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 Advocacy groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International report that leaders of repressive regimes continue to kill and maim their own citizens every year — at a rate rivaling actual wars.
One careful study of state killings reports that:
- About 170 million people have been killed by governments in the twentieth century.
- This is more than all those killed in all international and civil wars combined.
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The same study demonstrates that if all of those victims of power were alive in one country, it would be the sixth most populous state in the world.
Sample Statistics Comparing Death by One’s Own Government to Death by War
State |
Years |
Killed by Government
Mass Murder |
Killed by War |
Soviet Union |
1917 – 1987 |
69,944,000 |
21,403,000 |
China |
1949 – 1987 |
35,236,000 |
3,440,000 |
China |
1928 – 1947 |
17,907,000 |
17,522,000 |
Nazi Germany |
1934 – 1945 |
20,946,000
(in all of Europe)
|
5,200,000
(just in Germany)
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Turkey |
1900 – 1923 |
2,782,000 |
2,222,000 |
Cambodia |
1970 – 1987 |
2,664,000 |
794,000 |
Viet Nam |
1945 – 1987 |
1,813,000 |
2,510,000 |
Pakistan |
1971 |
1,650,000 |
75,000 |
Source: Rummel, R.J., 1994. Death by Government. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
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A Personal Story
In August 2002, Human Rights Watch reported the case of Muzafar Avazov, a 35-year old Uzbek man who was arrested for practicing Islam. He died in prison. The Uzbekistan authorities returned his body to his relatives, who discovered signs of severe torture. His body was nearly 70 percent burned.
In an interview, his mother explained what had happened to Avazov in prison:
“He didn’t want to confess to praying five times a day because he didn’t consider it a crime, so they put long metal spikes in a canvas bag and beat him with it. Still he didn’t confess, so they attached electrodes to his abdomen. Still he didn’t confess, he didn’t die. So he was put into 25 liters of boiling water, in a bath. When his skin was off, they poured disinfectant on him. They removed his fingernails and broke his nose and teeth. There was nowhere on his body that was not covered with bruising and signs of torture.”
Source: Giles, Whittell,
“A powder keg that is about to explode,” The Times (UK) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7-1065098,00.html
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