Hostage-taking

Hostage-taking is the seizure or detention of a person to compel another person, group, or government to act or refrain from acting. It can occur in armed conflict, terrorism, crime, or political coercion.

Coercion: The use of threats or force to constrain another person’s choices. Hostage-taking uses threatened harm to force action by someone beyond the captive.
Hostage: A person held to secure another party’s compliance or to guarantee an agreement. The hostage is the person whose threatened safety gives hostage-taking its leverage.
International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages: A 1979 United Nations treaty requiring states to criminalize and cooperate against hostage-taking. It establishes a treaty framework for prosecuting hostage-taking beyond armed conflict.
Hostage diplomacy: The detention of foreign nationals to extract political or diplomatic concessions from another state. It applies hostage-taking as leverage between governments.
Prisoner of war: A combatant captured during international armed conflict who receives protections under the Third Geneva Convention. Lawful capture and internment of combatants are distinct from holding someone as coercive leverage.
Ransom: Money or another demanded benefit offered in exchange for a captive’s release. A ransom makes release conditional on payment, one common form of hostage-taking.
Roman hostages: People held by Rome as guarantees of agreements or submission by other communities. Their use illustrates hostage-taking as a state practice predating modern terrorism.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: The treaty establishing the International Criminal Court and defining its jurisdiction over serious crimes. It classifies hostage-taking as a war crime in specified armed conflicts.
Munich massacre: The 1972 killing of eleven Israeli Olympic team members after their capture by the group Black September. The failed hostage crisis exposed the lethal risks of poorly prepared rescue operations.
Internment: The confinement of people, often without criminal conviction, for security reasons during conflict or emergency. Internment may restrict liberty without conditioning release on a third party’s actions.

Linked from 13 pages