2. MONITORING AND DOCUMENTING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS: SOME BASIC CONCEPTS If Edgar Desacula would have been a policeman belonging to the Pasay Police Force, this would mean that another kind of link would then exist between them, an organisational kind of link, that would be represented by Biographic details. 2.11 NAMING THE ENTITIES AND CATEGORISING THE TYPES OF LINKS In order to ensure the systematic handling of information, the individual entities need to be named and the individual links among them need to be categorised. Naming the Entities Naming an event not only gives it, and the act(s) it contains, an identity, but also determines the coverage of the event. Thus, the named event becomes a feasible unit for organising information. The title given to an event should be one that is familiar and broadly used. In fact, field investigators often find themselves using the title used by victims, witnesses or people close to them. A common practice is to use the names of persons victimised or of the place where the event happened, and combine these with the gravest type of violation or the method with which it was carried out. Thus, event titles like Tiananmen Massacre, Romano Disappearance or FENASTRAS Bombing have been actually used. In the case of persons, whether individuals, groups or legal entities, the basic rule is to use the name under which the person is known (the proper name for individuals; the name under which an organisation or group is known etc.). In cases where the individual is not identified, it should not appear that there is no victim. Rather, assign such a name as “Unidentified person found dead on 31 January 1998 at X place”. Likewise if a group has no name then compose a label that identifies exclusively the group, such as “Townspeople of X town”, “Refugees in Camp Y for the period from 1 January to 31 December 1998” or “Youth” (in the case that all the youth in the country are affected). 20