About This Book
As you read this, thousands of men, women, and even children are in prisons around the world, not because they have committed violence, theft, or broken drug laws, but because they spoke against their government. They are political prisoners: in some cases, they did not even intend to cross their nations' leaders-they just happened to get in the way of schemes of which they were not even aware. This book tells many stories of political prisoners, both past and present. Some of them have become leaders in their countries, like Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel. Some have "disappeared" and may no longer be alive, like sixteen-year-old Panchen Lama. Many of these political prisoners are people of tremendous courage and inner strength, like Wei Jingsheng, Leyla Zana, and Aung San Suu Kyi. An imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi has urged the world, "Please use your liberty to promote ours." The true accounts of political prisoners in this book are both heartrending and inspiring: every informed citizen of our world should know about them.
