[trhway]

Today on several news media were a story that people of Iran were called by the government and formed human shields at the bridges and power plants that Trump threatened to bomb if no deal reached by the deadline.

https://www.ms.now/news/iran-youths-protect-power-plants-sau...

Sounds like a blatant violation of all the conventions and a war crime.

[amluto]

It’s hard to imagine that international law actually intends to consider civilians hanging out as “human shields” at civilian sites to be a war crime.

[gpm]

No it's not. International law is generally exceptionally clear that one war crime doesn't justify another, and using civilians as human shields is about as core a war-crime as war-crimes get.

[amluto]

I tried to look it up: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule97#ti...

> The prohibition of using human shields in the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I and the Statute of the International Criminal Court are couched in terms of using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations.[18] Most examples given in military manuals, or which have been the object of condemnations, have been cases where persons were actually taken to military objectives in order to shield those objectives from attacks. The military manuals of New Zealand and the United Kingdom give as examples the placing of persons in or next to ammunition trains.

The situation in Iran is not this. The suggestion was that humans might volunteer to go to non-military sites.

As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge? Does it become different if someone threatens to blow up a bridge and people parade there in response?

[gpm]

Eh, the quoted text, and also the literal text of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 28 [1], doesn't qualify "certain points or areas" as only "military sites". While the other side should only be attacking military sites I don't see how that could possibly justify protecting non-military sites with human shields.

> As an extreme hypothetical, are humans living in their homes acting as human shields for those homes? How about people at school? How about people parading on a bridge?

Generally speaking I read this as not, because they aren't being "used to" render those points immune from attack, they just happen to be doing so. Hypothetically if you were to rush civilians back to their homes in an evacuated town to protect it from an attack - or as you suggest organize parades on bridges that are threatened - that would seem to meet the "used to" requirement.

(Good discussion though)

[1] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...

> Article 28 - Prohibition of using human shields

> The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.

[amluto]

Article 54 gives some sites that may not be attacked. Maybe a protected person cannot render at least those sites “immune” since they are already immune.

[oa335]

https://youtu.be/u7J3_EX7rQk

I think this was done voluntarily as a demonstration of sacrifice and nationalism.

[vincnetas]

When Lithuania was fighting for independence from USSR civilians gathered around key government buildings to protect them. in a sense they were human shields as none of them were armed. but they did it voluntarily. this happens when you threaten total annihilation of your homeland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events

[trhway]

These civilians did this without government coercion. Big difference.

[vincnetas]

how do you know that iranians are forced to do this now by their government and not doing this in support of their country? do you think there are gunmen taking them to the bridges?

[trhway]

It was a government call. I grew up in USSR and know very well how those government "calls to volunteer" work in totalitarian regimes. Especially in a wartime country where even in peacetime they would kill people even just for being incorrectly dressed.

Anyway, as i said in the other comment, it is actually not that important how all those people got there. The key thing here is that it was a deliberate government act of human shield creation.

[vincnetas]

what a coincidence i too grew up in USSR and my parents and friends were part of above mentioned human shield. And i can tell first hand that there was no coercion. just call to action.

[oa335]

Threatening total annihilation was possibly the dumbest move Trump could have made.

“ Soldiers when in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm. If they are in the heart of a hostile country, they will show a stubborn front. If there is no help for it, they will fight hard."

Sun Tzu

[trhway]

It said it was call of the government. Bloody authocratic government. A call you can’t refuse.

[oa335]

That’s certainly not the vibe I got from that video, nor the several others I’ve seen of Iranis at power plants and bridges.

[trhway]

Look at recordings from other totalitarian regimes - enthusiastic people doing government bidding. The key is deliberate act of human shield creation, not the specific way to do it.