2015
Yassmin Barrios & Claudia Paz y Paz
Introduction by John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg News
The great personal risk is often of torture and death. Who would not rather die on the battlefield than in some torturer's den? But so much of that heroism is in private, behind closed doors, away in a gulag, behind the bamboo curtain. A prisoner of conscience is one whose greatest battle can actually be in that conscience…
There are refugees that could be fought for, injustices that could be exposed on our doorstep, minorities who could protected. There are things that we could all volunteer for, hypocrisies that we all walk past. Think of the prisoners in this country who go to lengthy sentences, with barely any form of defence. We are without excuses. For we all know that those little battles are what helps build the core of the society that we live in - the freedoms that we enjoy.