There are many ways to define what is a political prisoner. The most well-known cases are those the national security state framed-up, or imprisoned with extreme sentences for an offense because of their political activism, such as George Jackson.
Each period of struggle by the working class and oppressed peoples against ruling class control results in some activists locked up for their effective revolutionary work. "Political prisoner" has often meant those jailed for fighting their national oppression, as the case with the great number of Black Panthers. In contrast, over a century ago political prisoners were labor-Marxist-antiwar activists such as the exemplary Joe Hill, Eugene Debs, and Big Bill Haywood. Today the national security state considers its most dangerous enemies those who expose its crimes at home and abroad.
There are also many thousands of imprisoned people who never received a fair trial, or were innocent of the crimes they have been jailed for. A high percentage of them are non-white, peoples subject to second-class citizenship in the US. A number are executed, such as Troy Davis, or spend their whole lives in prison. While the United States represents about 4.2% of world population, it houses around 20% of the world's prisoners. Blacks are imprisoned five times the rate of whites.
We categorize political prisoners into seven groups: national security state agents and reporters locked up for publicizing blatant government criminality; representatives of foreign governments the US seeks to overthrow; Black, Native American, and Latino political activists fighting for the rights of their peoples; US Arab and Muslims targeted after 9-11; prisoners in Guantanamo torture center; women locked up for defending themselves against violent attack; and environmental activists.
Mention should be made of non-violent ones among January 6, 2021 protestors, who, following the Democrats in 2016, considered the election stolen. The man with the horned hat, Jacob Chansley (Jake Angeli), was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for "obstruction of an official proceeding" even though the prosecutors admitted he was non-violent. Of different political orientation, Dan Baker was jailed in Florida for issuing "call to arms for like-minded individuals" to rally at the Florida State Capitol to "violently confront [January 6 style Trump] protestors" at the capital. Nothing happened: Baker never organized a contingent to go to the capitol, nor issue threats against any individuals. Yet he was given 4.7 years.
1. Journalists and national security state employees exposing illegal US surveillance operations and war crime
A number of whistle blowers have been imprisoned or are wanted. These have included US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, NSA contractor Edward Snowden, former Air Force intelligence specialist Reality Winner, former CIA agent John Kiriakou, Jeremy Hammond, former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, former NSA executive Thomas Drake, Aaron Swartz, Barrett Brown, former FBI agent Terry Albury, Air National Guard intelligence analyst Matthew DeHart.
Imprisoned today:
Julian Assange was seized and arrested in 2019 in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had political asylum since 2012. In April 2022, a British judge ordered Assange extradited to the US to face up to 175 years in prison for publishing truthful information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US has indicted Assange under the Espionage Act, even though he published the same information as did the New York Times and Washington Post. Mark Weisbrot wrote, "Julian Assange is a political prisoner. He has never been charged with a crime... His crime, and that of WikiLeaks, has been the practice of journalism, and particularly in defense of human rights and civil liberties... Assange and WikiLeaks' real offense was to expose the crimes of the most powerful people in the world." Extraditing Assange, a journalist and Australian citizen, to the United States would have even more negative repercussions for our present remnants of free press and democratic rights. No case better embodies the old IWW banner for Class War Prisoners: "Remember! We're in here for you, You're out there for us." See Roger Waters, Noam Chomsky on Assange.
Daniel Hale has been imprisoned since 2019, sentenced to 45 months, for releasing documents showing US military drone strikes in Afghanistan killed mostly innocent people. Hale participated in the drone program while in the Air Force and NSA from 2009 to 2013, and later became an outspoken critic and a defender of whistleblowers. Hale is believed to have been the source material for The Drone Papers. See the documentary National Bird, about whistleblowers in the US drone program. For his truth-telling, Daniel received the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence and the Blueprint for Free Speech International Whistleblowing Prize. See Chris Hedges.
Joshua Schulte, a hacker employed by the CIA, the government blames for releasing two billion pages of secret CIA data, known as Vault 7, to WikiLeaks. Vault 7 programs were CIA techniques used to compromise Wifi networks, hack into Skype, defeat anti-virus software, hack Apple and Android smartphones in overseas spying operations, turn internet-connected televisions into listening devices, and commandeer the guidance systems in cars. Schulte has been imprisoned since 2018 for up to 80 years in conditions similar to that endured by Julian Assange today.
Ana Belen Montes was a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who alerted Cuba of US plans of aggression. She was arrested in 2001, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage, and held in solitary confinement in Fort Worth, Texas, for most of her 21 years behind bars. Ana Belen Montes told the judge, "I consider that the policy of our government towards Cuba is cruel and unjust, deeply unfriendly; I considered myself morally obligated to help the Island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values... and our political system on it. We have displayed intolerance and contempt for Cuba for four decades. We have never respected Cuba's right to define its own destiny, its own ideals of equality and justice. I do not understand how we continue to try to dictate... how Cuba should select its leaders, who its leaders should not be and what laws are the most appropriate for that nation. Why don't we let them decide how they want to conduct their internal affairs."
2. Foreigners imprisoned for "violating" US sanctions on their countries
Mun Chol Myong, a North Korean, was extradited and imprisoned in the US on March 20, 2021. Mun was arrested in Malaysia in May 2019 after a Washington, DC, judge issued a warrant for his arrest. His "crime" of conspiracy and money laundering, in fact consisted of supplying needed goods to North Korea by circumventing the US sanctions on the country. A top Justice Department official claimed foreigners who have never been in the US can be extradited here for violating US laws. The US has enforced a blockade against North Korea since 1950, at the start of the US war on Korea, designed to cripple its economic and social development.
Alex Saab, a Venezuelan diplomat, was jailed June 12, 2020, in Cabo Verde on orders of the US. He was then seized by US agents and brought to a Miami prison on October 16, 2021. Alex Saab was arrested while on a diplomatic mission to procure food and energy supplies to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela resulting from the illegal US blockade of the nation. As a diplomat, Saab has immunity from detention based on the UN Vienna Convention of 1961. The UN Human Rights Commission and other international human rights defenders have denounced his incarceration. The National Lawyers Guild calls for Saab's immediate release.
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