From East to West, from the most conservative autocracies to the most liberal democracies, there is almost no country in which some people do not sit in cramped rooms with bars on the windows because of their political views, beliefs, and actions.
And it has been like this since the time of ancient Greece and the philosopher Socrates, who was sentenced to drink poison for criticizing the Athenian democracy of the time.
The term "political prisoner", however, does not mean much in legal terms and there is no clear, internationally recognized definition of the term.
"The term (political prisoner) means any prisoner whose case contains a significant political element - whether it is the motivation for the prisoner's act, the act itself, or the motivation of the authorities," thus the term unofficially defines Amnesty International, a human rights organization.
Six Novi Sad activists from the Movement of Free Citizens and the informal student group Stav have been in custody for more than two months on charges of undermining the constitutional order, while six more have been detained in absentia and wanted outside the country.
"We know that these are political prisoners because they were arrested solely for exercising their political rights - freedom of expression and freedom of assembly," says Milena Vasić, a lawyer with the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights.
The High Court in Novi Sad extended the detention of the "Novi Sad Six" for another 13 days on May 30, in a proceeding that Tonino Picula, the European Parliament's rapporteur for the Western Balkans and Serbia, also characterized as political.
"The fact that a candidate country can have political prisoners is certainly not good for a country that expresses European ambitions," He said Croatian politician and MEP for Deutsche Welle.
Picula also called for the release of detained sociology professor Marija Vasić, who has been on a hunger strike since her detention was extended on May 13.
"I call for the immediate release of her and other political prisoners in Serbia! There is no reason for them to be held in inhumane conditions," he announced Picula on Twitter.
More of a political than a legal term
The Encyclopedia Britannica broadly defines the term political prisoner as someone who is imprisoned because their actions or beliefs are contrary to those of their government.
"This is the most general meaning of the term, which can be difficult to define. In practice, political prisoners are often indistinguishable from other types of prisoners," it says on the encyclopedia website.
The legal definition is complicated by the logical idea that someone is assigned the status of a political prisoner only after arrest, while before that they may be considered dissidents, revolutionaries, social reformers, or radical thinkers.
One of the differences between political prisoners and common criminals is that the former are involved in some kind of group struggle against the ruling elites, while the latter's activities usually include an element of satisfying their own interests, they add.
"I believe that there is no universal definition and that it depends on the situation when assessing whether a criminal act is political."
"The assessment is a blanket assessment and has no legal value, except for the political one and what it represents in society," explains Milena Vasić.
Amnesty International This term is used in a broader sense to define prisoners for whom a fair and speedy trial is required.
But it does not campaign for their release, as it does with the narrower category – prisoners of conscience, for whom they demand immediate and unconditional release.
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Specific criteria for the definition of the term
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe became the first major intergovernmental organization to approved specific criteria for the definition of the term "political prisoner", October 2012.
It was developed by independent experts back in 2001 when assessing alleged political imprisonments in Armenia and Azerbaijan in connection with the two countries' accession to this international organization for supporting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law on the Old Continent.
According to this definition, a political prisoner is considered a "person deprived of personal liberty" in the following cases:
- if the detention is ordered in violation of one of the fundamental guarantees established by the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom of assembly and association
- if the detention was ordered for purely political reasons without any connection to any criminal offense
- if, for political reasons, the length of detention or its conditions are manifestly disproportionate to the criminal offence of which the person has been found guilty or is suspected
- if, for political reasons, a person is detained in a discriminatory manner compared to other persons
- if the detention is the result of a procedure that was manifestly unfair and appears to be linked to the political motives of the authorities
In this case, political prisoners are not considered to be persons deprived of their liberty for terrorist crimes, if they have been prosecuted and convicted for such acts in accordance with national legislation and the European Convention on Human Rights.
International organizations and intergovernmental bodies such as the Red Cross, the United Nations, and the European Union most often they accept recommendations from local human rights groups operating in the country of interest on who constitutes a political prisoner.
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