Internment Explained

Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges[1] or intent to file charges.[2] The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects".[3] Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventive confinement rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime. Use of these terms is subject to debate and political sensitivities.[4] The word internment is also occasionally used to describe a neutral country's practice of detaining belligerent armed forces and equipment on its territory during times of war, under the Hague Convention of 1907.[5]

Interned persons may be held in prisons or in facilities known as internment camps (also known as concentration camps). The term concentration camp originates from the Spanish–Cuban Ten Years' War when Spanish forces detained Cuban civilians in camps in order to more easily combat guerrilla forces. Over the following decades the British during the Second Boer War and the Americans during the Philippine–American War also used concentration camps.

The terms concentration camp and internment camp are used to refer to a variety of systems that greatly differ in their severity, mortality rate, and architecture; their defining characteristic is that inmates are held outside the rule of law.[6] Extermination camps or death camps, whose primary purpose is killing, are also imprecisely referred to as concentration camps.[7]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights restricts the use of internment, with Article 9 stating, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."[8]

Defining internment and concentration camp

The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term concentration camp as: "A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group which the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable."[9]

Although the first example of civilian internment may date as far back as the 1830s,[10] the English term concentration camp was first used in order to refer to the reconcentration camps (Spanish:reconcentrados) which were set up by the Spanish military in Cuba during the Ten Years' War (1868–1878).[11] [12] The label was applied yet again to camps set up by the United States during the Philippine–American War (1899–1902).[13] And expanded usage of the concentration camp label continued, when the British set up camps during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa for interning Boers during the same time period.[14]

During the 20th century, the arbitrary internment of civilians by the state reached its most extreme forms in the Soviet Gulag system of concentration camps (1918–1991)[15] and the Nazi concentration camps (1933–1945). The Soviet system was the first applied by a government on its own citizens. The Gulag consisted in over 30,000 camps for most of its existence (1918–1991) and detained some 18 million from 1929 until 1953, which is only a third of its 73-year lifespan. The Nazi concentration camp system was extensive, with as many as 15,000 camps[16] and at least 715,000 simultaneous internees.[17] The total number of casualties in these camps is difficult to determine, but the deliberate policy of extermination through labor in many of the camps was designed to ensure that the inmates would die of starvation, untreated disease and summary executions within set periods of time.[18] Moreover, Nazi Germany established six extermination camps, specifically designed to kill millions of people, primarily by gassing.[19] [20]

As a result, the term "concentration camp" is sometimes conflated with the concept of an "extermination camp" and historians debate whether the term "concentration camp" or the term "internment camp" should be used to describe other examples of civilian internment.[4]

The former label continues to see expanded use for cases post-World War II, for instance in relation to British camps in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960),[21] [22] and camps set up in Chile during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990).[23] According to the United States Department of Defense as many as 3 million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups are being held in China's re-education camps which are located in the Xinjiang region and which American news reports often label as concentration camps.[24] [25] The camps were established in the late 2010s under General Secretary Xi Jinping's administration.[26] [27]

Impact

Scholars have debated the efficacy of internment as a counterinsurgency tactic. A 2023 study found that internment during the Irish war of independence led to greater grievances among Irish rebels and led them to fight longer in the war.[28]

Examples

See main article: List of concentration and internment camps.

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See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. 27879033. Human Rights Vol. 5, No. 3 "INTERNMENT: WITHOUT TRIAL IN NORTHERN IRELAND". Human Rights. 5. 3. Lowry. David. ABA Publishing. 1976. American Bar Association. 261–331. The essence of internment lies in incarceration without charge or trial..
  2. Book: Kenney, Padraic . Padraic Kenney . Dance in Chains: Political Imprisonment in the Modern World . A formal arrest usually comes with a charge, but many regimes employed internment (that is, detention without intent to file charges . . 2017 . 47 . 978-0-19-937574-5.
  3. Web site: the definition of internment. www.dictionary.com.
  4. Web site: Euphemisms, Concentration Camps And The Japanese Internment. npr.org. 10 February 2012 . Schumacher-Matos . Edward . Grisham . Lori.
  5. Web site: The Second Hague Convention, 1907 . Yale.edu . 1 February 2013 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20121019114853/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/lawwar.asp . 19 October 2012.
  6. Book: Stone, Dan . Dan Stone (historian) . Concentration Camps: A Very Short Introduction . 2015 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-879070-9 . 122–123. Concentration camps throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are by no means all the same, with respect either to the degree of violence that characterizes them or the extent to which their inmates are abandoned by the authorities... The crucial characteristic of a concentration camp is not whether it has barbed wire, fences, or watchtowers; it is, rather, the gathering of civilians, defined by a regime as de facto ‘enemies’, in order to hold them against their will without charge in a place where the rule of law has been suspended..
  7. Web site: Nazi Camps . . 3 October 2020.
  8. https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a9 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 9
  9. Web site: Concentration camp . 22 July 2014 . American Heritage Dictionary.
  10. Book: James L. Dickerson . Inside America's Concentration Camps: Two Centuries of Internment and Torture . Chicago Review Press . 2010 . 978-1-55652-806-4 . 29.
  11. Book: The Columbia Encyclopedia: Concentration Camp . 2008 . Columbia University Press . Sixth.
  12. News: 2 November 2017 . Concentration Camps Existed Long Before Auschwitz . .
  13. Book: Storey . Moorfield . Secretary Root's record. "Marked severities" in Philippine warfare. An analysis of the law and facts bearing on the action and utterances of President Roosevelt and Secretary Root . Codman . Julian . George H. Ellis Company . 1902 . Boston . 89–95 . Moorfield Storey . Julian Codman.
  14. Web site: Documents re camps in Boer War . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070609212833/http://www-sul.stanford.edu/africa/boers.html . 9 June 2007 . sul.stanford.edu.
  15. Web site: 2004 . Gulag: A History, by Anne Applebaum (Doubleday) . 2019-11-13 . The Pulitzer Prizes.
  16. Web site: Concentration Camp Listing . Editions Kritak . Belgium . Sourced from Van Eck, Ludo Le livre des Camps. and Book: Gilbert, Martin . Atlas of the Holocaust . New York . William Morrow. 1993. 0-688-12364-3. . In this online site are the names of 149 camps and 814 subcamps, organized by country.
  17. Book: Evans, Richard J. . The Third Reich in Power . Penguin Group . 2005 . 978-0-14-303790-3 . New York.
  18. Book: Marek Przybyszewski . IBH Opracowania – Działdowo jako centrum administracyjne ziemi sasińskiej . https://web.archive.org/web/20101022004220/http://www.historia.terramail.pl/opracowania/nowozytna/zamek_centrum_administracji.html . 2010-10-22 . pl . Działdowo as the centre of local administration . Internet Archive.
  19. Book: Robert Gellately . Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany . Nathan Stoltzfus . Princeton University Press . 2001 . 978-0-691-08684-2 . 216.
  20. Anne Applebaum . A History of Horror Review of Le Siècle des camps by Joël Kotek and Pierre Rigoulot . 18 October 2001 . The New York Review of Books.
  21. News: 27 August 2019 . Museum of British Colonialism releases online 3D models of British concentration camps in Kenya . Morning Star .
  22. News: 31 December 1989 . The Mau Mau Rebellion . The Washington Post .
  23. News: 7 September 2013 . Chilean coup: 40 years ago I watched Pinochet crush a democratic dream . The Guardian .
  24. News: 22 May 2019 . As the U.S. Targets China's 'Concentration Camps', Xinjiang's Human Rights Crisis is Only Getting Worse . Newsweek .
  25. News: 17 November 2019 . Uighurs and their supporters decry Chinese 'concentration camps', 'genocide' after Xinjiang documents leaked . .
  26. News: Ramzy . Austin . Buckley . Chris . 2019-11-16 . 'Absolutely No Mercy': Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims . en-US . . 2019-11-16 . 0362-4331.
  27. News: Kate O'Keeffe and Katy Stech Ferek . 14 November 2019 . Stop Calling China's Xi Jinping 'President', U.S. Panel Says . .
  28. Huff . Connor . 2023 . Counterinsurgency Tactics, Rebel Grievances, and Who Keeps Fighting . American Political Science Review . 118 . 475–480 . en . 10.1017/S0003055423000059 . 0003-0554.
  29. News: Life inside a North Korea labour camp: 'We were forced to throw rocks at a man being hanged'. 28 September 2017. The Independent.
  30. Web site: Political Prison Camps in North Korea Today. 2013-10-19. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20131019141624/http://nkdb.org/bbs1/data/publication/Political_Prison_Camp_in_North_Korea_Today.pdf. 19 October 2013. 2019-12-18.
  31. News: Guantánamo Bay files: Torture gets results, US military insists. Leigh. David. 2011-04-25. The Guardian. 2019-12-18. en-GB. 0261-3077.
  32. Web site: Professor David Isaacs Speech.
  33. Web site: Europe's apathy toward humanitarian rescue outrages NGOs. 2018-12-11. InfoMigrants. 2019-12-18.
  34. Web site: What the 'Danish Lawrence' Learned in Libya (5th paragraph from the last one). Wehrey. Frederic. 2019-11-25. The New York Review of Books. 2019-12-18.
  35. Web site: Detained migrants killed in Libya airstrike used as 'human shields'.
  36. Web site: France cancels speedboats delivery to Libyan coastguard. Mediapart. La Rédaction De. Mediapart. 2 December 2019 . 2019-12-18.
  37. News: . China is creating concentration camps in Xinjiang. Here's how we hold it accountable . The Washington Post . 24 November 2018 .
  38. News: Saudi crown prince defends China's right to put Uighur Muslims in concentration camps . https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/22/saudi-crown-prince-defends-chinas-right-put-uighur-muslims-concentration/ . 11 January 2022 . subscription . live . The Daily Telegraph . 22 February 2019.
  39. Web site: The persecution of gay men in Chechnya has chilling similarities to the Third Reich. 2017-04-19. NewsComAu. 2019-12-17.
  40. Web site: Is there a 'gay purge' in Chechnya? Rights group fears the worst. Stefanello. Viola. 2019-01-15. euronews. 2019-12-17.
  41. Web site: Report: Chechnya Opens 'Concentration Camp for Homosexuals'. Snopes.com. 11 April 2017 . en-US. 2019-12-17.
  42. Web site: Question to the EU Commission by Matt Carthy.
  43. News: Movement to call migrant detention centers 'concentration camps' swells online . Ramirez . Fernando . 2018-06-14 . . The practice of separating migrant families began in April when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new "zero-tolerance" policy prosecuting 100 percent of illegal border crossings..
  44. Web site: Hignett . Katherine . Academics rally behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over concentration camp comments: 'She is completely historically accurate' . . 23 August 2019 . 24 June 2019.
  45. Web site: An Expert on Concentration Camps Says That's Exactly What the U.S. Is Running at the Border. Holmes. Jack. 2019-06-13. Esquire. en-US. 2019-07-03.
  46. News: Beorn . Waitman Wade . Yes, you can call the border centers 'concentration camps,' but apply the history with care . . 30 August 2019 . 20 June 2018.
  47. live.
  48. live.
  49. News: Clark . Helen . Helen Clark (British politician) . Lapsley . Michael . Michael Lapsley. Alton . David . David Alton . The warning signs are there for genocide in Ethiopia – the world must act to prevent it . 2021-11-26 . . 2021-11-27 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211127031651/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/26/ethiopia-genocide-warning-signs-abiy-ahmed . 2021-11-27 . live.
  50. live.
  51. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/thousands-of-mariupol-survivors-being-detained-and-e2-80-98tortured-e2-80-99-in-russia-controlled-prisons-in-occupied-ukraine/ar-AAXrRjm
  52. News: 2022-04-25 . 'You can't imagine the conditions' - Accounts emerge of Russian detention camps . 2024-05-29 . en-GB.
  53. https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/831791.html
  54. 2017 . Civil War Internment Collection . Defense Forces of Ireland . 22 May 2024 .
  55. Web site: Open Letter to Members of the Security Counsel Concerning Detentions in Iraq.
  56. Web site: Largest American Internment Camp in Iraq Shuts Down The Takeaway. WNYC Studios. 2019-12-17.
  57. Web site: How U.S. Torture Led to the Rise of ISIS. 2014-12-23. The Big Picture. en-US. 2019-12-17.
  58. News: Excerpts From Red Cross Report. 2004-05-07. The Wall Street Journal. 2019-12-17. en-US. 0099-9660.
  59. News: Breaking Out of Abu Ghraib. Anderson. Jon Lee. The New Yorker. 2013-07-26. 2019-12-17. 0028-792X.
  60. Web site: Defense.gov News Article: Abuse Resulted From Leadership Failure, Taguba Tells Senators. archive.defense.gov. 2019-12-17. 21 May 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200521223835/https://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=26496. dead.

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