Extrajudicial execution

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 421.

Extrajudicial execution, or political murder, is the practice of states or their proxies illegally assassinating citizens because they are viewed as political threats and to intimidate communities. Extrajudicial execution may be carried out by the official military, police forces or unofficial paramilitaries (often called "death squads" or euphemized as "civilian defence"). In the latter case, there may be strong ties between the paramilitaries and official forces, with an overlapping membership and a "blind eye" turned to illegal activities.

Such death squads often unpredictably attack the socially disadvantaged ("undesirables"), religious or ethnic minorities, or citizens deemed to be subversive. Their targets typically include the homeless, street children, union leaders, indigenous peoples, clergy, activists, journalists, and academics. Death squads conveniently shield their sponsors from liability, the illusion of spontaneous criminal violence providing "plausible deniability". Often, the bodies of victims are secretly disposed, typically in mass graves, leaving no evidence of a crime and increasing the trauma to families and communities. These cases are known as "disappearances", particularly in South America. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances was formed in 1980 to investigate the global phenomenon of disappearances.