2. MONITORING AND DOCUMENTING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS: SOME BASIC CONCEPTS Definition A Role is a characteristic of a person, which is dependent on a certain context, and thus can change from one setting to another. For instance, a certain person may be a victim in one event and an intervening party in another. The most significant roles are those of victim and perpetrator. Definition The Victim is the person (individual or group) who is the object of an act. The following illustrations show some examples of who can be victims. An act of surveillance can subject a whole organisation to victimisation An act of beating victimises an individual An act reducing the budget for education victimises the youth The act of imposing a curfew victimises the whole population Figure 2.1 Different types of victims Definition The Perpetrator is the person (individual or group) who commits an act that constitutes a violation. Perpetrators can be state or non-state entities. The means used could be concrete arms such as guns, or more abstract processes such as lawmaking. 2.6 ORGANISING THE EVENT INFORMATION Constructing the Event In order to better attribute roles and responsibilities and for ease in organising information, the scope of an event should be as narrow as possible. To isolate an event, one can start with an identified act, such as an arrest. If other acts have occurred, examine whether these are intrinsically related to the first act. If they are (e.g. torture following an arrest), then treat all these as just one event. But if it is possible to view the acts separately, it would help to record them as distinct events. For instance, the arrest of some members of a union, and the arrest of several others after some time, may be viewed as two separate events. It is possible to indicate links among events, as discussed in a later section of this chapter (Relationships of Events). 10