Kin punishment

Kin punishment is the practice of punishing the family members of someone who is accused of committing a crime, either in place of or in addition to the perpetrator of the crime. It refers to the principle in which a family shares responsibility for a crime which is committed by one of its members, and it is a form of collective punishment. Kin punishment has been used as a form of extortion, harassment, and persecution by authoritarian and totalitarian states. Kin punishment has been practiced historically in Nazi Germany, China, Japan, and South Korea; and presently in Israel and North Korea.
Traditional Irish law required the payment of a tribute (Éraic) in reparation for murder or other major crimes. In the case of homicide, if the attacker fled, the fine had to be paid by the tribe to which he belonged.
In medieval Welsh law, the kin of an offender was liable to make compensation for his wrongful act. This penalty (called Galanas) was generally limited to murder.
The medieval Polish Główszczyzna fine functioned similarly to the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian weregild.
Traditional Arab society, which is clan-based, strongly adheres to the concept of collective responsibility. Bedouins recognize two main forms of penalty for a crime against a member. These are blood revenge, referred to as Qisas (قصا, "revenge") and blood money, Diyya (دية, "blood money"/"ransom"). In cases of severe crimes such as murder and rape, blood revenge is the prescribed punishment. If a murder occurs, clansmen of the victim have the right to kill the murderer or one of his male clansmen with impunity. Certain crimes justify multiple acts of revenge, for example, the murder of women and children is avenged fourfold. Crimes considered treacherous, such as the murder of a guest, are also avenged fourfold.
Alternatively, a crime punishable by blood revenge can be commuted to a severe fine if the family of the offended party agrees to it. Blood money is paid jointly by the clan of the offending member to the clan of the victimized member. Bedouins differentiate between crimes in which the group must pay as a standing obligation without reimbursement from the perpetrator of the offense, and crimes where the latter must reimburse them. Crimes where the clan is obligated to pay a joint fee without any reimbursement are murder, violent assault, or insults and other offenses committed during a violent conflict. The collective payment of fines for such crimes is viewed as a justified contribution to the welfare of the injured party rather than a penalty to the perpetrator. Other offenses given a blood-price are crimes against property and crimes against honor. Concepts based on the Arabian laws of blood revenge and blood money are found in Islamic Sharia law, and are thus variously adhered to in Islamic states.
After the Saudi Arabian trial and verdict of the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, which the United Nations rapporteur on summary executions, Agnès Callamard, called "extrajudicial execution for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible,” Khashoggi's sons pardoned the five convicted officials on 22 May 2020, which means the officials would not be executed but their blood money will be paid to Khashoggi's family.
China historically adhered to the concept of liability among blood relatives. During the Qin and Han dynasties, families were subject to various punishments according to the punishment of the offending member. When the offense was punishable by death by severing the body at the waist, the offender's parents, siblings, spouse, and children were executed. When the offense was punishable by death and public display of the body, the offender's family was subject to imprisonment with hard labor. When the offender's sentence was exile, their kin was exiled along with them. The most severe punishment, given for capital offenses, was the nine familial exterminations (zú zhū (族誅), literally "family execution", and miè zú (灭族/滅族)), implemented by tyrannical rulers. This punishment entailed the execution of all the close and extended kin of the individual, categorized into nine groups: four generations of the paternal line, three from the maternal line, and two from the wife's. In the case of Confucian scholar Fang Xiaoru, his students and peers were uniquely included as a tenth group.
During the Ming dynasty of China (1368–1644), 16 palace women attempted to assassinate the Jiajing Emperor. All were sentenced to death by slow slicing. Ten members of the women's families were also beheaded, while a further 20 were enslaved and gifted to ministers. Collective punishment was officially repealed by the government of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) in 1905.
In traditional Germanic law, the law of Germanic peoples (before the widespread adoption of Roman canon law) accepted that the clan of a criminal was liable for offenses committed by one of its members. In Nazi Germany, this concept was revived so that the relatives of persons accused of crimes against the state, including desertion, were held responsible for those crimes.
Numerous testimonies of North Korean defectors confirm the practice of kin punishment (연좌제, yeonjwaje literally "association system") in North Korea, under which three to eight generations of a political offender's family can be summarily imprisoned or executed. Such punishment is based on internal Workers' Party protocols and lies outside the formal legal system. Relatives are not told why they fell under suspicion and the punishment extends to children born in prison. The association system was introduced with the North Korean state's founding in 1948, having previously existed under the Joseon kingdom.
Since the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. During this period, Israel has frequently been accused of imposing collective punishment on Palestinian civilians. Allegations include but are not limited to: the land and sea blockades of Gaza, the destruction of homes belonging to the families of Palestinians who have attacked Israeli military personnel or civilians, and withholding the bodies of militants.
International law grants an Occupying Power the authority to maintain public order but requires that this authority be balanced against the rights of the civilian population. Israel disputes the accusations of collective punishment, arguing that the measures in question are justified by security needs, terrorism prevention, or are based on laws that were in effect in the Occupied Palestinian Territories before the occupation began. However, from an international law perspective, these arguments do not negate the possibility that these actions could constitute collective punishment.
Both international and domestic Israeli law prohibit collective punishment. However, the Israeli High Court of Justice applies a domestic test of proportionality and often avoids addressing the customary international prohibition on collective punishment as outlined in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel maintains that its actions do not constitute collective punishment but rather are legal security measures taken in self-defense.
The benchmark for determining collective punishment in international law is the penalization of individuals for actions in which they bear no individual responsibility. While Israel contends that its measures are solely security-driven, the international community has expressed concerns over whether this justification truly holds.
Regardless of Israel's legal position, all forms of collective punishment are prohibited under international humanitarian law and if carried out, infringe upon a range of human rights, including the right to equal protection under the law and the presumption of innocence. Furthermore, practices such as residency revocation may violate the prohibition on forcible transfers under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
In November 2024, Israel’s parliament passed a law allowing the deportation of family members of Palestinians involved in attacks, including those who are Israeli citizens, to the Gaza Strip or other locations. The law targets Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of annexed East Jerusalem who either knew about the attacks in advance or expressed support for them. Those affected face deportation for a period ranging from 7 to 20 years.
Eran Shamir-Borer, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and former international law expert for the Israeli military, argued that the law could be viewed as both discriminatory and a form of collective punishment, as it seemingly applies only to Arab citizens and residents, rather than to the families of Jewish individuals convicted under anti-terrorism laws.
The policy of deportation is not without precedent. In July 2002, Israel expelled two Palestinians from the West Bank, blindfolding them and forcibly transporting them to the Gaza Strip, where they were left in a deserted fig orchard. The expulsions were condemned by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as a "crime against humanity" that violated human rights and international law. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s spokesperson also criticized the action, emphasizing that such transfers are prohibited under international humanitarian law and could have serious political and security consequences. Israel's military, however, maintained that the threat of sanctions against the families of suspected militants serves as a powerful deterrent.
The policy of punitive house demolitions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been widely criticized and thoroughly explored in academic literature. This policy allows military commanders to destroy the homes of relatives of Palestinians who have harmed or attempted to harm Israeli security personnel or civilians. Palestinian homeowners do not have the right to a hearing or an opportunity to appeal before their homes are destroyed. House demolitions have been ongoing since 1967 and have been denounced as a form of collective punishment by prominent Israeli scholars, international organizations such as the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and even by some Israeli Supreme Court judges in dissenting opinions. In response to this criticism and concerns about its effectiveness, the Israeli military imposed a moratorium on the practice in 2005, though it was reintroduced in 2014. The policy has even been applied in cases where the alleged perpetrator was already deceased.
Leading figures such as Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have described the policy as "unjust and inhuman," while the United Nations considers it incompatible with Israel’s obligations under Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which prohibits all forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Israeli Supreme Court Justice Karra has also noted that the policy "inflicts severe harm on innocent people."
In 1979, the Supreme Court of Israel, sitting as the High Court of Justice, issued its first ruling on the military commander’s authority to punitively demolish or seal homes. In this and subsequent rulings, the Court adopted three key principles: first, that Article 119 — which permits military commanders to demolish homes as a punitive measure — did not violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, as "local law" took precedence over the laws of occupation; second, that punitive home demolition did not constitute collective punishment; and third, that the military’s rationale for the demolitions — as a "punitive measure" intended to deter similar acts — was valid.
A 2020 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories stated that Israel had demolished or sealed approximately 2,000 Palestinian homes since the occupation began. These demolitions have targeted not only the homes of alleged perpetrators but also those of their immediate family members or relatives, even when the families had no proven involvement in the offense. In many cases, the homes were not even linked to the commission of the purported act.
The practice of punitive demolitions has never been applied to Israeli settlers or their families, even when they have committed indiscriminate acts of violence against Palestinians, despite criminal convictions in a court of law for some of these acts.
Israel has faced accusations of imposing collective punishment on individuals protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention by withholding the bodies of deceased Palestinian militants or burying them in undisclosed locations. This practice routinely denies families the right to bury their deceased relatives. If carried out in a manner that deliberately harasses, intimidates, or pressures individuals who have not committed crimes or do not pose security threats, such actions violate not only the prohibition of collective punishment but also various international law obligations. These obligations include international humanitarian law requirements to facilitate the return of deceased individuals to their families and to treat the remains with respect. Additionally, withholding bodies infringes on rights related to family life and freedom of religion under international human rights law. In 2016, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that withholding bodies constituted collective punishment and was incompatible with Israel’s obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
In 2018, B'Tselem reported that Israel had revoked work permits for hundreds of Palestinians, both in Israel and in the settlements, as retaliation for attacks carried out by individuals from the same communities. After a June 2017 attack by Palestinians, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai stated that Israel had implemented several measures, including the revocation of 250,000 entry permits for Palestinians visiting relatives and the withdrawal of work permits from the attackers' families. A few months later, in response to another attack, the Prime Minister announced that further actions would include demolishing the attacker’s home and canceling the work permits of his extended family.
In 2009, Israel’s Supreme Court affirmed a government ruling that prohibits Gaza Strip residents from visiting family members in Israeli prisons, stating that such visits do not constitute a "basic humanitarian need." Human rights organizations condemned the ruling, arguing that it infringed not only on the rights of Gazans but also on those of the prisoners themselves.
The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela concluded in a September 2021 report that Venezuelan security and intelligence agents reportedly applied the principle of Sippenhaftung, using methods including and kidnapping and detention of relatives of critics, real or perceived, to accomplish arrests.