Thesis (L.L.M.)--University of Waikato, 2007. / Title from PDF cover (viewed March 14, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-166)

O processo de reconstituição factual e de reflexão crítica acerca da ditadura civilmilitar de 1964 e de seu legado permanece incompleto e permeado por zonas de silêncio e interdições. Decorridos pouco mais de trinta anos da Lei de Anistia, muitos acontecimentos permanecem desconhecidos ao tempo em que se observa a existência de importantes lacunas nas articulações entre o passado e o presente e, mais especificamente, entre o legado da ditadura e a memória daqueles que a ela se opuseram ativamente. Visando contribuir para o entendimento desse passado, e de seu legado, esta pesquisa procurou caracterizar o protagonismo dos presos políticos na defesa de transformações sociais e na luta contra a ditadura e, ao mesmo tempo, oferecer um panorama reflexivo sobre a construção de suas memórias a respeito dessas lutas e da experiência-limite da tortura e da prisão. Para alcançar esses objetivos, a pesquisa pautou-se por um amplo registro das memórias desses protagonistas por meio da metodologia da História Oral de Vida um conjunto de 90 entrevistas com ex-presos políticos. O que permitiu a coleta de informações até aqui inéditas no que diz respeito à organização dos presos e à atuação dos órgãos repressivos. A execução e desenvolvimento dessa metodologia deram origem a reflexões teóricas que visaram interpretar o material coletado, contextualizando-o crítica e historicamente. Partiu-se, ainda, da premissa de que tais testemunhos, juntamente com os de advogados, familiares e militantes permitiriam aprofundar as pesquisas desenvolvidas sobre as lutas revolucionárias e de resistência; a clandestinidade; as formas institucionais da repressão política e as disputas políticas estabelecidas dentro e fora dos cárceres. Os depoimentos dos ex-presos permitiram, ainda, a análise de suas estratégias de sobrevivência e memória. Tais estratégias foram aqui discutidas à luz dos esforços empreendidos para a compreensão da maneira como eles próprios reorganizaram identidades, constituíram grupos de ação política e definiram maneiras de se relacionar com o legado das experiências-limite. Reconstruir as tramas dessa história, com o suporte do material coletado, apresenta novas possibilidades de interpretação desse período recente da história brasileira cuja atualidade permanece. / The process of reconstituting the facts and of producing a critical analysis of the civilian-military dictatorship of 1964 and its legacy is incomplete and permeated by interdits and silence. After a little more than thirty years of the Amnesty Law, many events remain unknown, while important lacunae abide between the past and the present and, more specifically, between the legacy of the dictatorship and the memory of those who actively opposed it. Aiming to contribute to the understanding of this past and of its legacy, this study sought to describe the protagonism of political prisoners in the defense of social transformation and in the struggle against the dictatorship. At the same time, it aimed to offer a reflective view on the ways former prisoners have constructed their memories of these struggles and of the limit-experience of torture and prison. To achieve these objectives, the study made use of an extensive record of the memories of these protagonists. Using the methodology of Oral Life History, a set of 90 interviews with ex-political prisoners was conducted, allowing the collection of as yet unpublished information relating to the prisoners organization and the actions of the repressive agencies. The execution and development of this methodology gave rise to theoretical reflections which sought to interpret the material collected by contextualizing it critically and historically. The underlying premise was that these testimonies, together with those of lawyers, family members, and militants of the opposition, would allow us to deepen research on revolutionary struggles and resistance, on life in clandestinity, on the institutional forms of political repression, and on the political debates carried on inside and outside the prisons. The testimonies of the former prisoners also made possible an analysis of their strategies for survival and memory. These strategies were discussed here in an effort to understand the way that the ex-prisoners themselves reorganized identities, constructed political action groups, and defined ways of relating to the legacy of limit-experiences. The reconstruction of the frames of this history, based upon the material collected introduces new oportunities for interpretation of this recent period in Brazilian history, which has echoes in the present day.

489 Days is an animated documentary about the harrowing experiences of Egyptian-American Mohamed Soltan, who survived 16 months of hunger strike in an Egyptian prison. Caught up in the political turmoil which followed the Arab Spring uprisings, Soltan was unjustly incarcerated between August 2013 and May 2015, when the United States government intervened to release him weeks after an Egyptian court sentenced him to life in prison. The film is also the larger story of an estimated 60,000 political detainees currently held in Egypt without due process, and in violation of local and international human rights conventions.

No description available.

The Irish peace process is heralded as a success among insurgencies that attempt transitions toward peaceful resolution of conflict. After thirty years of armed struggle, pitting Irish republicans against their loyalist counterparts and the British State, the North of Ireland has a reconfigured political landscape with a consociational governing body where power is shared among several parties that hold divergent political objectives. The Irish Republican Movement, whose main components are the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a covert guerilla armed organization, and Sinn Fein, the political party of Irish republicans, initiated peace that led to all-inclusive talks in the 1990s and that culminated in the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, setting out the parameters for a non-violent way forward. Given the traditional intransigence of the IRA to consider any route other than armed conflict, how did the leadership of the Irish Republican Movement secure the support of a majority of republicans for a peace initiative that has held now for more than fifteen years? This dissertation explores the dynamics of leadership in this group, and in particular, focuses on the prisoner resistance waged by its incarcerated activists and volunteers. It is the contention here, that various prisoner resistance tactics enabled a wide-ranging group of captives to develop the skill set necessary to persuade their community to back the peace initiative, engage in electoral politics, mobilize their supporters to invest in attaining a united Ireland by peaceful negotiations, and put down their arms in a permanent and unequivocal manner. In this dissertation, the work of Paulo Freire is explored in order to capture the processes inherent the resistance-leadership continuum.

The theme and primary purpose of this thesis is illustration everyday life in the concentration camp Buchenwald. Buchenwald was a concentration camp where the Nazis imprisoned a lagre number of citizens of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The thesis will primary consist of three categories. First of all it is the issue of "the space", in which will be incorporated a brief outline of the development of concentration camps in Germany before the war, the function of administrative, technical and military buildings of SS units. Another theme of the thesis points to the physical labor of prisoners, which was daily content during their stay in a concentration camp. The purpose of their work should lead to rapid death with the lowest cost of their meals. In favor of or against the prisoners decided ideological-political, and economic aspects of the later mode. The concept of work in the Nazi concentration camps in successive years significantly changed, which were causing the preparations for war and the later development of the war conflict itself. The third theme contents the social relations and cultural life of the prisoners, which refer to the human adaptability in these inhuman conditions. In an effort to describe social days coexistence in this concentration camp is put emphasis on the...

The Irish peace process is heralded as a success among insurgencies that attempt transitions toward peaceful resolution of conflict. After thirty years of armed struggle, pitting Irish republicans against their loyalist counterparts and the British State, the North of Ireland has a reconfigured political landscape with a consociational governing body where power is shared among several parties that hold divergent political objectives. The Irish Republican Movement, whose main components are the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a covert guerilla armed organization, and Sinn Fein, the political party of Irish republicans, initiated peace that led to all-inclusive talks in the 1990s and that culminated in the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, setting out the parameters for a non-violent way forward. Given the traditional intransigence of the IRA to consider any route other than armed conflict, how did the leadership of the Irish Republican Movement secure the support of a majority of republicans for a peace initiative that has held now for more than fifteen years? This dissertation explores the dynamics of leadership in this group, and in particular, focuses on the prisoner resistance waged by its incarcerated activists and volunteers. It is the contention here, that various prisoner resistance tactics enabled a wide-ranging group of captives to develop the skill set necessary to persuade their community to back the peace initiative, engage in electoral politics, mobilize their supporters to invest in attaining a united Ireland by peaceful negotiations, and put down their arms in a permanent and unequivocal manner. In this dissertation, the work of Paulo Freire is explored in order to capture the processes inherent the resistance-leadership continuum.

The Irish peace process is heralded as a success among insurgencies that attempt transitions toward peaceful resolution of conflict. After thirty years of armed struggle, pitting Irish republicans against their loyalist counterparts and the British State, the North of Ireland has a reconfigured political landscape with a consociational governing body where power is shared among several parties that hold divergent political objectives. The Irish Republican Movement, whose main components are the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a covert guerilla armed organization, and Sinn Fein, the political party of Irish republicans, initiated peace that led to all-inclusive talks in the 1990s and that culminated in the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, setting out the parameters for a non-violent way forward. Given the traditional intransigence of the IRA to consider any route other than armed conflict, how did the leadership of the Irish Republican Movement secure the support of a majority of republicans for a peace initiative that has held now for more than fifteen years? This dissertation explores the dynamics of leadership in this group, and in particular, focuses on the prisoner resistance waged by its incarcerated activists and volunteers. It is the contention here, that various prisoner resistance tactics enabled a wide-ranging group of captives to develop the skill set necessary to persuade their community to back the peace initiative, engage in electoral politics, mobilize their supporters to invest in attaining a united Ireland by peaceful negotiations, and put down their arms in a permanent and unequivocal manner. In this dissertation, the work of Paulo Freire is explored in order to capture the processes inherent the resistance-leadership continuum.

The Master's thesis "The Life Afterwards. The Return of Czechoslovak Political Prisoners to Society" is concerned with the topic of the re-integration of Czechoslovak political prisoners of the 1950s back into society after their release from prison. In the conceptual framework I provide the political and historical background of the Communist Czechoslovakia during the 1950s. I discuss the concept of political prisoner and describe the living conditions in prisons and labor camps. As observed from their narration, I also briefly outline the various strategies employed by political prisoners in their attempts to deal with imprisonment. Although the descriptions of the respondents' arrests and events that had led up to them are topics not directly concerned with the primary topic of my thesis, they are included, because they are vital in understanding the existential and other re-integration-related problems these prisoners faced. In my research, I employ the qualitative method of oral history. I focus on the time period when the interviewees were released from prison and try to describe the numerous issues they faced and had to deal with. More specifically, I focus on family and friendship relations, which had been often disrupted and the issue of seeking a new employment, an area of life in which...

This study focuses on Steve Biko’s Africana existential phenomenology, with particular emphasis on the themes of blackness, black solidarity and liberation. The theoretical foundation of this thesis is Africana existential phenomenology, which is used as a lens to understand Biko’s political thought. The study argues that thematic areas of blackness, black solidarity, and liberation are inherent in Africana existential phenomenology. These thematic areas give a better understanding of existential questions of being black in the antiblack world. What is highlighted is the importance and the relevance of the revival of Biko’s thinking towards creating other modes of being that are necessary for the actualisation of blacks as full human subjects. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)