Press & civil society
Prisoner of Conscience: What the Term Means in Amnesty International's Usage
The meaning of prisoner of conscience, as Amnesty International uses the term, is a person who is imprisoned or otherwise physically restricted solely because of their beliefs or identity and who has not used or advocated violence or hatred. Amnesty reserves the designation for people in that position and calls for their immediate and unconditional release. The term was coined by the organisation's founder, Peter Benenson.
How does Amnesty define a prisoner of conscience?
Amnesty's pages give several formulations of the same test. In a 2024 statement it says it considers a prisoner of conscience to be any person imprisoned or otherwise physically restricted solely because of their political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs, and who has not used or advocated violence. Its introductory pages on freedom of expression put it more briefly: "We consider anyone put in prison solely for exercising their right to free speech peacefully to be a prisoner of conscience".
A 2015 glossary of human rights terms gives the short form: someone who is imprisoned because of who they are or their religious, political or other beliefs, and who has not used or advocated violence.
Every version of the definition includes a condition on conduct. In the wording Amnesty used in October 2024, the person must be someone who has not used violence or advocated violence or hatred in the circumstances leading to their detention.
Which grounds does the definition cover?
The designation covers both beliefs and identity. The wording varies by page: the freedom of expression page ties the label to peacefully exercising the right to free speech, the 2020 statement to peacefully exercising human rights, and the 2024 statements to beliefs and identity, with the same exclusion of violence. Across Amnesty's pages the grounds named include the following:
- political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs
- ethnic origin, sex, colour and language
- national or social origin, socio-economic status and birth
- sexual orientation and gender identity
What does the label not imply?
In a July 2024 statement, Amnesty wrote that naming someone a prisoner of conscience means it "is not endorsing past or present views or conduct by them". The designation is a statement about the reason for detention, and it comes with a demand for release.
Amnesty's detention page frames the category as one defined by two features: the person is held because of identity or conscientiously held beliefs, and has not used or called for violence or hatred in the events leading to detention.
Imprisonment is not the only form covered: the same statement refers to people "imprisoned or otherwise physically restricted". That statement announced the first person Amnesty designated as a prisoner of conscience held in Canada.
How many people does Amnesty campaign for?
On 4 May 2020 Amnesty said it was campaigning for about 150 individuals designated as prisoners of conscience, and that likely thousands more were in similar situations. It added that the exact number changes because of releases, deaths and cases that represent larger groups.
Amnesty's detention page says it has campaigned for thousands of prisoners of conscience over its history and in many cases helped secure their release. In the same 2020 statement it urged governments to reduce prison overcrowding, review pre-trial detention, consider early or conditional release for people at particular risk and provide healthcare in prisons comparable to that in the community.
How does the designation work in practice?
Amnesty announces designations case by case. Examples on its site include three activists in Hong Kong in October 2024 and arbitrarily detained members of parliament in Eswatini in July 2025. In the Hong Kong statement Amnesty said the three were held "solely because of their peaceful human rights activism", criticised vague and overly broad national security laws and secret trials, and called for the release of all others imprisoned solely for their beliefs in Hong Kong and mainland China. The Eswatini statement repeats the standard formula: imprisoned or otherwise physically restricted because of political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs, provided they have neither used nor advocated violence.
Amnesty also reports on patterns rather than single cases. On its freedom of expression page it states that research in 2019 showed the number of prisoners of conscience jailed in Viet Nam had sharply risen by a third, with many jailed for social media comments under vague and overly broad penal code provisions. The same page reports detention conditions that include torture and other ill-treatment, incommunicado and solitary confinement, and denial of medical care.
