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https://theconversation.com/atrocities-take-place-in-democratic-nations-as-well-as-autocratic-ones-our-database-has-logged-them-all-272879>
"Thousands of people were killed by Iranian security forces in days of protests
in January 2026. Meanwhile, in the same month, the killing of two protesters in
Minneapolis shone a light on the use of fatal force by American law enforcement
— a phenomenon that in 2025 saw the deaths of more than 1,300 people in the
U.S., according to data tracking such incidents.
But should one of those two sets of killings be classified as a
government-involved “atrocity” and the other not? The answer may not be as
simple as you think, and it revolves around how you classify atrocities.
While dictionaries tend to describe an “atrocity” as a horrific or wicked act,
there is no one agreed-upon definition in either scholarship on the issue or
under international human rights law.
Part of the problem of definition is political — powerful countries tend to be
treated differently from weaker ones, and some governments avoid scrutiny
altogether. People are also less likely to condemn an atrocity when it is
carried out by members of one’s own political party, and killings that take
place over longer periods tend to generate fewer headlines.
As experts on human rights and atrocity prevention, we have been working to
address these imbalances. In recent research, we developed a systematic,
transparent and replicable method to identify when governments commit serious
human rights abuses each year.
Using widely relied-upon annual human rights reports, we apply the same rules
to every country when assessing whether governments have committed what we
describe as a “brutality-based atrocity.”
We define such an atrocity as having occurred if the government, its agents or
those acting on behalf of the government engage in widespread extrajudicial
killings of civilians in a calendar year, and in conjunction with at least one
widespread violation of a physical integrity right. Such violations could
relate to the use of torture, political imprisonment or enforced disappearances
against civilians.
Our data goes back 40 years and identifies patterns of governmental behavior
that can predict if an atrocity will take place. Our hope is that the research
will make atrocity research more transparent and useful for prevention."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
