POLITICAL PRISONERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 25, 31 January 1933, Page 6

POLITICAL PRISONERS.

Italy's amnesty, providing for diminished sentences or complete freedom for more than 2000 political prisoners, draws attention to tho host of men in various parts of the world who are serving prison terms of some kind for their political activities. There are about 1,500,000 such prisoners, according to an estimate by Roger N. Baldwin, chairman of tho International Committee for Political Prisoners. This huge total is attributed chiefly' to the widespread dominance of dictatorships and to unsettled governmental conditions in many States. In most countries members of the Left—that is, the radicals—comprise tho great majority of political prisoners. The principal exception is Russia, where tho relatively conservative kulaks are the chief victims.

The definition which Mr. Baldwin used in arriving at his estiipato of 1,500,000 is that a political prisoner is a man punished by the State merely for expressing his political ideas or passively resisting State authority. Russia is considered to have by far the greatest number of such prisoners, though she does not keep most of them, in penitentiaries. Instead they are sent to exile in small villages, where they are obliged to find work at low wages although left comparatively unrestricted during their free hours. In an estimate made last year the total of such political "exiles" was placed at 1,000,000. In addition, the movements of many others who are suspected of, subversive intentions against the Bolsljeviki are restricted. They may not travel outside certain places. India has made a largo number of arrests in order to suppress the civil disobedience campaign. Lord Willingdon, Viceroy of India, said in a recent speech to the members o,f the Indian Legislative Assembly that 32,500 such political prisoners were confined at the end of April of last year. But, he added, the number "is diminishing with some rapidity"; at the end of July it stood at about 24,000. Critics of the Government placed the total of political prisoners far higher; one of them declared at the end of July that there were 80,000 in gaols for opposing the Government. For tho other principal countries only rough estimates can be made, since their Governments have shied at making public the statistics about political offenders. Poland is said to have about 10,000. The number in China, where civil war is a, barrier over which little accurate information can pass, is placcd roughly at more than 25,000. /