Political prisoner

“ Walking across the tower, we look down into a court, where a guard of soldiers is keeping watch over a prison! And, to our amazement, we find that we are in the very midst of the walls that contain four or five hundred political prisoners, who are here in durance vile for real or suspected offences. It is not the fashion at present to put to death political offenders, and the poor fellows that are shut up in these walls, hopeless and helpless, are perhaps on the whole disposed to think themselves better off than if they had lost their heads. ”

“ The well-meaning ladies and gentlemen who flood society with appeals to "open the prison door," and let our good-will shine as a star upon political prisoners, seem curiously indifferent as to what the liberated ones will do with their liberty. ”

“ The number of publications confiscated under the Press Act, the convictions for sedition, for seditious murders, for dacoities and for keeping arms, the sentences for failure to find securities for good behaviour, all continue to grow. The cry is, “Still they come!” In prisons the political prisoner has been subjected to horrible treatment; one committed suicide and another lost his senses in the Andamans. Many a tale of misery and wretchedness, of torture and of insults comes from the prisons in India, but still the movement is far from being crushed. ”

“ Q. Witness, were any political prisoners used in these high-altitude experiments?
A. Yes, there were political prisoners who were used in these experiments. All foreigners were considered political prisoners.
Q. Witness, tell the Tribunal how one could tell the difference between a political and a criminal prisoner in a concentration camp?
A. All inmates had certain squares with letters; the political inmates had red squares; the German political inmates had a plain red square; the Poles had a red square with a “P” marked on it; the Russians with an “R” ”

“ There are not a few of the leaders of such movements in the penal institutions of our country to-day, designated as political prisoners, because they undertook to obstruct the machinery of the country in its war activities. ”

“ The project will require careful preparation and considerable expense. Skilled comrades will have to be entrusted with the secret work, the greater part of which must be carried on at night. Determination and courage will make the plan feasible, successful. Such things have been done before. Not in this country, it is true. But the act will receive added significance from the circumstance that the liberation of the first American political prisoner has been accomplished by means similar to those practised by our comrades in Russia. ”

“ The political prisoners, who are mostly of noble birth, are strictly guarded and vindictively punished; but they suffer infinitely less than the unfortunate “men with beards.” With them the police stand on no ceremony. In what quarter can a peasant or workman seek redress? Where will he find justice?
The Russian system of justice and police is so haphazard, so inhuman, so arbitrary and corrupt, that a poor malefactor has more reason to fear his trial than his sentence. ”

“ Political prisoners should have a special ward of their own in every jail, provided with all necessities as those of the Europeans. And all the political prisoners in one jail must be kept together in that ward. ”

“ I find now, on account of their immediate vicinity to the native section, that vermin is beginning to trouble the political prisoners. There are amongst the political prisoners very old and sickly men, whose lives, on account of the insufficient accommodation, are placed in danger. ”

“ What we want to say is that the best way to remove the prevailing dissatisfaction would be to classify the political prisoners as such into a separate class which may further be subdivided, if need be, into two classes - one for those convicted of nonviolent offences and the other for persons whose offences include violence. ”

“ The majority of the administrative exiles were political prisoners, but all politicals were not let off with simple banishment. A considerable number of political offenders were sentenced to hard labour and also to penal exile. They did not live apart but were incorporated with the common-law criminals and subjected to precisely the same irksome treatment; they were equally deprived of civil rights, and could never count upon freedom absolute and unconditional. ”

“ There are 108 of us here to-day and just as we have thought it our duty to defy the police in the streets, so, when we get into prison, as we are political prisoners, we shall do our very best to bring back into the twentieth century the treatment of political prisoners which was thought right in the case of William Cobbett and other political offenders of his time. ”

“ Our united demand for political treatment has been delayed, because on entering the workhouse we found conditions so very bad that before we could ask that the suffragists be treated as political prisoners, it was necessary to make a stand for the ordinary rights of human beings for all the inmates. Although this has not been accomplished we now wish to bring the important question of the status of political prisoners to the attention of the commissioners, who, we are informed, have full authority to make what regulations they please for the :District prison and workhouse. ”

“ The extent to which disaffection is rampant in the native Bar also hampers the administration of justice, for whilst there is an eager competition for earning political notoriety by an eloquent defence of political prisoners, it is sometimes difficult to find pleaders who will undertake to conduct prosecutions. ”

“ Our demand was never granted, but it was kept up until the last imprisonment and was soon reinforced by additional protest tactics. Our suffrage prisoners, however, made an important contribution toward establishing this reform which others will consummate. They were the first in America to organize and sustain this demand over a long period of time. In America we maintain a most backward policy in dealing with political prisoners. We have neither regulation nor precedent for special treatment of them. ”

“ The young man turns upon him a look more of pity than scorn, while the jailer shakes his head admonishingly. The vote-cribber continues insensible to the admonition. He, be it known, is a character of no small importance in the political world. Having a sort of sympathy for the old jail he views his transient residences therein rather necessary than otherwise. As a leading character is necessary to every grade of society, so also does he plume himself the aristocrat of the prison. Persons committed for any other than offences against the election laws, he holds in utter contempt. ”

“ The American junkers and plutocrats are swamping the country with propaganda for a strong militarism. Our industrial autocrats see the handwriting on the wall and hope to crush the gathering forces of labor by the bayonet and the machine gun. The voice of liberty is being stifled in the prisons. Our jails and penitentiaries are full of political and industrial prisoners who have dared to hold an opinion of their own and to express it. Men like Debs and others are immured behind iron bars because they love liberty more than they do patrioteering. ”

“ If the inmates of Parkhurst Prison were to get possession of the Isle of Wight, occupy its military positions, enlist one part of its inhabitants in their own ranks, set the remainder of them to work in chain gangs, and declare themselves independent, ought their recognition by the British Government to be an immediate consequence? Before admitting the authority of any persons, as organs of the will of the people, to dispose of the whole political existence of a country, I ask to see whether their credentials are from the whole, or only from a part. ”

“ There was not even a pretense of any legal proceeding, no warrant, no magistrate, no commitment. “Take this man to jail!” commands the governor-general. With an obedient start the guard sweeps away the prisoner, helpless in a square of rifles. It is enough to cause us to wonder if democracy and liberty are or can be more than veneer upon any old frame of European monarchy and whether time, in this conception of human society, must not necessarily stand stock-still. ”

“ It certainly appeared too much as if the rebellion had been purposely invited by the Government, and the unfortunate men who took part in it deliberately drawn into a trap by those who subsequently inflicted so severe a punishment on them for their error. It seemed, too, as if the dominant party made use of the occasion afforded it by the real guilt of a few desperate and imprudent men, in order to persecute or disable the whole body of their political opponents. A great number of perfectly innocent individuals were thrown into prison, and suffered in person, property and character. ”

“ I have seen splendid, able men in charge thrown out because of a political change in the state. They had put their heart and soul into their work, and through years of experience had made themselves familiar with the needs and difficulties of their position. They were in the midst of much needed changes, when they had to step out, and turn over the reins of government to some new man, who however good, and able a citizen, was absolutely new to the conditions in state prison, and would have to begin at the beginning and learn it all over again. ”

“ He wore a thick but rather closely-cut beard and moustache. The police knew him very well; so did the criminal lawyers, when he happened to come in their way; so did the officials of two or three State prisons in which he had served out partial sentences. He was too valuable to political “rings” and associations antagonistic to moral and social well-being to be left idle in the cell of a penitentiary for the whole term of a commitment. Politicians have great influence, and governors are human. ”

“ He had been, in his day, a dishonest political henchman, well-known for his exploits; then, supported by the liberal leader whose election he had worked for, he escaped prison and entered the police service. ”

“ Hundreds and thousands of individuals had been, under these usurped powers, committed to the various prisons of the city, which were now filled, even to choking, with all persons of every sex and age, against whom political hatred could allege suspicion, or private hatred revive an old quarrel, or love of plunder awake a thirst for confiscation. ”

“ He who is forced upon his knees has the attitude, but never the feeling, of prayer.
I am satisfied that the discipline of the average prison hardens and degrades. It is for the most part a perpetual exhibition of arbitrary power. There is really no appeal. The cries of the convict are not heard beyond the walls. The protests die in cells, and the poor prisoner feels that the last tie between him and his fellow-men has been broken. ”

“ As a warden should be selected without the slightest regard to his political affiliations, he should also have a free hand in discharging his duties unhampered by political influence.
“Politics constitute the greatest obstacle encountered by every movement for prison reform. So long as the appointment of prison officials and their retention in office are dependent on political favor or influence, it is hopeless to look for improvement in prison systems or any measures of reform. ”

“ A ‘political’ is not identified with the criminal any more than a debtor is identified with a felon in England. Such offenders do not travel with other prisoners in a gang. A ‘political’ may be on a train going into exile; but no one knows it besides himself and the members of the police travelling in the same carriage. ”

“ Imagine that for every prisoner sentenced, a lot fell on someone else, calling upon him or her to go and share in that demonstration of society’s failure to produce only good citizens. Imagine the Prime Minister, about to make an important statement in the House of Commons, called suddenly by lot to share the incarceration of a defender of the liberty of the press or of a robber of hen-roosts! Should we have to wait a month—a week—to have our prisons transformed into places where human nature was no longer thrown to waste, with its energies cut off from sane employment and development? ”

“ That a judge has thought it his duty so to have done, I have no doubt; but where is the boasted freedom of your institutions—where is the vaunted impartiality, clemency, and mildness of your courts of justice if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy, and not justice, is about to deliver into the hands of the executioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerely and truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he was actuated? My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man's mind by humiliation to the purposed, ignominy of the scaffold ”

“ I understand that it is the intention of the Government to keep the more dangerous class of state criminals in complete isolation, allowing them no communication with their relatives except through the gendarmerie. It is manifestly impossible for me to give this intention effect if political convicts are allowed to live outside the prison where they can be seen
A PART OF THE LOWER DIGGINGS WITH THE POLITICAL PRISON IN THE DISTANCE. and interviewed by strangers. ”

“ I will not insult you, my lord, by pointing out to intelligent gentlemen in your presence how the evidence of the distinguished and illustrious personages so vexatiously called by the prisoner, so far from shaking the official evidence, really confirms it. (Aside: I wonder what all that row is about? I wish I were out of this and at home.) Gentlemen of the Jury, I repeat that I expect you to do your duty and defend yourselves from the bloodthirsty designs of the dangerous revolutionist now before you. ”