Prisoner of conscience (POC) is a term coined by the human rights pressure group Amnesty International in the early 1960s. It refers to anyone imprisoned because of their race, religion, color, language, sexual orientation, or belief, so long as they have not advocated violence. Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) comprising a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights.[1] Founded in the UK in 1961, AI compares actual practices of human rights with internationally accepted standards and demands compliance where these... The term race serves to distinguish between populations or groups of people based on different sets of characteristics which is commonly determined through social conventions. ... Human skin color can range from very dark to nearly colorless (appearing pinkish white due to the blood in the skin) in different people. ... Sexual orientation describes the direction of an individuals sexuality, often in relation to their own sex or gender. ... Look up belief in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

On 28th May 1961, the article The Forgotten Prisoners launched the campaign 'Appeal for Amnesty 1961' and first defined a 'prisoner of conscience'. [1]

The primary aim of this year-long campaign, founded by the English lawyer and recent Catholic convert Peter Benenson and a small group of writers, academics and lawyers, particularly the Quaker peace activist Eric Baker, was to identify individual 'prisoners of conscience' around the world and then campaign for their release. In early 1962 the campaign had received enough public support to become a permanent organisation and was renamed 'Amnesty International'. Peter James Henry Solomon Benenson (July 31, 1921 – February 25, 2005) was an English lawyer and the founder of human rights group Amnesty International (AI). ... The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, or Friends, is a religious community founded in England in the 17th century. ... Eric Baker was one of the founders and early secretaries general of the human rights group Amnesty International. ...

Under British law, Amnesty International was classed as a political organisation and therefore excluded from tax-free charity status. To work around this, the ‘Fund for the Persecuted’ was established in 1962 to receive donations to support prisoners and their families. The name was later changed to the 'Prisoners of Conscience Fund' and is now a separate, independent charity. [2]

Amnesty International has, since its founding, pressured governments to release those persons it considers to be prisoners of conscience [3][4]. Governments, conversely, tend to deny that the specific prisoners identified by Amnesty International are, in fact, being held on the grounds Amnesty claims and possess a genuine threat to the security of their country.^{[citation needed]}

The phrase is now widely used in political discussions to describe a political prisoner, whether Amnesty International has specifically adopted an individual's case or not. [5]

See also

• Political prisoner
• Amnesty International

A political prisoner is someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image are deemed by a government to either challenge or threaten the authority of the state. ... Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) comprising a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights.[1] Founded in the UK in 1961, AI compares actual practices of human rights with internationally accepted standards and demands compliance where these...

References

• Tom Buchanan, 'The Truth Will Set You Free': The Making of Amnesty International', Journal of Contemporary History, 37 (2002) pp.575-597

External links

• Amnesty International resource about prisoners of conscience
• Prisoners of Conscience Appeal Fund