[Media-watch] Geneva convention

[Runners]

I thought this was an interesting piece which contradicts a lot of what we have been told.

Chris Harrison
Film of PoWs within Geneva rules 

Clare Dyer, legal correspondent 
Friday    March     28, 2003 
The Guardian 

Media organisations which show pictures of prisoners of war are not breaching the Geneva convention, international law experts confirmed yesterday. 

Article 13 of the third Geneva convention says PoWs must be humanely treated and "protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity". But the article does not prevent all photographs of prisoners, and newspapers and TV companies are not bound by the convention, which applies only to states or "detaining powers". 

The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, yesterday condemned the parading of coalition prisoners of war on Iraqi television and the broadcast of film showing two dead British servicemen as "a flagrant and sickening breach of the Geneva convention". But article 13 does not seem to cover the bodies of soldiers killed in battle, since they are not prisoners of war. 

Malcolm Shaw QC, professor of international law at Leicester University, said the article which says prisoners must be protected against insults and public curiosity had been understood to mean that states should not allow them to be shown publicly "in humiliating or insulting circumstances". 

He added: "If you show long shots of prisoners without their being identifiable, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you show people who have clearly been beaten, are clearly terrified, I do think that is contrary to the convention." But it would be the state or detaining power which released the pictures which would be in breach, not the media outlet, he said. 

James Crawford QC, professor of international law at Cambridge University, said coercing PoWs into appearing on TV would be a grave breach of the convention and a war crime, "but shots of prisoners of war at a distance and not identifiable as individuals are fine". He said the convention's protections had to be balanced against freedom of information. 


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