A Quote by Julian Assange

Of course, no state accepts [that it should call] the people it is imprisoning or detaining for political reasons, political prisoners. They don't call them political prisoners in China, they don't call them political prisoners in Azerbaijan and they don't call them political prisoners in the United States, U.K. or Sweden; it is absolutely intolerable to have that kind of self-perception.

Julian Assange

Quote Topics

Absolutely Azerbaijan Call China Course Detaining Intolerable Kind People Perception Political Political Prisoners Prisoners Reasons Self Should State States Sweden Them United United States

Quote Author

Julian Assange
Australian - Activist
Born: July 3, 1971

There are several dozen political prisoners in Russia. When I cite that number people are often very surprised. They often think there are more. Well - there are hundreds of thousands of people who haven't had a fair trial, who are victims of the political system. But in the Amnesty International sense of the word, most of them are not political prisoners because they are not going to prison for protesting.

Masha Gessen

The U.S. government does not recognize the existence of political prisoners in our country. The identity of political prisoners is concealed and, consequently, their right to justice is denied.

Susan Rosenberg

I'm sure that those - well, I know for a fact that the prisoners, the political prisoners in the federal system, is asking [Barack Obama] for clemency or for some kind of release.

Sekou Odinga

If a Cuban refugee is escaping, we're saying they're a political refugee, but why isn't a Haitian refugee a political refugee? They're escaping the capitalism and degradation of economic imperialism. We don't call them political refugees; we call them unfortunate people.

Ian Svenonius

As our country bled . . . its leader's wife came to this podium piously to call for a new human order, this when thousands of Filipinos were political prisoners.

Corazon Aquino

Unfortunately, the United States and a few other governments have used the war on terrorism as a way of violating human rights. I am referring to the case of the Guantánamo Bay prisoners. This violation of the rights of prisoners has been so unbelievable that the United Nations has reminded the United States repeatedly that the treatment of prisoners should take place according to the preestablished conventions of the United Nations.

Shirin Ebadi

Political prisoners are important to support because we are in prison for explicitly social/political/progressive goals. Our lack of freedom does affect how free you are; If we can be violated, so can you.

Susan Rosenberg

There should be no political prisoners in a democratic country.

Aung San Suu Kyi

I'm very concerned with what's going on the news, but I would not call myself a political animal, per se. I pay more attention during election years, or if I see some topic or issue that I care about. But I would never call myself a political animal or political junkie.

Keegan-Michael Key

People don't even know that we have political prisoners.

Sekou Odinga

Not all political prisoners are innocents.

David Remnick

The West has political prisoners.

Julian Assange

My sense, and I'm sort of guessing, is that the journalists were being classified by the government as common criminals, and the political prisoners were so resistant to being that. Always keeping [the other prisoners] as murderers, thieves, that sort of thing, which has a certain irony to it, I guess. It's a curious thing.

Adam Braver

[T]here are, at bottom, basically two ways to order social affairs, Coercively, through the mechanisms of the state - what we can call political society. And voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations - what we can call civil society. ... In a civil society, you make the decision. In a political society, someone else does. ... Civil society is based on reason, eloquence, and persuasion, which is to say voluntarism. Political society, on the other hand, is based on force.