Notable Groups of 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 fascist repression.
- In North Korea, entire families are jailed in large political prison camps (called Kwan-li-so) if one family member is suspected of anti-government sentiments.
- In Northern Ireland, Irish nationalist prisoners in the Maze prison can be considered political prisoners resulting from their protests against what they considered British occupation
- British convicts sent to Australia in the 1700-1800's .
- Political prisoners sometimes write memoirs of their experiences and resulting insights. See list of memoirs of political prisoners. Some of these memoirs have become important political texts.
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Famous quotes containing the words political prisoners, notable, groups, political and/or prisoners:
“An inquiry about the attitude towards the release of so-called political prisoners. I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“If we can learn ... to look at the ways in which various groups appropriate and use the mass-produced art of our culture ... we may well begin to understand that although the ideological power of contemporary cultural forms is enormous, indeed sometimes even frightening, that power is not yet all-pervasive, totally vigilant, or complete.”
—Janice A. Radway (b. 1949)
“Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“When posterity judges our actions here it will perhaps see us not as unwilling prisoners but as men who for whatever reason preferred to remain non-contributing individuals on the edge of society.”
—George Lucas (b. 1944)