (1765–1823) was a Colombian who translated the Declaration des Droits de L'Homme et du Citoyen into Spanish and faced multiple terms in prison under charges of translating censored material.
• Jawaharlal Nehru, political activist, statesman, and first Prime Minister of India (1948–1963) was imprisoned several times for his nationalist activism against the British Raj, serving a total of over 9 years in incarceration.^[28]

  

• Dilma Rousseff, a former Brazilian president, was imprisoned by the right-wing military government between 1970 and 1973.
• Bertrand Russell was imprisoned by the British government for six months for opposing the First World War.^[29]
• Mikis Theodorakis, a composer and lyricist, was imprisoned several times by Greek governments during the years 1947–1970.
• Leonora Christina Ulfeldt was imprisoned in solitary confinement in a royal dungeon for twenty-one years as the wife and later widow of Count Corfitz Ulfeldt.
• Ai Weiwei, is a Chinese artist and political dissident from the People's Republic of China.
• Liu Xiaobo a Chinese pro-democracy activist, was imprisoned multiple times (from the late 1980s to prior to his death in 2017) in China by the Chinese government.^[30]
• Hossein Rajabian is an Iranian filmmaker, writer and photographer who was imprisoned for 3 years as a political prisoner between 2015 and 2018 on charges related to his filmmaking in Evin prison in Iran.
• Ales Bialiatski is a Belarusian pro-democracy activist and prisoner of conscience known for his work with the Viasna Human Rights Centre. Bialiatski has been imprisoned twice; firstly from 2011 to 2014, and currently since 2021, on both occasions on charges of tax evasion. Bialiatski, as well as other human rights activists, have called the charges politically motivated. In 2022, Bialiatski was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the organisations Memorial and Centre for Civil Liberties.

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  Marat Zhylanbayev is a Kazakhstani athlete and activist who protested Kazakhstan's human rights violations outside the European Union's delegation to Kazakhstan; he was sentenced to seven years in prison.^[31]