{"id":53021,"date":"2021-02-25T08:08:16","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T08:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=166700"},"modified":"2021-02-25T08:08:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T08:08:16","slug":"prisoners-of-conscience-a-look-at-some-of-the-biggest-names-on-the-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/25\/prisoners-of-conscience-a-look-at-some-of-the-biggest-names-on-the-list\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Prisoners Of Conscience’: A Look At Some Of The Biggest Names On The List"},"content":{"rendered":"
Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s time as an Amnesty International “prisoner of conscience” was short-lived — but not because he was released from detention.<\/p>\n
Navalny received the designation on January 17 following his arrest at a Moscow airport by Russian authorities who said he had violated the terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction. Navalny and his supporters say that both the conviction and the alleged violation are unfounded, politically motivated, and absurd.<\/p>\n
The subsequent conversion of the suspended sentence into more than 30 months of real prison time promised to keep the ardent Kremlin critic away from street protests for the near-term, even as he stayed in the focus of anti-government demonstrators and human rights groups such as Amnesty.<\/p>\n
But on February 23, Amnesty withdrew the designation, citing what it said were past comments by the 44-year old anti-corruption activist that “reach the threshold of advocacy of hatred.”<\/p>\n
The term “prisoner of conscience” is widely attributed to the founder of Amnesty International, Peter Benenson, who used it in 1961 to describe two Portuguese students who had each been sentenced to seven years in prison simply for making a toast to freedom under a dictatorial government.<\/p>\n
The label initially came to apply mainly to dissidents in the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc satellites, but over the years expanded to include hundreds of religious, political opposition, and media figures around the world, including countries of the former Soviet Union and others in RFE\/RL’s immediate coverage region.<\/p>\n
According to Amnesty’s current criteria<\/a><\/strong> for the designation, prisoners of conscience are people who have “not used or advocated violence but are imprisoned because of who they are (sexual orientation, ethnic, national, or social origin, language, birth, color, sex or economic status) or what they believe (religious, political or other conscientiously held beliefs).”<\/p>\n Navalny’s delisting has been tied by Amnesty to comments he made in the mid-2000s, as his star as a challenger to President Vladimir Putin and as an anti-corruption crusader in Russia was on the rise, but also as he came under criticism for his association with ethnic Russian nationalists and for statements seen as racist and dangerously inflammatory.<\/p>\n And while the rights watchdog acknowledged that the flood of requests it received to review Navalny’s past statements appeared to originate from pro-Kremlin critics of Navalny, Amnesty ultimately determined<\/a><\/strong> that he no longer fit the bill for the designation, even as the organization continued to call for his immediate release from prison as he was being “persecuted for purely political reasons.”<\/p>\n The “prisoner of conscience” designation is a powerful tool in advocating for the humane treatment of people who hold different religious, political, and sexual views than the powers that be — in some cases helping to lead to the release of prisoners.<\/p>\n Here’s a look at some of the biggest names who have been or remain on the list.<\/p>\n Russia is a virtual cornucopia of prisoners of conscience, with formidable political opposition figures, journalists, LGBT rights activists, and advocates for ethno-national rights gracing the list.<\/p>\n Political Opposition<\/strong><\/p>\nIn Russia<\/big><\/strong><\/h3>\n