Red Cross Blogs

On this day in history

By Jamie
August 12, 2009 at 11:03 am

According to the BBC On this Day feature, the following events happened on August 12:

• August 12, 1964: One of the men involved in the Great Train Robbery escaped from jail
• August 12, 1969: English police used tear gas for the first time
• August 12, 1985: A plane crashed in Japan, killing hundreds.

While these are all sad news items to bring up, I’d like to take this opportunity to add a happy anniversary to the list. For millions of people around the world who have lived or are currently living in a conflict zone, today is a special day. Today is the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions.

As Katrina and I mentioned before (here and here), the Geneva Conventions have been helping to protect victims of war. They’ve even been ratified by all 194 countries in the world. Leading up to this anniversary, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the British Red Cross asked to hear your views on the challenges to the conventions in the next 60 years.

Do you want to see what people had to say?

>>Check out the responses we got on the Geneva Conventions at 60 site.

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Tags: crowdsourcing, Geneva Conventions, history, International, war

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