In international armed conflicts covered by the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocol I, the ICRC concerns itself with persons deprived of their freedom if they are:

*prisoners of war within the meaning of Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention and Article 44 of Additional Protocol I;

*civilian internees within the meaning of Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

With regard to non-international armed conflicts, covered by Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions and by Additional Protocol II, international humanitarian law does not give a precise definition of persons protected by Article 3 and by the relevant provisions of Articles 4, 5 and 6 of Additional Protocol II. They may be combatants belonging to government or rebel forces, or civilians arrested by the government or captured by the rebels because of their support - whether real or perceived, active or passive - for the opposing forces, and they are entitled to protection regardless of whether or not they have been tried by a court of law.

As regards internal disturbances and any other situation that calls for action on the part of a specifically neutral and independent organization, there is no single feature common to all detainees entitled to ICRC protection. The ICRC is concerned with persons arrested on account of a situation of internal strife - whatever the government may call them or the legislation used to deprive them of their freedom. It is clearly not enough to think in terms of a detainee's political motives. For example, many people needing ICRC protection may , have been arrested solely on account of their ethnic or other origin, without having ever been politically committed in any way. Nor can the ICRC just consider the offence ascribed to the detainees. Political opponents are sometimes imprisoned for criminal offences, such as disruption of public order, vagrancy or illegal possession of firearms. The penal code in many States qualifies as criminal offences activities which may in fact be of a political nature. In addition, the decision to charge a detainee under a particular law may be founded on purely arbitrary considerations. Each of the above criteria may be useful, but none is sufficient in itself. The ICRC may request access to detainees as different as a captured guerrilla, a peasant accused of collaboration with the armed opposition, a student who has demonstrated against those in power or a member of an ethnic group held in connection with events that have prompted the ICRC to offer its services. All these detainees have in common the fact that, rightly or wrongly, they are considered by the detaining authority as real or potential opponents. Here it should be pointed out that the type of offence of which a detainee is accused, whether sabotage, acts of terrorism, subversion or dissidence, is of no importance to the ICRC. The ICRC never questions the reason for a person's arrest.