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Edit]Definition

See also: Definition of terrorism

Though many have been proposed, there is no consensus definition of the term "terrorism."[2][3] This in part derives from the fact that the term is politically and emotionally charged, “a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one's enemies and opponents.”[4] Listed below are some of the historically important understandings of terror and terrorism, and enacted but non-universal definitions of the term:

§ 1795. "Government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France." The general sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" was first recorded in English in 1798.[5]

§ 1916. Gustave LeBon: “Terrorization has always been employed by revolutionaries no less than by kings, as a means of impressing their enemies, and as an example to those who were doubtful about submitting to them . . ." [6]

§ 1937. League of Nations convention language: "All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public."[7]

§ 1987. A definition proposed by Iran at an international Islamic conference on terrorism: “Terrorism is an act carried out to achieve an inhuman and corrupt (mufsid) objective, and involving [a] threat to security of any kind, and violation of rights acknowledged by religion and mankind.” [8]

§ 1988. A proposed academic consensus definition: "Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators."[9]

§ 1989. United States: premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.[10]

§ 1992. A definition proposed by Alex P. Schmid to the United Nations Crime Branch: "Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime."[11]

§ 2002. European Union: ". . . given their nature or context, [acts which] may seriously damage a country or an international organisation where committed with the aim of seriously intimidating a population."[12]

§ 2003. India: Referencing Schmid's 1992 proposal, the Supreme Court of India described terrorist acts as the "peacetime equivalents of war crimes."[13]

§ 2008. Carsten Bockstette, a German military officer serving at the George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies, proposed the following definition: “political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols)."[14]


Date: 2015-01-02; view: 870


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History of terrorism | Edit]Before the Reign of Terror
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