https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolo_hospital_airstrike
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/us-admits-bombing-red-cross-...
They’ve only mentioned it as one avenue of misuse.
Also how would you even prove such a connection? What combatant is ever going to say “I’m sorry, I shot you because I thought you were the enemy’s medic and not the red cross due to decades of brand dilution”.
I'm asking "are they insinuating that appropriation of their trademark contributed to the deaths that they cited".
> And how would you ever prove such a thing?
Presumably *if* they are alleging a causal relationship between trademark appropriation and violence against personnel they have some reason to suspect that the causal relationship exists.
Irrespective they are asking to be taken seriously - it's not Kleenex™ asking to not to use kleenex generically.
There are a number of incidents mentioned in the post and in this thread where Red Cross workers were injured or killed by combatants. Do I have any reason to believe any of them involve "appropriation of their trademark contributed to the deaths"? No, although I would believe that the defense in most cases would be "a mistake was made". But the Red Cross (and a lot of other people) have good reason to defend those logos.
International Humanitarian Law (https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/home):
"Rule 25. Medical personnel exclusively assigned to medical duties must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful to the enemy."
"Rule 28. Medical units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy."
"Rule 29. Medical transports assigned exclusively to medical transportation must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy."
"Rule 59. The improper use of the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions is prohibited."
(The Red Cross logos are such distinctive emblems.)
It's not unthinkable to conceive a scenario in which this symbol is misinterpreted, loss of health or life or property follows, and the ignorance of the perpetrators cannot be pinpointed - maybe it'd be lack of proper education, maybe missing classes during military training, maybe seeing red-cross logo misused in games, maybe bad memory - the thing is that all of those explanations are IMO "reasonable", so we might want to do at least something about each of those (if possible).
The purpose of these symbols is to unambiguously identify protected vehicles, protected buildings, protected people.
It's true that in some countries people slap red crosses (in particular) on stuff that shouldn't have them and doesn't need them. But that doesn't make it a good idea. In a video game in particular you could use any symbol and players would soon get the idea. How long do you think it takes Mario players to realise that one of the mushrooms makes Mario bigger, while a different one is an extra life?
Also, if you are asking for examples in media, they are extremely easy to find. Here's an example from a comic strip commenting on TF2: https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/217534009_hZ5oD/0/1050x100...
Well, that settles it. Any games depicting red crosses should be patched to check if the player is shooting at vehicles or people marked with a red cross in the game, and if so, report him to the nearest police unit for an arrest.
