What is genocide?
Q: What is genocide?
A: Genocide is the crime of killing many people who are all part of one ethnic or religious group, or some sort of similar group, and trying to destroy that group. It is usually done by a group such as a government or military organization, not by one person or a small number of people.
Q: Who invented the term 'genocide'?
A: The term 'genocide' was created by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew in 1944. He combined the words "genos" (Greek for family, tribe or race) and "-cide" (from the Latin "occidere", to kill).
Q: What event inspired Lemkin's idea of genocide?
A: The event that inspired Lemkin's idea of genocide was when Assyrians were massacred in Iraq on 11 August 1933. This reminded him of earlier similar events such as the Armenian Genocide during World War I.
Q: How is genocide prohibited today?
A: Today, any form of genocide is prohibited by the Genocide Convention and anyone who commits or incites genocide can be judged by the International Criminal Court.
Q: What example did Lemkin use in his speech about international criminal law?
A: In his speech about international criminal law at the League of Nations conference in Madrid in 1933, Lemkin used an example from Iraq where Assyrians were massacred on 11 August 1933 as evidence for his essay on Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law.
Q: What other examples are there of genocidal horror?
A: Other examples include Nazi Holocaust when many groups including Jews and others were killed; Ustashe concentration camps in Croatia where about a million Serbs were killed during WWII especially at Jasenovac; and Rwanda where about a million Tutsi people were killed along with Hutus who opposed the genocide in 1994.
Q: What was Lemkin's purpose behind creating this concept?
A:Lemkin's purpose behind creating this concept was based mostly on his experience with witnessing massacres such as those experienced by Assyrians and Armenians during World War I which he felt should be considered crimes against international law.
