One of the goals of this project is to make data on political prisoners* easy to explore, export, and integrate into other projects. There are a number of pages you can use to find what you're looking for. If there is any data you'd like to see made easier to access or export, or if you have any trouble with any of the pages below, please get in touch. If you have a specific query like: prisoners in Wales without support groups, you can use the bulk export options.
Each page has various formats (page, RSS, CSV, etc). The page is how you view it on the site, RSS is a way to syndicate content to your website, and CSV is an exportable format similar to a spreadsheet. RSS can be used, for example, to have a sidebar on your website to show the newest political prisoner or an updating list of prisoners that take BitCoin. CSV is most useful for batch processing of data and can be used to make a list of all prisoners in your area and their various mailing addresses.
Prisoner List Display Options:
Prisoners by Movement Page
Prisoners by State or Country Page
Prisoners by Release Date Page
Prisoners by Birthdate Page (Help us complete this page by filling in information for prisoners with unknown birthdays)
Prisoners with Upcoming Parole Hearings Page
Prisoners that take BitCoin Page | RSS
Prisoners without Official Support Groups Page
Cases:
Cases by State or Country Page
Cases that take BitCoin Page | RSS
Prisons:
Master List of Prisons by Province/Country
Bulk Export (advanced):
If you want to export all or large portions of the site data, you can use the links below. These pages do not look pretty, but they will export the data in CSV format so you can work with them in Excel/LibreOffice Writer/other database and spreadsheet programs. You can select which fields you want to export and all fields are available. To export CSV data, go to the bottom of the page and click on the CSV button. Be sure to filter the data first!
Master Prisoner List Page | CSV
*Who We List
We only list people who meet our definition of a political prisoner. We realize many have different definitions for this, so we think it's important to delineate exactly who we do and do not list as our resources are finite. We define political prisoner broadly with the two below statements. Some people may not be clearly in the camp of any of our definitions, therefore we take some listings on a case-by-case basis and retain full discretion on who will be listed.
Definition one: “A person incarcerated or facing prosecution for actions carried out in support of legitimate struggles for self-determination* or for opposing the illegal policies of the government or its political subdivisions.” (Special International Tribunal on the Violation of Human Rights of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the United States Prisons and Jails, December, 1990)" *We have added the “facing prosecution” section.
Definition two: “Those persons incarcerated or facing persecution as a result of political beliefs or actions consciously undertaken and intended to resist exploitation and oppression, and/or hasten the implementation of an egalitarian, sustainable, ethical, classless society, predicated on self determination and maximization of all people’s freedom.” This is a definition crafted by Bill Dunne that we have borrowed.
We also list all whistleblowers, prisoners of conscience and people imprisoned for their speech or political views/affiliations. In general we seek to only limit who may not be on this site through very narrow exemptions which will be crafted as the site grows. In other words, we start from a presumption of acceptance.
We do not include the following people in our definition currently though they may be added later if there is capacity to do so:
Social prisoners who have become politicized while in prison, jailhouse lawyers, etc.
Prisoners who are members of movements in the revolutionary left but whom are imprisoned for acts which were not undertaken as part of a liberatory struggle
“Social” prisoners i.e. prisoners who are in for crimes that are not political or in furtherance of the goals stated in our definitions of political prisoners
We do not include the following people in our definition of political prisoner for the purposes of this site and never will:
Any followers of nazism, fascism, or who are openly racist, homophobic, sexist, nationalist, etc. We will also not include anyone who cooperated with prosecution against others.
