Responsibilities Arising from Hostage-Taking In Islamic Jurisprudence, International Documents and Afghan Law

Abstract

The crime of hostage-taking is committed in order to exert pressure on a third party; this crime is considered a crime against national security or a war crime in national and international documents, depending on the case; in Islamic jurisprudence, in accordance with the principle of individuality of crime and punishment, it is considered a crime of ta’zir, hadd, qisas or diyat, depending on the circumstances. The purpose of this article is to explain the responsibilities of governments and hostage-takers for the crime of hostage-taking in order to prevent and scientifically combat the ominous phenomenon of hostage-taking and defend the rights of hostages; the principle of the crime of hostage-taking is that it is intra-border; therefore, it is usually criminalized in the criminal laws of countries; but it may acquire an international aspect with the intervention of a foreign element; the requirements of the time and the circumstances of the victim, such as its occurrence in war conditions, the taking of hostages of persons with international immunity, children and women, etc., may change the nature and responsibilities arising from it;  Hostage-taking is specifically criminalized in international documents and Afghan laws, but in Islamic jurisprudence, its rulings are arbitrary and must be extracted through scattered discussions. In this study, after referring to the introductions of the discussion, the types of responsibilities arising from the crime of hostage-taking and the persons responsible for it have been examined by separating the relevant responsibilities, in order to combat the crime of hostage-taking and defend the rights of hostages in a comparative and descriptive-analytical manner.