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Show trial

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused withCourt show,Mock trial,orShowtrial (TV series).

People's Courttrial ofAdolf Reichwein,Nazi Germany,1944[1]

Ashow trialis apublic trialin which theguiltor innocence of thedefendanthas 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 awarningto other would-bedissidentsor transgressors.[2]

Show trials tend to beretributiverather thancorrective,and they are also conducted forpropagandisticpurposes.[3]When aimed at individuals on the basis ofprotected classesor characteristics, show trials are examples ofpolitical persecution.The term was first recorded in 1928.[4]

A similar concept is "kangaroo court".

China

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After theTiananmen Square protests of 1989,show trials were given to "rioters and counter-revolutionaries" involved in the protests and the subsequent military massacre.[5]

ChineseNobel Peace PrizelaureateLiu Xiaobowas given a show trial in 2009.[6]Chinese writer and dissidentMa Jianargued thatGu Kailai,the wife of purged Communist Chinese leaderBo Xilai,was given a show trial in 2012.[7][better source needed]

Soviet Union

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Main article:Moscow trials
Prosecutor GeneralAndrey Vyshinsky(centre) reading the 1937 indictment againstKarl Radekduring the 2ndMoscow trial

As early as 1922,Leninadvocated staging several "model trials" ( "показательный процесс", literally "demonstrative trial", "a process showing an example" ) inSoviet RussiaandSoviet Ukraine.[8]

Show trials became common duringJoseph Stalin's political repressions,[citation needed]such as theMoscow Trialsof theGreat Purgeperiod (1937–38). Such trials paralleled the institution ofself-criticismwithinCommunist PartycadresandSoviet society.[9]

Known show trials in Soviet Ukraine include"Union for the Liberation of Ukraine" trial(1930),"People's Revolutionary Socialist Party" trial[uk](1930),[10]"Ukrainian National Center[uk]"trial (1931).[11]

Russia

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During its full-scale invasion into Ukraine, around 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers weretaken prisonersby Russia in Mariupol in May 2022. In 2023 Russia began criminal prosecutions against members of theAzov Regiment,on the charges of involvement in a terrorist organization and taking part in action to overthrow the Russia-backed authorities in the Donetsk region. Most of the Ukrainians standing trials in Russia are members ofUkrainian Armed Forces,which, according toHRW,makes themprisoners of warwith corresponding status and protections per theGeneva Convention on Prisoners of War.According to HRW andAmnesty International,the charges arewar crimes[12]and, per HRW, are an excuse to prosecute Ukrainian soldiers for participating in the conflict.[13][14]Observers called those prosecution show trials.[15][16]

Eastern Europe

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CaptainWitold Pilecki,former prisoner atAuschwitzduring a show trial conducted by communist authorities in Poland in 1948
See also:Eastern Bloc politics

Following some dissent within rulingcommunist partiesthroughout theEastern Bloc,especially after the 1948Tito–Stalin split,[17][18]several partypurgesoccurred, with several hundred thousand members purged in several countries.[17][19]In addition to rank-and-file member purges, prominent communists were purged, with some subjected to public show trials.[19]These were more likely to be instigated, and sometimes orchestrated, by theKremlinor even Stalin himself, as he had done in the earlier Moscow Trials.[20]

Such high-ranking party show trials included those ofKoçi Xoxein Albania andTraicho Kostovin Bulgaria, who were purged and arrested.[18]After Kostov was executed, Bulgarian leaders sent Stalin a telegram thanking him for the help.[20]In Romania,Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu,Ana PaukerandVasile Lucawere arrested, with Pătrășcanu being executed.[19]The Soviets generally directed show trial methods throughout the Eastern Bloc, including a procedure in which confessions and evidence from leading witnesses could be extracted by any means, including threatening to torture the witnesses' wives and children.[21]The higher-ranking the party member, generally the more harsh the torture that was inflicted upon him.[21]For the show trial of Hungarian Interior MinisterJános Kádár,who one year earlier had attempted to force a confession of Rajk in his show trial, regarding "Vladimir" the questioner of Kádár:[21]

Vladimir had but one argument: blows. They had begun to beat Kádár. They had smeared his body with mercury to prevent his pores from breathing. He had been writhing on the floor when a newcomer had arrived. The newcomer was Vladimir's father, Mihály Farkas. Kádár was raised from the ground. Vladimir stepped close. Two henchmen pried Kádár's teeth apart, and the colonel, negligently, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, urinated into his mouth.

The evidence was often not just non-existent but absurd, such as HungarianGeorge Paloczi-Horváth's party interrogators claiming "We knew all the time—we have it here in writing—that you met professor Szentgyörgyi not inIstanbul,but inConstantinople."[22]In another case, the HungarianÁVHsecret police also condemned another party member as a Nazi accomplice with a document that had been previously displayed in a glass cabinet at the Institute of the Working Class Movement as an example of aGestapoforgery.[22]The trials themselves were "shows", with each participant having to learn a script and conduct repeated rehearsals before the performance.[22]In theSlánský trialinCzechoslovakia,when the judge skipped one of the scripted questions, the better-rehearsed Slánský answered the one which should have been asked.[22]

Yugoslavia

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In 1946,Draža Mihailovićand a number of other prominent figures of theChetnik movementduring World War IIwere triedfor high treason and war crimes committed during WWII. The trial opened in the presence of about 60 foreign journalists. Mihailović and ten others (two in absentia) were sentenced to death by a firing squad; the others were convicted of penalties ranging from 18 months to 20 years in prison. In 2015, a Serbian court invalidated Mihailović's conviction. The court held that it had been aCommunistpolitical show trial that was controlled by the government. The court concluded that Mihailović had not received a fair trial. Mihailović was, therefore, fully rehabilitated.[23][24][25]

During 1946–1949, several well-publicized show trials were held in thePeople's Republic of Slovenia.First was theNagode Trialin which 32 non-communist intellectuals were tried as spies, three of them sentenced to death. Second was a series of so-calledDachau trialsin which 37 members of the Communist Party were sentenced, 15 of them to death.

Hungary

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Stalin'sNKVDemissary coordinated with Hungarian General SecretaryMátyás Rákosiand hisÁVHhead the way the show trial of Hungarian Minister of InteriorLászló Rajkshould go, and he was later executed.[20]

Czechoslovakia

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TheRajk trialsin Hungary led Moscow to warn Czechoslovakia's parties that enemy agents had penetrated even high into party ranks, and when a puzzledRudolf SlánskýandKlement Gottwaldinquired what they could do, Stalin's NKVD agents arrived to help prepare subsequent trials.

First, these trials focused on people outside theCzechoslovak Communist party.GeneralHeliodor Píkawas arrested without a warrant in early May 1948 and accused ofespionageandhigh treason,[26]damaging the interests of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Soviet Union, and undermining the ability of the state to defend itself, Píka was not allowed to present a defence, and no witnesses were called. He was sentenced to death and hanged. During thePrague Springof 1968, Píka's case was reopened at the request of Milan Píka (son of Heliodor) and the elder Píka's lawyer, and a military tribunal declared Heliodor Píka innocent of all charges.[27]

Milada Horáková,aCzechpoliticianfocused on social issues and women's rights, who was jailed during theGerman occupationfor her political activity,[28]was accused of leading a conspiracy to commit treason and espionage at the behest of the United States, Great Britain, France and Yugoslavia. Evidence of the alleged conspiracy included Horáková's presence at a meeting of political figures from the National Socialist,Social DemocratandPeople'sparties, in September 1948, held to discuss their response to the new political situation in Czechoslovakia. She was also accused of maintaining contacts with Czechoslovak political figures in exile in the West. The trial of Horáková and twelve of her colleagues began on 31 May 1950[29]and the State's prosecutors were led by Dr.Josef Urválekand includedLudmila Brožová-Polednová.The trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated with confessions of guilt secured from the accused, though a recording of the event, discovered in 2005, revealed Horáková's defence of her political ideals.[30]Horáková was sentenced to death, along with three co-defendants (Jan Buchal, Oldřich Pecl, andZáviš Kalandra), on 8 June 1950. Many prominent figures in the West, notablyAlbert Einstein,Winston ChurchillandEleanor Roosevelt,petitioned for her life, but the sentences were confirmed. She was executed by hanging in Prague'sPankrác Prisonon 27 June 1950.

The trials then turned to the communist party itself (Slánský trial). In November 1952Rudolf Slánskýand 13 other high-ranking Communist bureaucrats (Bedřich Geminder, Ludvík Frejka, Josef Frank,Vladimír Clementis,Bedřich Reicin,Karel Šváb,Rudolf Margolius,Otto Šling,André Simone,Artur London,Vavro Hajdů and Evžen Löbl), 10 of whom were Jews, were arrested and charged with beingTitoistsandZionists,officialUSSRrhetoric having turned againstZionism.Party rhetoric asserted that Slánský was spying as part of an international western capitalist conspiracy to undermine socialism and that punishing him would avenge the Nazi murders of Czech communistsJan ŠvermaandJulius Fučíkduring World War II. The trial of the 14 national leaders began on 20 November 1952, in the Senate of the State Court, with the prosecutor beingJosef Urválek.It lasted eight days. It was notable for its stronganti-Semiticovertones.[citation needed]All were found guilty, with three being sentenced to life imprisonment while the rest were sentenced to death. Slánský was hanged atPankrác Prisonon 3 December 1952. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered on an icy road outside of Prague.

Western Europe

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Nazi Germany

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Between 1933 and 1945,Nazi Germanyestablished a large number ofSondergerichtethat were frequently used to prosecute those hostile to the regime. ThePeople's Courtwas akangaroo courtestablished in 1934 to handle political crimes, after several of the defendants at theReichstag fireTrial were acquitted. Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 12,000 Germans were killed on the orders of the "special courts" set up by theNazi regime.[31]

Iran

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In the Iranian regime there are no juries in Islamic Revolutionary Courts - trial by peers only exists in some special courts - with verdicts set before the trial; have been several occasions of trials being labeled show for their proceeding.[32][33][34][35]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^"German Resistance Memorial Center – Biographie".gdw-berlin.de.Retrieved30 August2020.
  2. ^OED (2014):"show trial".
  3. ^"SHOW TRIAL | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary".dictionary.cambridge.org.Retrieved19 June2019.
  4. ^"Definition of SHOW TRIAL".merriam-webster.Retrieved19 June2019.
  5. ^Findlay, Mark (1989)."Show Trials in China: After Tiananmen Square".Journal of Law and Society.16(3): 352–359.doi:10.2307/1409989.JSTOR1409989.
  6. ^"Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo jailed for subversion".BBC News. 25 December 2009.
  7. ^China's Show Trial of the Century,Ma Jian,Project Syndicate,20 August 2012
  8. ^ Chase, William (2005). "12: Stalin as producer: the Moscow show trials and the construction of mortal threats". InDavies, Sarah;Harris, James (eds.).Stalin: A New History.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 226–227.ISBN9781139446631.Retrieved25 September2018.Lenin appreciated the power of show trials and was keen to use them [...]. [...] In a February 1922 letter [...] Lenin recommended 'staging a series of model trials' that would administer 'quick and forceful repression' in 'Moscow, Piter [Petrograd], Kharkov and several other important centres'.
  9. ^ Priestland, David(February 2007).Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization: Ideas, Power, and Terror in Inter-war Russia.Oxford: Oxford University Press (published 2007). p. 167.ISBN9780199245130.Retrieved4 April2021.The characters who embodied these sins then confessed in a 'self-criticism' session. This type of political theatre obviously had a great deal in common with the political show trial and with rituals of 'self-criticism' in the party.
  10. ^Shapoval, Yurii."Народної революційної соціалістичної партії Справа"[Case of "People's Revolutionary Socialist Party" ].Енциклопедія Сучасної України(in Ukrainian).Retrieved2 June2024.
  11. ^Prystajko, Volodymyr I.; Šapoval, Jurij I. (1999).Mychajlo Hruševs'kyj: sprava "UNC" i ostanni roky (1931-1934) = Paralleltit. Mykhailo Hrushevsky.Kyïv: Krytyka.ISBN978-966-7679-08-8.
  12. ^"Правозахисники: Суд у РФ над азовцями – воєнний злочин – DW – 16.06.2023".dw(in Ukrainian).Retrieved12 June2024.
  13. ^"Russia's Sham Trial of Ukrainian Prisoners of War | Human Rights Watch".6 July 2023.Retrieved11 January2024.the charges being brought are just a pretext to prosecute Ukrainian soldiers for defending Mariupol from the Russian assault. Prosecuting prisoners of war for participation in the conflict, depriving them of their fair trial rights, and subjecting them to torture or inhuman treatment are all breaches of the Geneva Conventions and war crimes.
  14. ^"Captured Ukrainian soldiers face trial in Russia".AP News.14 June 2023.Retrieved6 May2024.
  15. ^"Russia Charges Ukrainian POWs with Attempting to Seize Power by Force for Opposing Russian Invasion - Diplomacy in Ireland - The European Diplomat".1 October 2023.Retrieved12 July2024.
  16. ^"Calling the witness for the propaganda".Monash Lens.11 October 2023.Retrieved12 July2024.
  17. ^abBideleux & Jeffries 2007,p. 477
  18. ^abCrampton 1997,p. 261
  19. ^abcCrampton 1997,p. 262
  20. ^abcCrampton 1997,p. 263
  21. ^abcCrampton 1997,p. 264
  22. ^abcdCrampton 1997,p. 265
  23. ^"Court rehabilitates WW2-era Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic - English - on B92.net".B92.net.14 May 2015.Retrieved4 January2019.
  24. ^"Serbia Rehabilitates WWII Chetnik Leader Mihailovic".balkaninsight.14 May 2015.Retrieved4 January2019.
  25. ^""Draza Mihailovic rehabilitated", May 14, 2015, InSerbia ".18 May 2015.
  26. ^Hauner, Milan (Winter 2001–2002) (20 July 2011)."Crime and Punishment in Prague: The Strange Case of Karel Vaš and Gen. Heliodor Píka"(PDF).Archived(PDF)from the original on 20 July 2011.Retrieved25 June2020.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  27. ^"Remembering General Heliodor Píka, first victim of the communist show trials".Radio Prague International.19 June 2009.Retrieved25 June2020.
  28. ^"Milada Horáková – Radio Praha".old.radio.cz.Archived fromthe originalon 27 June 2020.Retrieved25 June2020.
  29. ^"Dr. Horáková Milada a spol. – Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů".ustrcr.cz.Retrieved25 June2020.
  30. ^"Young director to bring story of Milada Horakova to silver screen".Radio Prague International.6 April 2007.Retrieved25 June2020.
  31. ^Peter Hoffmann "The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945" p.xiii
  32. ^https:// france24 /en/live-news/20220207-family-denounces-show-trial-of-german-held-in-iran
  33. ^https:// amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2018/11/iran-two-people-executed-for-corruption-after-unfair-tv-show-trial/
  34. ^https:// rferl.org/a/iran-flight-752-families-show-trial/32367311.html
  35. ^https:// washingtonpost /world/national-security/irans-revolutionary-courts-are-criticized-as-swift-and-unjust/2015/05/29/2d203708-0555-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html

References

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  • Bideleux, Robert; Jeffries, Ian (2007),A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change,Routledge,ISBN978-0-415-36626-7
  • Crampton, R. J. (1997),Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and after,Routledge,ISBN0-415-16422-2
  • Hodos, George H.Show Trials: Stalinist Purges in Eastern Europe, 1948–1954.New York, Westport (Conn.), and London: Praeger, 1987.
  • Showtrials WebsiteArchived18 November 2018 at theWayback Machineof theEuropean Union
  • Balázs Szalontai, Show trials. In: Ruud van Dijk et al. (eds.),Encyclopedia of the Cold War(London and New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 783–786. Downloadable atacademia.edu
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Media related toShow trialsat Wikimedia Commons

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