Menu
Home
History
The
Hague
International
Criminal Court
Jurisdiction
Why
Trials & Evidence
Gathering
Evidence
Crimes
Under Consideration
Genocide
(Gukurahundi)
How YOU can
help NOW!
Special
Message
Anonymous
Tipoffs
Further
Reading
Contact
Us |
Crimes
Against Humanity Zimbabwe (CAHZ) - Crimes Under Consideration
The list of deeds
that qualify as Crimes Against Humanity is surprisingly small and,
at CAHZ, we use the categories laid out by the ICC. As with
all crimes, a lot depends on the severity. Murdering one person is
enough to send you to jail for life, but, planning the action in detail
(premeditated murder), killing a whole family, torturing people before
they die and so on will be considered even more heinous.
The two key
acts laid out in the Statute of Rome, are:
Genocide and crimes against humanity.
Genocide is rightly listed on its own because the crime is so severe in nature. The Statute defines it as "an act - committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group," and goes on to list five examples
-
Killing members
of the group;
-
Causing serious
bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
-
Deliberately inflicting
on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;
-
Imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group;
-
Forcibly transferring
children of the group to another group.
Article 7 of the
Statute lists Crimes against humanity as any of the following acts
when committed
as part of a widespread
or systematic
attack directed against any civilian population:
-
Murder
-
Extermination
-
Enslavement
-
Deportation
or forcible transfer of population
-
Imprisonment or
other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental
rules
of
international law
-
Torture
-
Rape, sexual
slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization,
or any other form
of sexual violence
of comparable gravity
-
Persecution against
any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial,
national,
ethnic,
cultural,
religious, gender as defined
in paragraph 3, or other grounds that
are universally recognised as impermissible
under international law, in connection
with any act referred to in this paragraph
or
any crime
within
the jurisdiction
of the Court
-
Enforced disappearance
of persons
The last section of the defining table extends Crimes Against Humanity to include "Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health." Clearly, the Zimbabwe government has committed many of these acts, and CAHZ will advocate to bring to justice ministers, officers and individual soldiers where we believe a case exists for prosecution.
|
