In criminology, a political crime or political offence is an offence involving overt acts or omissions (where there is a duty to act), which prejudice the interests of the state, its government or the political system. It is to be distinguished from state crime when it is the states that break both their own criminal laws or public international law.
States will define as political crimes any behaviour perceived as a threat, real or imagined, to the state's survival including both violent and non-violent oppositional crimes. A consequence of such criminalisation may be that a range of human rights, civil rights, and freedoms are curtailed, and conduct which would not normally be considered criminal per se (in other words, that is not antisocial according to those who engage in it) is criminalised at the convenience of the group holding power.
Thus, while the majority of those who support the current regime may consider criminalisation of politically motivated behaviour an acceptable response when the offender is driven by more extreme political, ideological, religious or other beliefs, there may be a question of the morality of a law which simply criminalises ordinary political dissent.
Read more about Political Crime: Overview, Authoritarian Governments, Terrorism, Religious Crimes
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“Religion means goal and way, politics implies end and means. The political end is recognizable by the fact that it may be attained—in success—and its attainment is historically recorded. The religious goal remains, even in man’s highest experiences, that which simply provides direction on the mortal way; it never enters into historical consummation.”
—Martin Buber (1878–1965)
“Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan? First you’re the outraged Madison Avenue man who claims he’s been mistaken for someone else. Then you play the fugitive from justice, supposedly trying to clear his name of a crime he knows he didn’t commit. And now you play the peevish lover stung by jealously and betrayal. It seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actors Studio.”
—Ernest Lehman (b.1920)