ABSTRACT
The effective limits of religious liberty are now drawn not by nation states, not by ordinary judicial tribunals, but by informal theoterrorist vigilante groups applying their interpretation of religious law in the modern world. This chapter explains this issue by explaining how what "modern hostage-taking" has developed. There is a long history of political or military use of hostage-taking in which sometimes one organization, or one state, willingly brings certain hostages into the power of another organization, or state, as a guarantee of good faith, or in the observance of obligations. Taking hostages is nowadays considered an act of terrorism. But in the modern experience, the identification of taking hostages with acts of terrorism is relatively new. Modern hostage-taking is therefore much more effective, in fact, than the old physical hostage-taking. It is so effective even, that the expectation seems justified that it will continue, and even augment, in the future.
