List of famous political dissidents

Political dissidents are people severely persecuted by governments or other organizations for political reasons.

They are not necessarily the only or most important dissidents, but they become famous or semi-famous often through the stories told by themselves or by others.

Ancient Era

  • Jesus Christ
  • Saint John the Baptist
  • Martin Luther

Modern Era

China

See also List of Chinese dissidents

  • Harry Wu
  • Wei Jingsheng
  • Zhang Xueliang

Colombia

  • Ingrid Betancourt
  • Jorge Eliécer Gaitán

Germany

  • Martin Luther
  • Thomas Müntzer
  • Karl Marx
  • Friedrich Engels
  • Ferdinand Lassalle
  • Jacob Grimm
  • Wilhelm Grimm
  • Wilhelm Liebknecht
  • Clara Zetkin
  • Rosa Luxemburg
  • Karl Liebknecht
  • Kurt Tucholsky
  • Ernst Thälmann
  • Adolf [...]
  • Carl von Ossietzky
  • Max Hoelz
  • Erich Mühsam
  • Liselotte Herrmann
  • Rudi Dutschke

Indonesia

  • Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Korea

  • Empress Myeongseong
  • Kim Dae-jung
  • Kim Young-sam

Hungary

  • Pál Maléter
  • Tivadar Soros

India

  • Mahatma Gandhi
  • Jawaharlal Nehru

Myanmar

  • Aung San Suu Kyi

Russia / Soviet Union

  • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  • Andrei Sakharov
  • Anton Chekhov
  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • Leon Trotsky
  • Luba Brezhneva
  • Aleksandr Pushkin
  • Joseph Stalin
  • Vladimir Lenin
  • Sergey Kirov

South Africa

  • Nelson Mandela
  • Mahatma Gandhi
  • Helen Suzman
  • Walter Sisulu
  • Oliver Tambo
  • Chris Hani
  • Ruth First
  • Joe Slovo
  • Winnie Mandela
  • Bram Fischer
  • Stephen Biko
  • Donald Woods
  • Desmond Tutu

Tunisia

  • Sihem Bensedrine
  • Néjib Chebbi
  • Hamma Hammami
  • Moncef Marzouki
  • Zouhair Yahyaoui

United States

  • John Brown
  • Joseph Smith, Jr.
  • Nicola Sacco and Bart Vanzetti
  • Woody Guthrie
  • Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Malcolm X
  • Angela Davis
  • Chief Joseph
  • Roger Williams
  • Sitting Bull
  • Tecumseh
  • Joe Hill
  • Pete Seeger
  • Mumia Abu-Jamal
  • Ted Kaczynski

Vietnam

  • Dương Thu Hương