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In many countries victims remain unaccounted for after being taken into custody by security forces, or abducted by agents acting with the complicity of governments. The authorities refuse to acknowledge responsibility for their detention or to disclose their whereabouts. Amnesty International insists that governments be held publicly accountable for the fate of the victims. When details of a possible "disappearance" are reported an international network of volunteers can be alerted to press the authorities to reveal the whereabouts of the missing person. Long-term case work can be organized on their behalf. Amnesty International also launches special publicity efforts to highlight this violation of human rights and ensure that the individual's fate remains a matter of public attention.
In the last decade, hundreds of thousands of people have been the victims of deliberate killings carried out on the orders of governments or with their complicity.
Amnesty International takes action against such killings when it is reasonable to believe that they are the result of a government policy to eliminate specific individuals, or groupings, or categories of individuals, by instant execution rather than arrest and imprisonment.
Governments are responsible for the lives and security of their citizens. They have a duty not to commit or condone political killings. If they do not take all measures necessary to ensure that those responsible- directly or indirectly- are brought to justice, this may demonstrate government aquiescense in the killings. Their accountability is not diminished by national security considerations or by the fact that opposition groups commit similar acts.
Amnesty International campaigns against political killings by governments by publicizing incidents and pressing for independant investigations into the deaths. It promotes adherence to the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, which lays down standards for police and security force officers.
Although Amnesty International's work is based on its orientation towards prisoners and therefore normally focuses on cases of people targeted or selected for execution rather than detention, its concerns have extended to people killed "en masse" for such reasons, without their being picked out individually for death.
Many killings of concern to Amnesty International occur during armed conflict. The organization may be able to act in situations where unarmed civilians are killed in cold blood because of their real or imagined political sympathies or where civilian or military captives are executed. Since many of the victims are not in detention at the time of being killed, however, this is one of the few areas of Amnesty International's mandate that often deals with cases of people who are not prisoners.
The mandate does not extend, however, to killings that are not attributable to government policy, such as killings of demonstrators or rioters resulting from excessive use of force by panicking security forces. Nor does Amnesty International's mandate extend to many of the killings in warfare when, for example, unarmed civilians are caught in crossfire or mistaken for members of the armed forces.
