Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an extreme form of informal group social control, and it is often conducted with the display of a public spectacle for maximum intimidation. Instances of lynchings and similar mob violence can be found in every society.
An unidentified African-American man lynched from a tree, 1925
The lynching of African American William "Froggie" James in Cairo, Illinois, on November 11, 1909. A crowd of thousands watched the lynching.
Postcard of the 1920 Duluth, Minnesota lynchings. Two of the Black victims are still hanging while the third is on the ground.
September Massacres of 1792, in which Parisian mobs killed hundreds of royalist prisoners.
An extrajudicial killing is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether lawfully or unlawfully, targeting specific people for death, which in authoritarian regimes often involves political, trade union, dissident, religious and social figures. The term is typically used in situations that imply the human rights of the victims have been violated; deaths caused by legal police actions or legal warfighting on a battlefield are generally not included, even though military and police forces are often used for killings seen by critics as illegitimate. The label "extrajudicial killing" has also been applied to organized, lethal enforcement of extralegal social norms by non-government actors, including lynchings and honor killings.
This painting, The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya, depicts the summary execution of Spaniards by French forces after the Dos de Mayo Uprising in Madrid.
Brazilian politician Marielle Franco had been an outspoken critic of extrajudicial killings. She was assassinated in March 2018.
Protest against the Philippine war on drugs in front of the Philippine Consulate General in New York City, October 2016
Demonstration in Warsaw, reminding about the disappearances of oppositionals in Belarus.