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I came back here in a hurry, having just read that part... where did they get this from? Why on earth would they be interested in forcing ‘confessions’ out of people, just to execute them later?

Maybe my initial comment should be that this is taken out from [a book] that both Orwell, and the Khmer Rouge has read; which book would this be?

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It's not an uncommon tactic. Identify the people you want eliminated, force a confession (whether true or not), then carry out "justice".

You're not opposed to justice are you?

That's how the Inquisition worked, it's not an uncommon pattern. It's a twisted sense of justice.

Also, confessions include names which extend the inquisition. It's the same thing the Indonesians did when exterminating communists in 65-66, or South Korea did during the Bodo League massacre, or Chile under Pinochet, or Guatemala when slaughtering the Maya.

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