Editing Internment (section)

{{short description|Imprisonment or confinement of groups of people without trial}}
{{hatnote group|{{For|the TV episode|Internment (The Walking Dead)}}
{{distinguish|text=[[burial|interment]] (burial) or [[extermination camp]]}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
[[File:Boercamp1.jpg|thumb|[[Boers|Boer]] women and children in a [[Second Boer War concentration camps|British concentration camp]] in South Africa (1899–1902)|270x270px]]
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'''Internment''' is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without [[Criminal charge|charges]]<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=27879033|title=Human Rights Vol. 5, No. 3 "INTERNMENT: {{sic|hide=n|nolink=y|reason=error in source|DENTENTION}} WITHOUT TRIAL IN NORTHERN IRELAND"|journal=Human Rights|volume=5|issue=3|last=Lowry|first=David|publisher=ABA Publishing|year=1976|location=American Bar Association|pages=261–331|quote=The essence of internment lies in incarceration without charge or trial.}}</ref> or [[Indictment|intent to file charges]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Kenney |first=Padraic |author-link=Padraic Kenney |title=Dance in Chains: Political Imprisonment in the Modern World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4c0DwAAQBAJ&q=without&pg=PA47 |quote=A formal arrest usually comes with a charge, but many regimes employed internment (that is, detention without intent to file charges |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2017 |page=47 |isbn=978-0-19-937574-5}}</ref> The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in [[war]]time or of [[terrorism]] suspects".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/internment|title=the definition of internment|website=www.dictionary.com}}</ref> Thus, while it can simply mean [[imprisonment]], it tends to refer to preventive confinement rather than confinement ''after'' having been convicted of some crime. Use of these terms is subject to debate and political sensitivities.<ref name=euph>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2012/02/10/146691773/euphemisms-concentration-camps-and-the-japanese-internment|title=Euphemisms, Concentration Camps And The Japanese Internment|website=npr.org|date=10 February 2012 |last1=Schumacher-Matos |first1=Edward |last2=Grisham |first2=Lori}}</ref> The word ''internment'' is also occasionally used to describe a [[neutral country]]'s practice of detaining [[belligerent]] [[Military|armed forces]] and equipment on its territory during times of war, under the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907#Hague Convention of 1907|Hague Convention of 1907]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Second Hague Convention, 1907 |publisher=Yale.edu |url=http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague05.htm |access-date=1 February 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019114853/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/lawwar.asp |archive-date=19 October 2012}}</ref>

Interned persons may be held in [[prison]]s or in facilities known as '''internment camps''' or '''[[Concentration camp|concentration camps]]'''. The term ''concentration camp'' originates from the Spanish–Cuban [[Ten Years' War]] when Spanish forces detained Cuban civilians in camps in order to more easily combat guerrilla forces. Over the following decades the British during the [[Second Boer War]] and the Americans during the [[Philippine–American War]] also used concentration camps.

The terms ''concentration camp'' and ''internment camp'' are used to refer to a variety of systems that greatly differ in their severity, mortality rate, and architecture; their defining characteristic is that inmates are held outside the [[rule of law]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Stone |first=Dan |author-link=Dan Stone (historian) |title=Concentration Camps: A Very Short Introduction |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-879070-9 |pages=122–123|quote=Concentration camps throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are by no means all the same, with respect either to the degree of violence that characterizes them or the extent to which their inmates are abandoned by the authorities... The crucial characteristic of a concentration camp is not whether it has barbed wire, fences, or watchtowers; it is, rather, the gathering of civilians, defined by a regime as de facto ‘enemies’, in order to hold them against their will without charge in a place where the rule of law has been suspended.}}</ref> <!-- He also refers to "internment camps" on page 123. --> [[Extermination camp]]s or death camps, whose primary purpose is killing, are also imprecisely referred to as ''concentration camps''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Nazi Camps |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-camps?series=10 |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |access-date=3 October 2020}}</ref>

The [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] restricts the use of internment, with Article 9 stating, "No one shall be subjected to [[Arbitrary arrest and detention|arbitrary arrest]], [[Detention (imprisonment)|detention]] or [[exile]]."<ref>[https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a9 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 9], United Nations</ref>