Freedom House lraq’s seizure of Kuwait in 1990. China's claim of nent members of the political opposition. Under ownership of the South China Sea, along with its President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, some estimates creeping militarization of previously uninhabited suggest that Egypt holds as many as 60,000 polit- islets, is at least as ambitious as Russia's move, ical prisoners.’ Turkish authorities have similarly though the impact is perhaps less jolting given rounded up tens of thousands of people in the the dearth of occupied populations. wake of the July 2016 coup attempt. A much smaller country, Bahrain, has convicted hundreds There have been other reversions to 20th-centu- of people of political crimes since 2011, when the ry methods of repression. For example: monarchy began arresting members of the polit- ical opposition who were demanding democratic ¢ Political prisoners: During the 20th century, elections and other freedoms.’ opposition figures, political dissidents, advocates for minority groups, and people who wrote critical China is in a class by itself. Since the 1989 commentaries were regularly sentenced to prison crackdown on prodemocracy protests in Tian- terms, often under grim conditions, by dicta- anmen Square, the Communist Party leadership torships of all stripes. Amnesty International's has regularly jailed political dissidents, espe- founding mission was the defense of what were cially those who argued publicly for democratic called “prisoners of conscience,” and they ranged political changes or made gestures toward the from dissidents and Jewish refuseniks in the So- formation of opposition political parties. The viet Union to those who resisted right-wing juntas most notable political prisoner is Liu Xiaobo, the in Latin America. Soviet dissidents like Natan Nobel Peace Prize winner who was sentenced to Sharansky and Vladimir Bukovsky were the focus 11 years in prison in 2009. However, conditions of international campaigns organized by human have