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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 repression.

Some political prisoners have recorded their experiences in memoirs. See list of memoirs of political prisoners.

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.

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.

Examples of persons thought to be current political prisoners

• Lori Berenson - Peru
• David Gilbert - USA
• Leonard Peltier - USA
• Aung San Suu Kyi - Burma
• Mumia Abu Jamal - USA
• Delbert Africa - USA
• Phuntsok Nyidron - Tibet
• Gedhun Choekyi Nyima - Tibet

Further reading

• n.a. 1973. Political Prisoners in South Vietnam. London: Amnesty International Publications.

• Christina Fink. 2001. Living Silence: Burma Under Miltiary Rule. Bangkok: White Lotus Press and London: Zed Press. (Note Chapter 8: Prison: 'Live University' ). In Thailand ISBN 9747534681, elsewhere ISBN 1856499251 ISBN 185649926X

• Stephen M. Kohn. 1994. American Political Prisoners. Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 0275944158

• Barbara Olshansky. 2002. Secret Trials and Executions: Military Tribunals and the Threat to Democracy. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1583225374