Dissident in the context of "Political persecution"

Shunning can be the act of social rejection, or emotional distance. In a religious context, shunning is a formal decision by a denomination or a congregation to cease interaction with an individual or a group, and follows a particular set of rules. It differs from, but may be associated with, excommunication. The social rejection occurs when a person or group deliberately avoids association with, and habitually keeps away from an individual or group. This can be a formal decision by a group, or a less formal group action which will spread to all members of the group as a form of solidarity. Shunning can sometimes also be used by an individual to express discontent with an action of their family. Sometimes shunning leads to shunning in itself. An example would be a son using shunning to stop their mother from shunning someone.

Shunning is a sanction against association, often associated with religious groups and other tightly knit organizations and communities. Targets of shunning can include persons who have been labeled as apostates, whistleblowers, dissidents, strikebreakers, or anyone the group perceives as a threat or source of conflict. Shunning can also be the result of the love life of a person. This often results because of marriage/dating outside of their religion/class. In these cases it's most often the direct family of the couple which shun the couple because of discontent with the marriage (interfaith marriages). This can be motivated by fear of the reaction of their community or because of personal beliefs.

Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby reducing their standing among their fellow citizens. Repression tactics target the citizenry who are most likely to challenge the political ideology of the state in order for the government to remain in control. In autocracies, the use of political repression is to prevent anti-regime support and mobilization. It is often manifested through policies such as human rights violations, surveillance abuse, police brutality, kangaroo courts, imprisonment, involuntary settlement, stripping of citizen's rights, lustration, and violent action or terror such as murder, summary executions, torture, forced disappearance, and other extrajudicial punishment of political activists, dissidents, or the general population. Direct repression tactics are those targeting specific actors who become aware of the harm done to them while covert tactics rely on the threat of citizenry being caught (wiretapping and monitoring). The effectiveness of the tactics differs: covert repression tactics cause dissidents to use less detectable opposition tactics while direct repression allows the citizenry to witness and react to the repression. Political repression can also be reinforced by means outside of written policy, such as by public and private media ownership and by self-censorship within the public.

Where political repression is sanctioned and organised by the state, it may constitute state terrorism, genocide, politicide or crimes against humanity. Systemic and violent political repression is a typical feature of dictatorships, totalitarian states and similar regimes. While the use of political repression varies depending on the authoritarian regime, it is argued that repression is a defining feature and the foundation of autocracies by creating a power hierarchy between the leader and citizenry, contributing to the longevity of the regime. Repressive activities have also been found within democratic contexts as well. This can even include setting up situations where the death of the target of repression is the result. If political repression is not carried out with the approval of the state, a section of government may still be responsible. Some examples are the COINTELPRO operations by the FBI from 1956 to 1971 and the Palmer Raids from 1919 to 1920.

Secret police (or political police) are police, intelligence or security agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, ideological or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. They protect the political power of a dictator or regime and often operate outside the law to repress dissidents and weaken political opposition, frequently using violence. They may enjoy legal sanction to hold and charge suspects without ever identifying their organization.

A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors.

Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective, and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes. When aimed at individuals on the basis of protected classes or characteristics, show trials are examples of political persecution. The term was first recorded in 1928.

The Syrian opposition was an umbrella term for the Syrian revolutionary organizations that opposed Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist regime during the Syrian Revolution and Syrian civil war. The opposition factions in Syria became active as grassroots movements during the mass demonstrations against the Ba'athist regime. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was the most prominent armed revolutionary group in the initial stages of the war; but it declined and became decentralized by 2015. By 2021, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had become the strongest armed faction within the Syrian opposition.

In July 2011, as the situation turned into a civil war, defectors from the Syrian Armed Forces formed the Free Syrian Army. In August 2011, dissident groups operating from abroad formed a coalition called the Syrian National Council. A broader organization, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), was formed in November 2012. Although the groups based abroad established contact with those in Syria, the Syrian opposition suffered during the whole conflict from infighting and a lack of unified leadership, as well as lack of foreign aid as the war became deadlocked.

House arrest (also called home confinement, or nowadays electronic monitoring) is a legal measure where a person is required to remain at their residence under supervision, typically as an alternative to imprisonment. The person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted and may require prior approval.

Since the introduction of electronic tagging, a person under house arrest may be monitored electronically, and their movements are typically tracked. House arrest is also used in some cases for individuals convicted of minor offenses. In certain situations, such as in authoritarian regimes, house arrest may be used to restrict the freedom of political dissidents against political governments, sometimes limiting or monitoring their communication with the outside world. If electronic communication is allowed, conversations may be monitored. There is much criticism of the effectiveness of house arrest.

Lech Wałęsa (/vəˈwɛnsə/; Polish: [ˈlɛx vaˈwɛ̃sa] ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democratically elected president of Poland since 1926 and the first-ever Polish president elected by popular vote. An electrician by trade, Wałęsa became the leader of the opposition Solidarity movement and led a successful pro-democratic effort, which in 1989 ended Communist rule in Poland and ushered in the end of the Cold War.

While working at the Lenin Shipyard (now Gdańsk Shipyard), Wałęsa, an electrician, became a trade-union activist, for which he was persecuted by the government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976 and arrested several times. In August 1980, he was instrumental in political negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government. He co-founded the Solidarity trade-union, whose membership rose to over ten million.

Surveillance abuse is the use of surveillance methods or technology to monitor the activity of an individual or group of individuals in a way which violates international human rights standards, social and cultural norms or the laws of a particular society.

During the FBI's COINTELPRO operations, there was widespread surveillance abuse which targeted political dissidents, primarily people from the political left and civil rights movement.

Lustration in Central and Eastern Europe is the official public procedure of scrutinizing a public official or a candidate for public office in terms of their history as a witting confidential collaborator (informant) of relevant former communist secret police, an activity widely condemned by the public opinion of those states as morally corrupt due to its essential role in suppressing political opposition and enabling persecution of dissidents. Surfacing of evidence for such a past activity typically inflicts severe damage to the reputation of the person concerned. It should not be confused with decommunization, which is the process of barring former communist regular officials from public offices as well as eliminating communist symbols.

The principle of non-retroactivity means that a past role of a confidential collaborator (informant) is alone as such inadmissible from the beginning for criminal prosecution or conviction, thus, lustration allows at least to bring such past collaborators to moral responsibility by making the public opinion aware of the established outcomes through their free dissemination. Another motivation was the fear that undisclosed past confidential collaboration could be used to blackmail public officials by foreign intelligence services of other former Warsaw Pact allies, in particular Russia.