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Genocide is a term that refers to the intentional destruction of a group of people (usually a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group), in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944).[1] The United Nations defines genocide as:
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- 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[2]
Etymology
It consists of the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix cide, meaning to kill.
History
Genocide was first coined by Raphael Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.[1]
Examples of genocides
Common examples of genocides include but are not limited to:
- Genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas (1492–present)
- Dzungar genocide (1755–1758)
- Australian Aboriginal genocide (1788–present)
- Circassian genocide (1864–1867)
- Herero and Namaqua genocide (1904–1908)
- Armenian genocide (1915–1917)
- Holocaust (1941–1945)
- Cambodian genocide (1975–1979)
- Rwandan genocide (1994)
- Rohingya genocide (2017–present)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Raphäel Lemkin (1944). Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. [PDF] Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
- ↑ "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" (9 December 1948). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Archived from the original on 2022-04-13. Retrieved 2022-10-28.