Prisoner of conscience

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".

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.

Under British law, Amnesty International was classed as a political organisation and therefore excluded from tax-free charity status. 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.

Amnesty International has, since its founding, pressured governments to release those persons it considers to be prisoners of conscience. 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.

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.

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.

Cambodia

Yorm Bopha

Eritrea

Ethiopia

Eskinder Nega

The Gambia

Ebrima Manneh

India

Israel

Mordechai Vanunu

Kuwait

Hamad al-Naqi

Kyrgyzstan

Azimzhan Askarov

Malaysia

Ali Abd Jalil

Mauritania

Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir

Morocco

Ali Anouzla

Myanmar

Phyo Phyo Aung

Nigeria

Fela Kuti

North Korea

Oh Hae-won

Pakistan

Baba Jan

People's Republic of China

Chen Wei; Dhondup Wangchen; Ershidin Israil; Gao Zhisheng; Guo Feixiong; Guo Xiaojun; Liu Xiaobo; Mao Hengfeng; Shi Tao; Wang Junling; Wang Xiaodong

Russia

Mikhail Kosenko; Nikolay Kavkazsky; Ruslan Sokolovsky;Ildar DadinYaroslav Belousov

Saudi Arabia

Raif Badawi; Mohammad bin Saleh al-Bajadi; Saud al-Hashimi; Khaled al-Johani; Hamza Kashgari; Ashraf Fayadh;Issa al-Hamid;Alaa Brinji;Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr;Zuhair Kutbi;Mikhlif al-Shammari;Waleed Abu al-Khair;Abdulaziz al-Shubaili;Saleh al-Ashwan;Omar al-Said;Abdulrahman al-Hamid;Abdulkareem al-Khoder;Abdullah al-Hamid;Mohammed Fahad al-Qahtani;Fowzan al-Harbi;Fadhel al-Manasif

Sudan

Ussamah Mohammed; Faisal Saleh

Syria

Ali al-Abdullah; Mazen Darwish; Shibal Ibrahim; Riad Seif

Thailand

Somyot Prueksakasemsuk

Tunisia

Ramzi Abcha; Ghazi Beji;

Ukraine

Ruslan Kotsaba

United States

Saifullah Paracha

Uzbekistan

Azam Farmonov; Alisher Karamatov; Solijon Abdrahmanov

Venezuela

Leopoldo López

Vietnam

Cù Huy Hà Vũ; Le Cong Dinh; Nguyen Dan Que; Nguyen Van Hai; Nguyen Van Ly; Phan Thanh Hai; Ta Phong Tan; Vi Duc Hoi; Trần Huỳnh Duy Thức.