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Prisoner of conscience (POC) is a term coined by the human rights group Amnesty International
Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organization which defines its mission as "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated." Founded in London, England in 1961, AI draws its attention to human rights abuses and...
 in the early 1960s. It can refer to anyone imprisoned because of their race, religion
Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
, color
Human skin color

Human skin color can range from almost black to nearly colorless in different homo sapiens. Skin color is determined by the amount and type of melanin, the pigment in the skin....
, language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
, sexual orientation
Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation refers to "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes." According to the American Psychological Association, "it also refers to an individual?s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of...
, belief
Belief

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true....
, or lifestyle
Lifestyle

Lifestyle was originally coined by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. The current broader sense of the word dates from 1961.In sociology, a lifestyle is the way a person lives....
 so long as they have not used or advocated violence
Violence

Violence is the expression of physical force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt. Variant uses of the term refer to the destruction of non-living objects ....
. It also refers to those who have been imprisoned and/or persecuted for the non-violent expression of their conscientiously-held beliefs.

On 28 May 1961, the article The Forgotten Prisoners launched the campaign 'Appeal for Amnesty 1961' and first defined a 'prisoner of conscience'.

The primary goal for this year-long campaign, founded by the English lawyer Peter Benenson
Peter Benenson

Peter Benenson was an England lawyer and the founder of human rights group Amnesty International ....
 and a small group of writers, academics and lawyers, particularly the Quaker peace activist Eric Baker
Eric Baker (activist)

Eric Baker was one of the founders of the human rights group Amnesty International and the second general secretary of the organisation. He was also a founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament....
, was to identify individual 'prisoners of conscience' around the world and then campaign for their release.






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Prisoner of conscience (POC) is a term coined by the human rights group Amnesty International
Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organization which defines its mission as "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated." Founded in London, England in 1961, AI draws its attention to human rights abuses and...
 in the early 1960s. It can refer to anyone imprisoned because of their race, religion
Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
, color
Human skin color

Human skin color can range from almost black to nearly colorless in different homo sapiens. Skin color is determined by the amount and type of melanin, the pigment in the skin....
, language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
, sexual orientation
Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation refers to "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes." According to the American Psychological Association, "it also refers to an individual?s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of...
, belief
Belief

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true....
, or lifestyle
Lifestyle

Lifestyle was originally coined by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. The current broader sense of the word dates from 1961.In sociology, a lifestyle is the way a person lives....
 so long as they have not used or advocated violence
Violence

Violence is the expression of physical force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt. Variant uses of the term refer to the destruction of non-living objects ....
. It also refers to those who have been imprisoned and/or persecuted for the non-violent expression of their conscientiously-held beliefs.

On 28 May 1961, the article The Forgotten Prisoners launched the campaign 'Appeal for Amnesty 1961' and first defined a 'prisoner of conscience'.

The primary goal for this year-long campaign, founded by the English lawyer Peter Benenson
Peter Benenson

Peter Benenson was an England lawyer and the founder of human rights group Amnesty International ....
 and a small group of writers, academics and lawyers, particularly the Quaker peace activist Eric Baker
Eric Baker (activist)

Eric Baker was one of the founders of the human rights group Amnesty International and the second general secretary of the organisation. He was also a founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament....
, 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, independent charity.

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 and possess a genuine threat to the security of their country.

The phrase is now widely used in political discussions to describe a political prisoner, whether Amnesty International has specifically adopted an individual's case or not.

See also

  • Amnesty International
    Amnesty International

    Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organization which defines its mission as "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated." Founded in London, England in 1961, AI draws its attention to human rights abuses and...
  • Closet Land
    Closet Land

    Closet Land is a 1991 in film independent film directed by Radha Bharadwaj. It stars Alan Rickman as a ruthless interrogator and Madeleine Stowe as a young author of children's books....
  • Political prisoner
    Political prisoner

    A political prisoner is someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, for his or her involvement in Politics....
People:
  • Sanjar Umarov
    Sanjar Umarov

    Sanjar Guiess Umarov is a prominent Uzbekistan politician and businessman. He is the chairman of Sunshine Uzbekistan, the main party in opposition to president Islom Karimov's authoritarian rule....
  • Aung San Suu Kyi
    Aung San Suu Kyi

    Aung San Suu Kyi Companion of the Order of Australia ; born 19 June 1945 in Rangoon, is a pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma, and a noted prisoner of conscience and advocate of nonviolence resistance....
  • Chia Thye Poh
    Chia Thye Poh

    Chia Thye Poh was the longest-serving political prisoner in the history of Singapore and perhaps the longest-serving Prisoners of conscience of the 20th century, or if not, one of its longest-serving political prisoners....
  • Woo Yong Gak
    Woo Yong Gak

    Woo Yong Gak is a North Korean former commando who was released from incarceration in South Korea on 25 February 1999.He served 40 years, 7 months and 13 days in prison....
  • Karpal Singh
    Karpal Singh

    Karpal Singh a/l Ram Singh is a Malaysian politician and a lawyer by profession. He is the current chairman of the Democratic Action Party and a member of Parliament of Parliament of Malaysia for Bukit Gelugor, Penang....
  • Mumia Abu-Jamal
    Mumia Abu-Jamal

    Mumia Abu-Jamal is an United States who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Prior to his arrest he was a Black Panther Party activist, cab driver, and journalist....
  • Leonard Peltier
    Leonard Peltier

    Leonard Peltier is an American activist and member of the American Indian Movement who was convicted and sentenced in 1977 to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two FBI Agents who were killed during a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation....
  • George Jackson
    George Jackson

    George Jackson may refer to:People:* George Jackson , U.S. Black Panther* George Jackson , Canadian mill operator, MP from Ontario* George Jackson , Member of Parliament for Mayo 1801-1802...
  • Angela Davis
    Angela Davis

    Angela Yvonne Davis is an United States political activist and university professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee....
  • Robert Hillary King
    Robert Hillary King

    Robert Hillary King, born Robert King Wilkerson, was a member of the Black Panther Party who spent 32 years in Angola Prison, 29 of them in solitary confinement for the stabbing murder of a corrections officer....
  • The Angola 3
  • Angelo Herndon
    Angelo Herndon

    Angelo Braxton Herndon . Angelo Herndon was an African American communist organizer arrested and convicted for insurrection in 1932 in Atlanta, Georgia....
  • Ayse Nur Zarakolu
    Ayse Nur Zarakolu

    Ayse Nur Zarakolu was a notable Turkey author, publisher and human rights advocate. She was co-founder, with her husband Ragip Zarakolu, of notable Turkish publishing house Belge and in the 1980s became the director of book-distribution company Cemmay, the first woman in the nation to hold such a position....


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