Word: martially
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...Britain, martial law was abolished in 1628, though in modern times the government has occasionally invoked emergency regulations, particularly in the colonies-"in accordance," as one British legal expert put it, "with the standard of civilization of the states involved." Thus district commissioners sometimes had the power to administer justice, and preventive detention laws became part of the heritage of colonialism. Emergency powers, first enacted in 1920, were given the army in Northern Ireland in 1973. But at home the British did not use martial law even during the worst days of the World Wars. Their view, at least since...
Smith had offered, in effect, to set Nkomo up as the first leader of black-ruled Zimbabwe if Nkomo would join the interim government in Salisbury and thus help to bring an end to the fighting. After the airliner incident and subsequent atrocity, whites called for martial law, general mobilization and attacks on guerrilla camps in Zambia...
...first, both Smith and Nkomo seemed to be trying to calm things down. Smith promised merely a "modified" martial law and rejected the idea of general mobilization as an unnecessary burden on the country's economy; most young whites spend six months a year in the armed forces anyway...
Though definitions vary, martial law means far more than simple military rule. In most cases it is a response to a national or regional emergency during which constitutional guarantees are suspended and civilian control is superseded by that of the military. Martial law is generally more serious than a state of emergency or a state of siege, and more comprehensive than a suspension of habeas corpus or an imposition of preventive detention. It is both a political and a psychological device, which implies that authority begins at the trigger of a gun. In effect, says Farooq Hassan, a Pakistani legal...
...countries as diverse as Iran, Nicaragua and Rhodesia, the first response of the three beleaguered governments to civil emergencies this month was to impose martial law. In Rhodesia this meant little, since the country had been under military control since the guerrilla war began six years ago. In Iran the Shah's declaration brought a clampdown on civil liberties and empowered the army to arrest without charges and to invade homes without warrants. In Nicaragua martial law merely underscored Anastasio Somoza's desperate situation. Said a Managua businessman: "Martial law here is simply a license to kill...