Prisoner of conscience

Prisoner of conscience (POC) is a term coined by Peter Benenson in a 28 May 1961 article ("The Forgotten Prisoners") for the London Observer newspaper. Most often associated with the human rights organisation Amnesty International, the term can refer to anyone imprisoned because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, or political views. It also refers to those who have been imprisoned and/or persecuted for the non-violent expression of their conscientiously held beliefs.

Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir was sentenced to death after he wrote an article critical of religion and the caste system in Mauritania.

Definition

The article "The Forgotten Prisoners" by Peter Benenson, published in The Observer 28 May 1961, launched the campaign "Appeal for Amnesty 1961" and first defined a "prisoner of conscience".[1]

Any person who is physically restrained (by imprisonment or otherwise) from expressing (in any form of words or symbols) any opinion which he honestly holds and which does not advocate or condone personal violence. We also exclude those people who have conspired with a foreign government to overthrow their own.

The primary goal for this year-long campaign, founded by the English lawyer Peter Benenson and a small group of writers, academics and lawyers including Quaker peace activist Eric Baker, was to identify individual prisoners of conscience around the world and then campaign for their release. In early 1962, the campaign had received enough public support to become a permanent organization and was renamed Amnesty International.

A protest outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London against detention of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, 2017

Under British law, Amnesty International was classed as a political organisation and therefore excluded from tax-free charity status.[2] To work around this, the "Fund for the Persecuted" was established in 1962 to receive donations to support prisoners and their families. The name was later changed to the "Prisoners of Conscience Appeal Fund" and is now a separate and independent charity which provides relief and rehabilitation grants to prisoners of conscience in the UK and around the world.[3]

Amnesty International has, since its founding, pressured governments to release those persons it considers to be prisoners of conscience.[4] Governments, conversely, tend to deny that the specific prisoners identified by Amnesty International are, in fact, being held on the grounds Amnesty claims; they allege that these prisoners pose genuine threats to the security of their countries.[5]

The concept of "prisoners of conscience" became a controversy around Nelson Mandela's imprisonment in South Africa 1964. He had initially been adopted as a prisoner of conscience in 1962, when he was sentenced to five years in jail for inciting a strike of African workers.[6] This was reversed after the Rivonia Trial showed that Mandela now had turned to violently opposing the South African regime. The reversal evolved in 1964 into a worldwide debate and a poll among the members of Amnesty International. The overwhelming majority decided to maintain the basic rule, that prisoners of conscience are those who have not used or advocated violence.[7]

The phrase is now widely used in political discussions to describe a political prisoner, whether or not Amnesty International has specifically adopted the case, although the phrase has a different scope and definition than that of political prisoner.[8]

Current Amnesty International prisoners of conscience

Below is an incomplete list of individuals that Amnesty International considers to be prisoners of conscience, organized by country.

Azerbaijan

Bahrain

Belarus

Cambodia

China

Eritrea

Ethiopia

The Gambia

Hong Kong

India

Israel

Iran

Kuwait

Kyrgyzstan

Malaysia

Mauritania

Morocco

Myanmar
Aung San Suu Kyi was an Amnesty International-recognized prisoner of conscience from 1989 to 1995, from 2000 to 2002, and from 2003 to 2010.[66]

Nigeria

North Korea

Pakistan

Russia
NameAgeLocationTermUntilReason
Christensen, Dennis45Detention Center No. 1, Oryol Region17 months2018-11-01Religious activity
Karimov, Ilkham37Detention Center No. 5, Republic of Tatarstan5 months2018-10-25Religious activity
Matrashov, Konstantin29Detention Center No. 5, Republic of Tatarstan5 months2018-10-25Religious activity
Myakushin, Vladimir30Detention Center No. 5, Republic of Tatarstan5 months2018-10-25Religious activity
Yulmetyev, Aydar24Detention Center No. 5, Republic of Tatarstan5 months2018-10-25Religious activity
Mikhailov, Dmitriy40Detention Center No. 1, Ivanovo Region5 months2018-10-19Religious activity
Klimov, Sergey48Detention Center No. 1, Tomsk Region5 months2018-10-31Religious activity
Osadchuk, Valentin42Detention Center No. 1, Primorskiy Territory7 months2018-11-20Religious activity
Bazhenov, Konstantin43Detention Center No. 1, Saratov Region6 months2018-12-12Religious activity
Makhammadiev, Felix33Detention Center No. 1, Saratov Region6 months2018-12-12Religious activity
Budenchuk, Aleksey35Detention Center No. 1, Saratov Region6 months2018-12-12Religious activity
Stupnikov, Andrey44Detention Center No. 1, Krasnoyarsk Territory4 months2018-11-02Religious activity
Polyakova, Anastasiya34Detention Center No. 1, Omsk Region5 months2018-11-20Religious activity
Polyakov, Sergey46Detention Center No. 1, Omsk Region5 months2018-11-20Religious activity
Alushkin, Vladimir54Detention Center No. 1, Penza Region4 months2018-11-14Religious activity
Levchuk, Vadim46Detention Center No. 1, Kemerovo Region]4 months2018-11-19Religious activity
Britvin, Sergey52Detention Center No. 1, Kemerovo Region4 months2018-11-19Religious activity
Barmakin, Dmitriy44Detention Center No. 1, Primorskiy Territory4 months2018-10-27Religious activity
Moskalenko, Valeriy51Detention Center No. 1, Khabarovsk Territory4 months2018-12-02Religious activity
Sorokina, Nataliya43Detention Center No. 1, Smolensk Region1 month 12 days2018-11-19Religious activity
Troshina, Mariya41Detention Center No. 1, Smolensk Region1 month 12 days2018-11-19Religious activity
Onishchuk, Andzhey50Unconfirmed1 month 24 days2018-12-02Religious activity
Korobeynikov, Vladimir65UnconfirmedUnconfirmedReligious activity
Suvorkov, Andrey25Unconfirmed1 month 25 days2018-12-03Religious activity
Suvorkov, Evgeniy40Unconfirmed1 month 24 days2018-12-02Religious activity
Khalturin, Maksim44Unconfirmed1 month 24 days2018-12-02Religious activity

Saudi Arabia

Sudan

Syria

Thailand

Tunisia

Ukraine

United Arab Emirates

Uzbekistan

Venezuela

Vietnam
gollark: Obviously you can reencode in software when watching it actively, but that's very very intensive.
gollark: On my 1080p-ish devices I get ~2Mbps video streams, while my phone does videos at about 20Mbps.
gollark: YouTube actually uses a much lower bitrate than most bad hardware encoders will do.
gollark: Then you do need internet connectivity, and should attain it.
gollark: You can run it locally.

See also

References
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