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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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D
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Dissident
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INFOTEXT
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1992-09-02
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33 lines
In one-party states, a person intellectually
dissenting from the official line. Dissidents
have been sent into exile, prison, labour
camps, and mental institutions, or deprived
of their jobs. In the USSR the number of
imprisoned dissidents declined from more than
600 in 1986 to fewer than 100 in 1990, of
whom the majority were ethnic nationalists.
In China the number of prisoners of
conscience increased after the 1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre, and in South Africa, despite
the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990,
numerous political dissidents remained in
jail. In the USSR before the introduction of
glasnost, dissidents comprised communists who
advocated a more democratic and humanitarian
approach; religious proselytizers; Jews
wishing to emigrate; and those who supported
ethnic or national separatist movements
within the USSR (among them Armenians,
Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Tatars). Their
views were expressed through samizdat
(clandestinely distributed writings) and
sometimes published abroad. In the late 1980s
Gorbachev lifted censorship, accepted a
degree of political pluralism, and extended
tolerance to religious believers. Almost
100,000 Jews were allowed to emigrate
1985-90. Some formerly persecuted dissidents,
most prominently the physicist Sakharov,
emerged as supporters, albeit impatient, of
the new reform programme.