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From spectacle to policy: the dangers of symbolic punishment
The idea of “sending” someone to another country as punishment belongs more to spectacle than to law. Images that stir such fantasies contribute to a politics that substitutes theatrical gestures for institutional remedies. Democracies governed by rule of law have processes for adjudicating wrongdoing—courts, investigations, due process—not social-media-driven exile. Visual culture that normalizes punitive fantasies undermines civic norms and encourages extrajudicial thinking.
