The Fourth Geneva Convention
August 12, 1949
The following are some
excerpts from the FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION: All occupying powers
should observe and abide by.
PART1: GENERAL PROVISIONS:
Article 4
Definition Of Protected
Persons
Persons protected by the
Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner
whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation,
in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they
are not nationals.
PARTIII: STATUS AND
TREATMENT OF PROTECTED PERSONS
SECTION 1: PROVISIONS
COMMON TO THE TERRITORIES OF THE PARTIES OF THE CONFLICT AND TO OCCUPIED
TERRITORIES.
Article 27
Treatment
I. General Observations
Protected persons are
entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their
honor, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices,
and their manners and customs. They shall at all times be humanely
treated, thereof and against insults and public curiosity.
Article 29
II. Responsibilities:
The Party to the conflict in
whose hands protected persons may be, is responsible for the treatment
accorded to them by its agents, irrespective of any individual
responsibility which may be incurred.
Article 31
Prohibitions of coercion
No physical or moral
coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to
obtain information from them or from third parties.
Article 32
Prohibition of corporal
punishment, torture, etc.
The High Contracting Parties
specifically agree that each of them is prohibited from taking any
measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or
extermination of protected persons in their hands.
This prohibition applies not
only to murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or
scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a
protected persons, but also to any other measures of brutality whether
applied by civilian or military agents.
Article 33
Individual responsibility,
collective penalties, pillage, reprisals
No protected person may be
punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.
Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of
terrorism are prohibited.
Reprisals against protected
persons and their property are prohibited.
SECTION II: ALIENS IN THE
TERRITORY OF A PARTY TO THE CONFLICT
Article 27
Persons in confinement
Protected persons who are
confined pending proceedings or subject to a sentence involving loss of
liberty, shall during their confinement be humanely treated.
SECTION III: OCCUPIED
TERRITORIES
Article 47
Inviolability of rights
Protected persons who are in
occupied territory shall not be deprived, in any case or in any manner
whatsoever, of the benefits of the present Convention by any change
introduced, as the result of the occupation of a territory, into the
institutions or government of the said territory, nor by any agreement
concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the
Occupying Power, nor by any annexation by the latter of the whole or
part of the occupied territory.
Article 49
Deportations, transfers,
evacuations
Individual or mass forcible
transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied
territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any
other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their
motive. The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its
own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
Article 52
Protection of workers
All Measures aiming at
crating unemployment or at restricting the opportunities offered to
workers in an occupied territory, in order to induce them to work for
the Occupying Power, are prohibited.
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