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Political Prisoners

There is no standardized definition to describe a political prisoners. Here are two good definitions:

Political Prisoner- A man or woman who is imprisoned, either awaiting trail, serving a sentence or in any other status, who is incarcerated by reason of acts, associations or beliefs in favor of self-determination for racially, sexually and nationally oppressed peoples, against United States foreign and military policy, or domestic policy of the United States or its corporations which contribute to the impoverishment, suffering and repression of poor and working people and racially and nationally oppressed peoples. 

The term political prisoner is not limited to those who are incarcerated merely for holding beliefs or having political affiliations. It encompasses those who have taken actions, either symbolic or tactical, which violate laws of the United States in pursuit of their political goals. The term political prisoner is used generically to include those who describe themselves as Prisoners of War and demand treatment under the Geneva Convention Protocols I and II. 

Political Prisoner- A term describing anyone who is incarcerated by reason of his or her committment to struggle against injustices committed against the people by the United States, including racism, inequitable distribution of wealth and failure to provide a descent standard of living for all of its children, the genocide of indigenous peoples and cultures, colonialism, nuclear militarism, and support for anti-democratic and repressive regimes across the world.

Subcollections

  • 1990 Tribunal
    The 1990 Tribunal brought together activists and organizations from across the globe working on issues of political repression and the human rights of political prisoners and prisoners of war held in US prisons and jails.
  • Adrian Lomax
    Adrian Lomax spent 24 years in prison in Wisconsin until he was paroled in August 2004. Behind bars, he became a jailhouse lawyer, prisoner-rights activist and prolific writer. Since his release, he has continued his fight against injustice.
  • Alvaro Luna Hernandez
    Alvaro Luna Hernandez is a Chicano-Mexicano political prisoner sentenced to 50 years in prison for aggravated assault on an officer when he disarmed a Texas sheriff attempting to shoot him.
  • Angola 3
    The Angola Three are three men, Robert Hillary King, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, who were put in solitary confinement for decades in Angola Prison, Louisiana after the death of a prison guard.
  • Bear Lincoln
    Bear Lincoln became an icon for Indian rights and social justice activists after he was acquitted of murdering a deputy sheriff on the Round Valley Indian Reservation in 1995.
  • Bill Dunne
    Bill Dunne is an anti-authoritarian political prisoner imprisoned for an attempted 1979 prison break of comrades from the King County Jail in Seattle, Washington.
  • Black Flag
    The periodical Black Flag centers on anarchist news, important figures, and developments in Europe and the Western world.
  • Black Political Prisoners-Statements
    This collection contains numerous statements from Black political prisoners. Most of these political prisoners are imprisoned for their participation in the Black Liberation Movement. The packet is produced by Prairie Fire Organizing Committee.
  • Boston 3
    In August 1990, two Americans and an Irish national were convicted of conspiracy in Boston. The US government accused them of conspiring to violate export laws and to develop a missile system to shoot down British helicopters in Northern Ireland.
  • Chattanooga 3
    The Chattanooga 3 were arrested in 1998 for violating a Tennessee disruption law during a 1998 rally to protest police brutality.
  • Coalition to Defend October 20th Freedom Fighters
    The Coalition to Defend the October 20th Freedom Fighters was formed to support all those captured or charged in the revolutionary Brink's expropriation, those resisting the RICO Grand Jury and those under indictment.
  • David Gilbert
    David Gilbert is a North American political prisoner captured in 1981 at Nyack, NY during an attempted expropriation by a unit of the Black Liberation Army. David is serving a 75 year to life sentence but remains dedicated to human liberation.
  • Dr. Alan Berkman
    Alan Berkman (1945-2009) was an American doctor and activist in the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground. Released after 8 years in prison for armed robbery and explosives possession, Berkman worked on homelessness and AIDS.
  • Ed Mead
    Ed Mead is a former political prisoner who was arrested for his participation in George Jackson Brigade actions during the 70s. He spent 18 years in prison and while inside helped found Men Against Sexism which stopped prisoner-on-prisoner rape.
  • Eddie Hatcher
    Eddie Hatcher was a Native American activist who fought government corruption in Robeson County North Carolina. Hatcher was imprisoned a number of times and finally died in prison in 2009.
  • Gary Graham
    Shaka Sankofa (born Gary Graham) was a Texas death-row inmate who was sentenced to death at the age of 18 for the murder of 53 year-old Bobby Grant Lambert in 1981. Despite his claims of innocence, he was executed by lethal injection in 2000.
  • Green Scare
    The Green Scare is a term popularized by environmental activists to refer to legal action by the US government against the radical environmental movement.
  • Herman Bell
    Herman Bell is one of the longest held political prisoners in the United States. He has been incarcerated since 1973 for his work in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Movement.
  • Jalil Muntaqim
    Jalil Abdul Muntaqim is a former member of both the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 1974, Muntaqim was convicted of the murders of two NYC police officers and received a prison term of twenty-five years to life.
  • Jamil Al-Amin
    Jamil Al-Amin FKA H. Rap Brown was an organizer in the Black Liberation Movement. He was involved in SNCC, the Black Panther Party and more recently in Muslim organizing in Atlanta. Al-Amin is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of a sheriff'
  • Jeff Free Luers
    In 2007, Jeff “Free” Luers won an appeal of his outrageous 23-year sentence for the burning of three SUV’s in Eugene, Oregon. His sentence was reduced to 10 years. He was released in December 2009.
  • Jericho 98
    Jericho is a movement with the goal of gaining recognition of the fact that political prisoners and prisoners of war exist inside of the US, despite the US government’s continued denial... and winning amnesty and freedom for these political prisoners.
  • Kevin Johnson
    Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson is the defense minister for the New Afrikan Black Panther Party–Prison Chapter and an active jailhouse lawyer. He became political while incarcerated in Virginia during the early 1990s.
  • Kuwasi Balagoon
    Kuwasi Balagoon was a defendant in the Panther 21 case in the late sixties, and a member of the Black Liberation Army. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1982 and died from an AIDS-related illness in 1986.
  • LA Five
    The LA Five were five anti-imperialists who were arrested in Los Angeles in 1977, charged with intending to bomb the office of right wing California Sen. John Briggs. The arrests were the result of years of government infiltration and surveillance.
  • Larry Giddings
    Larry was involved with anti-imperialist organizing during the 1960s and 1970s. He was captured by state forces in 1979 in conjunction with an attempted liberation of a comrade from a Seattle, Washington jail. Larry is still imprisoned today.
  • Leonard Peltier
    Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist who was convicted of aiding in the killing of two FBI agents during a shootout on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975. Sentenced to prison in 1977, Peltier is still incarcerated today.
  • Little Rock Reed
    Little Rock Reed was a Native American activist and author. While incarcerated he violated parole, citing that he was a political prisoner which was upheld by the 1995 ruling of Judge Peggy Nelson in New Mexico. Little Rock Reed was released and died in a
  • Lorenzo Komboa Ervin
    Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin is a veteran community and anti-racist, anti-colonialist, and anti-prison organizer and a former political prisoner. He was a member of SNCC, The Black Panther Party, and is a founding member of the Black Autonomy Federation.
  • Lucasville
    Five prisoners on death row in Ohio were convicted of participating in the murder of other prisoners and a guard during the Lucasville Prison Riot of April 1993. Lucasville became famous for its inter-racial solidarity in a prison known for racial unease.
  • Mafundi's Defence Committee
    This collection contains materials from the Defense Committee of Richard Mafundi Lake, a long-time organizer against racist police brutality in Alabama. He was sentenced in 1983 under Alabama’s Habitual Offender Act to life in prison.
  • Marilyn Buck
    Marilyn Buck was imprisoned for 25 years in the united states for her anti-imperialist actions carried out in support of national liberation, women's liberation, social and economic justice. She was released in July 2010 and died a couple of weeks later.
  • Mark Cook
    Mark Cook is a former Black Panther and George Jackson Brigade member who served 25 years for George Jackson Brigade related activity.
  • Marshall E. Conway Support Committee
    In 1970, Marshall Eddie Conway was Minister of Defense of the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was charged with homicide and the attempted homicide of Baltimore police officers. He has now been incarcerated for over 31 years.
  • Move 9
    The MOVE 9 are innocent men and women who have been imprisoned since 1979, following a massive police assault on MOVE headquarters in Powerton Village, Philadelphia. MOVE is an eco-revolutionary group who carried out protests in defense of all life.
  • Norma Jean Croy
    Norma Jean Croy served 18 years for a 1979 incident in which she was shot by an off duty FBI agent. Although she did not hold a gun during the incident, which a judge ruled an accident, she was forced to remain in prison until 1997.
  • Ohio 7
    The Ohio 7 were members of the The United Freedom Front (UFF), a small American Marxist organization active in the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1975 and 1984 the UFF carried out actions targeting corporate buildings, courthouses, and military facilities.
  • Ojore Lutalo
    Ojore Lutalo is an anarchist and black liberation soldier who served time in New Jersey for revolutionary clandestine activities. Lutalo was released from prison in 2009.
  • Patrice Lumumba Ford
    Patrice Lumumba Ford has been accused of membership in a terrorist group dubbed the Portland Seven, members of which attempted to travel to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11. He refused to cooperate with the government and was sentenced to 18 years in prison
  • Patrick Hooty Croy
    Patrick Hooty Croy is a Karok-Shasta Indian from Yreka, CA who shot and killed a police officer in self-defense in July 1978. Croy was sentenced to death but after a second trial was ultimately acquitted on murder charges and released.
  • Political Prisoner Periodicals
    This collection includes a wide range of publications grown out of modern movements for prison abolition and against inhumane practices and conditions.
  • Political Prisoners-Women
    This collection contains materials about women political prisoners and prisoners of war held in the United States and the struggles to free them.
  • Ramsey Muniz
    Ramiro Muñiz, known as Ramsey Muñiz is an incarcerated Hispanic political activist who ran for governor of Texas in 1972 and 1974, each time as the nominee of the Raza Unida Party. He has since been incarcerated on trumped-up charges.
  • Resistance Conspiracy
    The Resistance Conspiracy case (1988-1990) was a Federal Judicial trial in the United States in which six people were charged with the 1983 U.S. Senate bombing and related bombings of Fort McNair and the Washington Navy Yard.
  • Ruchell Magee
    Ruchell Cinque Magee is the longest held political prisoner in the U.S., having been locked up since 1963. Politicized in prison, he later participated in the Marin County Courthouse Rebellion and has worked tirelessly as a jailhouse lawyer.
  • Sami Al-Arian
    Sami Al-Arian is a Palestinian-American civil rights activist who was a computer engineering professor in South Florida. Following 9/11, Al-Arian fell under extreme public scrutiny and was indicted in 2003 on 17 counts under the Patriot Act.
  • Silvia Baraldini
    Silvia Baraldini is an Italian Nationalist most known for her work as a White Anti-Imperialist.
  • Teddy Jah Heath
    Teddy Jah Heath was active in the black liberation movement. In 1973 was given a life sentence by an all-white jury for the alleged kidnapping of a drug dealer, in which no one was injured. Teddy Jah Heath served almost thirty years and died of cancer in
  • Tim Blunk
    Tim Blunk is a former political prisoner and member of the Resistance Conspiracy case. The Resistance Conspiracy case was a Federal Judicial trial in the United States in which six people were charged with the 1983 US Senate bombing and related bombings.
  • Veronza Bowers Jr.
    Veronza Bowers Jr. is an inmate at the Federal Correctional Facility in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a former member of the Black Panther Party incarcerated in federal prison for over 37 years making him one of the longest-held political prisoners in the US.
  • Zolo Azania
    Zolo Azania is a former Black Panther convicted of a 1981 bank robbery that left a Gary, Indiana cop dead. Zolo was originally given the death penalty but his death penalty sentence was finally dropped. Zolo still adamantly maintains innocence.
  • Political Prisoners- General Info
    This collection contains general information about political prisoners in the United States.

Documents

From the Arawak Indians to Norma Jean Croy: 500 Years of Resistance From the Arawak Indians to Norma Jean Croy: 500 Years of Resistance
Publisher: Gay American Indians, Norma Jean Croy Defense Committee, Out of Control - Lesbian Committee to Support Women Political Prisoners, Lesbians and Gays Against Intervention, Revolting Lesbians, The On Our Rag CollectiveYear: 1992Format: FlyerCollection: Norma Jean Croy
Pamphlet for Lesbian and gay Benefit for Norma Jean Croy
Free Norma Jean Croy Free Norma Jean Croy
Publisher: Norma Jean Croy Defense CommitteeFormat: FlyerCollection: Norma Jean Croy
Flyer about what you can do to help free Norma Jean Croy
Face Reality: There Are Political Prisoners in the U.S.A. Face Reality: There Are Political Prisoners in the U.S.A.
Publisher: Freedom NowYear: 1990Format: FlyerCollection: 1990 Tribunal
Faces of the political prisoners being held in the United States.
Support the Resistance Conspiracy Case Support the Resistance Conspiracy Case
Publisher: Washington Area Committee for Political Prisoners' RightsFormat: FlyerCollection: Resistance Conspiracy
Flyer to "Stop Preventive Dentention- Release Laura Whitehorn on Bail" with graphic