Necklacing

A victim about to be necklaced.

Necklacing is the practice of extrajudicial summary execution and torture carried out by forcing a rubber tire filled with petrol around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire.

The victim may take up to 20 minutes to die, suffering severe burns in the process. It is considered to be an especially sadistic and brutal form of execution.

Notable historical uses of necklacing

• In South Africa during Apartheid, necklacing was used by the black community to punish its members who were perceived as collaborators with the National Party-led government. Necklacing was primarily used on black police informants; the practice was often carried out in the name of the struggle, although the executive body of the African National Congress condemned it.
• During the early 1960s, when the seeds of the Sri Lankan Civil War were being sown, Sinhalese rioters used necklacing in anti-Tamil riots. Necklacing was also widely used in the second armed insurrection led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna.
• In the early 1990s, university students in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, were plagued by burglars stealing from their dormitories. The students took matters into their own hands by capturing the alleged thieves, and then executed them by placing tires around their necks and setting the tires on fire. Ivorian police, powerless to stop these necklacings, could do nothing but stand by and watch.
• In 2006, at least one person died in Nigeria by necklacing in the deadly Muslim protests over satirical cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
• The practice is widely used by drug dealers in Brazil, notably in Rio de Janeiro, where it is called micro-ondas, or microwave in Portuguese.