Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:37, 11 September 2007

Types of government

The article says "Governments of various regime types — fascist, communist and theocratic — have held political prisoners".. what nonsense. The "democratic" capitalist countries have held plenty of political prisoners too.. see: Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier, The Cuban 5, etc.

Hypocricy

"In the Soviet Union, dubious psychiatric diagnoses were sometimes used to confine political prisoners": this U.S.-centric canard again! The same thing is done in the U.S.! The pot is calling the kettle black! I am rewriting for NPOV. --Daniel C. Boyer

Any examples of that in the US, or are you all talk? A2Kafir 02:13, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

War on Drugs

The Wiki-fascists evidently find the following citation objectionable. Though the article alleges that ALL countries have examples of political prisoners, yet when some prominent Americans allege that the victims of the politically-motivated war on drugs may be examples of political prisoners, such an example as follows cannot be cited, presumably due to irrational application of the NPOV dogma:

In America, Rep. Charlie Rangel and others have called those imprisoned due to the War on drugs, political prisoners .

There's nothing irrational about it. Murderers, deserters and drug dealers are not political prisoners! -- Spock

Let's not jump to conclusions! Especially not with the upcoming extradition case of Marc Emery and two fellow activists. Emery is charged with what American officials chose to call money laundering. However Emery's seed sale proceeds have been properly taxed and reported to the government from the beginning, and has been donated to political movements worldwide. From that perspective he would absolutely be a political prisoner in the event that the US is successful. Furthermore, since the length of Emery's sentence will depend on whether he regrets what he did or not (which is a blatant question of his political ideas) it's safe to say that he will be in prison for his beliefs. Though I don't want to write this in the article itself just yet, I'm getting political myself. And Misplaced Pages isn't a crystal ball either. ;) --GSchjetne 00:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Anyone who converts the proceeds of criminal activity (such as drug trafficking) into another form is guilty of money laundering. This is foolishness. -- User:Spock 156.34.19.206 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Mordechai Vanunu

Shouldn't he be included? He exposed the Israeli nuclear program in the eighties. He is free since 2004, but is not allowed to leave the country or to speak with foreign media. He risks more charges because he violated the latter restriction, something he feels is simply one of its human rights. http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/ is a campaigning site for Mordechai

No. Mr. Vanunu sold nuclear secrets to a British newspaper -- he committed treason, straight up. -- Spock

I disagree. His rights are violated. His trial was not public. His arrest was on foreign soil. Evilbu 22:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

So what? There's no dispute that he was guilty of the crime of which he was convicted: he readily admits he divulged his country's secrets for money. -- Spock 00:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages policy and precedent seems to pretty clear on this sort of debate: Include Vanunu only if there is a significantly large group that considers him to be one. If the group is not reputable, that should be noted.Emmett5 23:17, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Leonard Peltier

I updated the Leonard Peltier entry to be what I consider a more NPOV. I also removed the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and reverted it back to United States. Pine Ridge was where the alleged crime happened, not where/who keeps him imprisoned. He is imprisoned by the United States. Oyvind 17:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Woo Yong Gak

I'm confused here --- I realize that Amnesty International considered him a political prisoner, and the cited CBS News article refers to him as such, but why? The man was imprisoned for espionage, not for any political works or action. --Dcfleck 14:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, and I've removed him. -- User:Spock 205.174.162.86 02:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

recent edits - copying from user's Talk page

Hi, would you mind explaining on the talk page why you reverted my edit? Peltier was convicted of murder, it is a fact. Isarig 01:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

all the others in the list have been convicted of various crimes by the nation holding them however only Peltier memtioned the legal procedings therby puting unbalanced information on the page. if the reader is intrested in the specific legal background they may read it at his page.

That's not correct. The next in the list, Woo Yong Gak, is described as "convicted of espionage, and who refused to sign an oath of obedience to his captors' National Security Law". The next one, Chia Thye Poh , is described as "imprisoned without charge or trial until 1989 upon suspicion that he was a member of the Communist Party of Malaysia and therefore a threat to the security of Singapore.". And there are many more. I am copying this to {], please continue the discussion there. Isarig 14:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)