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A political prisoner is anyone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image either challenge or pose a real or potential threat to the state. In many cases, a veneer of legality is used to disguise the fact that someone is a political prisoner. Trumped-up criminal charges may have been used to imprison the political prisoner, or he or she may have been denied bail unfairly, denied parole when it would reasonably have been given to another prisoner, or special powers may be invoked by the judiciary. Who is or is not regarded as a political prisoner may depend upon one's own subjective political perspective. Governments of all regime types--fascist, communist, theocratic, and liberal democratic--have held political prisoners. 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.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. 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.
Amnesty International normally campaigns only 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. (Distinguishing politics from religion and philosophy in any objective sense is of course impossible.) 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.
1 Examples of persons thought (by some) to be current political prisoners
- Lori Berenson - Peru (American human rights activist convicted of assisting terrorists in a Peruvian court)
- David Gilbert - USA (SDS anti-war radical convicted of assisting robbery resulting in three homicides in US court)
- Leonard Peltier - USA (Native American activist convicted of killing two FBI agents in US court)
- Aung San Suu Kyi - Burma (leader of political party victorious in last Burmese elections; military government ignored results) (democracy activist ordered under house arrest by Burmese military tribunal)
- Mumia Abu Jamal - USA (African-American activist convicted of killing police officer Daniel FaulknerDaniel Faulkner ( December 21, 1955 December 9, 1981) was a Philadelphia police officer; his murder, allegedly by Mumia Abu-Jamal, led to a large controversy. Daniel Faulkner had settled down with his wife Maureen in Philadelphia and had recently earned h in US court)
- Delbert Africa - USA
- Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin - USA (African-American convicted of killing a sheriff's deputy in US court)
- Camilo MejiaCamilo Mejia is a former member of the Florida National Guard charged with desertion after failing to return to his unit after an October furlough. He turned himself in during March 2004, when he claimed he did not want to fight in an "oil-driven war". - USA (convicted of deserting his military unit)
- Pasteur Bizimungu - Rwanda
- Phuntsok Nyidron - Tibet
- Gedhun Choekyi Nyima - Tibet
- Michael Riconosciuto - USA
- Jeff Luers - USA (convicted of politically-motivated property destruction)
- Cho Sung-hye - North Korea (Returned to North Korea against her will by China)
