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There Are Many More Political Prisoners Than You Think
http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/12/prisoners_of_conscience.html
by Michelle Chen
December 2 2010
A few weeks ago, Burma's most eminent pro-Democracy advocate emerged
from captivity after spending most of the last 21 years under house
arrest. In December, a Chinese activist will miss his Nobel Peace
Prize award ceremony to serve out the rest of his 11-year prison
sentence. In freedom and captivity, Liu Xiaobo and Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi are being honored around the world as indefatigable dissidents.
The core of their resistance, however, draws from broader social
movements, as well as our collective response to their symbolism.
In reality, Suu Kyi is just one of more than 2,000 imprisoned
dissidents in Burma, according to Amnesty International, "most of
them for exercising their right to freedom of expression, assembly
and association." Human Rights Watch reports that recently jailed
dissidents, from bloggers to monks, have been "mainly charged under
provisions from Burma's archaic Penal Code that criminalizes free
expression, peaceful demonstrations, and forming organizations." The
Economist has compiled a table of prisoners of conscience living
under house arrest. In sum, there are many more political prisoners
in Burma than there are media campaigns to rescue them.
(Suu Kyi herself was guarded in her remarks upon release from house
arrest, calling on her followers to remain within the "rule of
law"觔ne indicator that, in the wake of sham elections, her freedom
is precarious.)
This is not to diminish the triumph of the Nelson Mandelas and Liu
Xiaobos of the world, of which there are too few examples. The
high-profile prisoners understand better than anyone that their
narrative is not singular but plural, and use their leadership to
serve a broader movement. As Suu Kyi reminded her followers, "Either
we're all free together or we are all not free together."
So here are a couple of reasons, out of thousands of examples, to
feel less free today:
Journalists Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy Khadzhiev have been
held incommunicado in Turkmenistan since mid-2006. According to the
advocacy campaign Freedom Now, the authorities have accused them of
"trying to collect defamatory information about Turkmenistan and
cause discontent among people," and illegal weapons possession. A
trial lasting roughly 10 minutes put them behind bars for seven years.
In Peru, Dr. Luis Williams Pollo Rivera was jailed for allegedly
rendering medical services to members of the Shining Path, a Marxist
reel movement that has waged insurgency campaigns over the past three
decades. At the trial, according to Freedom Now:
The only evidence presented was statements by Shining Path members,
obtained under interrogation, that Dr. Pollo provided them with
medical treatment between 1989-1991. Dr. Pollo strenuously denied
these claims and several witnesses backed his version of events.
Of course, that defense is beside the point:
The act of providing medical treatment does not violate Peruvian or
international law. On the contrary, doctors have an obligation to
help the injured, regardless of their patients' political
affiliation, beliefs, or actions.
But such paradoxes are common in the ethical universe political
prisoners inhabit: people who are criminalized for their beliefs
quickly learn they can't act on their ethics without consciously
breaking the law.
Prisoners of conscience aren't incompatible with democratic
government, either. Equipped with the world's largest prison system,
the U.S. holds its share of folks who are considered political
prisoners. Many are elders of 60s and 70s radical movements like
American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, leftist journalist Mumia
Abu-Jamal, and a handful of Puerto Rican Independistas.
In a report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the
U.S. Human Rights Network argues that "[political prisoners/prisoners
of war] receive excessive sentences and are routinely denied parole,"
despite plain evidence of "advancing age, deteriorating health,
significant release plans and good prison records of these aging
PP/POWs." These aging revolutionaries probably won't take up arms
again anytime soon, but at this point, the government's fear is not
insurrection, but the political currency of release: to free them
would be to suggest their incarceration was never legitimate in the
first place.
Moreover, the line between political prisoners and ordinary ones is
blurring, as politics and criminalization collude in the post-9/11
counter-terrorist hysteria. Activists warn of a resurgence in the use
of surveillance, informants, racial profiling and arbitrary detention
that is reminiscent of the J. Edgar Hoover days. Human rights
researcher Matt Easton recently wrote on how a culture of
surveillance and fear enables authorities to harass, suppress, and
even kill human rights defenders, whose activism earns them labels
like "guerrillas, communists, or terrorists."
As a recent "Democracy Now!" investigation revealed, the use of
informants and legal entrapment in counterterrorism gives the FBI
perverse incentives to manipulate evidence to score an easy
conviction and boost their terror-fighting credentials. In a more
overtly political crackdown, recent FBI raids reported by antiwar and
pro-Palestinian activists appear to be aimed at unearthing links to
foreign political groups. In the absence of a Burma-like autocracy,
the U.S. manages to justify suppression of dissent as a boon for freedom.
Media images of political dissidents appear to us as distant
characters in a political drama: morally unassailable, romanticized
victims. But the circumstances that produce political prisoners are
rarely a clear-cut good-vs.-evil battle; and the politics of
imprisonment aren't necessarily about ideology or a few iconic
leaders. Prison as an instrument of social control exploits the
mental crawl space between fear and obedience, corroding the divide
between freedom and captivity itself. Sometimes it's not the
imprisoned who most need emancipation; even on the outside we're less
free than we think.
.
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