Red Crescent emblem

How to read it

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) counts the red crescent with the red cross and the red crystal as the emblems that protect military medical services and relief workers in armed conflict. Used that way it is red on a white background with no additions. National Societies also use the emblems to identify themselves: the ICRC counts 32 National Societies using the red crescent and 151 using the red cross. The three emblems have equal status under the Geneva Conventions.

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Why a crescent

The ICRC dates it to the war between Russia and Turkey of 1876 to 1878, when the Ottoman Empire declared it would use a red crescent on white in place of the red cross. Its authorities respected the red cross, the ICRC says, but believed it offensive to Muslim soldiers by its very nature. The British Red Cross puts it the same way: the red cross has no intentional religious meaning, but in the nineteenth century it reminded Ottoman soldiers of the crusaders. The crescent was accepted for the duration of that war only.

In 1911 the Swiss government passed to the US government the Ottoman government’s promise to respect the red cross and to use the red crescent, in peace or war, only for the medical units, staff and equipment the Convention protects, and asked the other states whether they would protect the Red Crescent name and emblem as they protected the Red Cross. Governments recognized the crescent in the Geneva Convention of 1929, together with Persia’s red lion and sun, but only for the countries already using them. Iran gave up the red lion and sun for the red crescent in 1980.

Is the red crescent a religious symbol?

No, according to the Movement and the treaties. The British Red Cross says the emblems are not religious symbols, and Protocol III to the Geneva Conventions (2005) stresses that the distinctive emblems are not intended to have any religious, ethnic, racial, regional or political significance. The ICRC’s archivists record that, all the same, having only the cross and the crescent as recognized emblems was sometimes perceived as bias in favour of Christians and Muslims.

A National Society could not use the two side by side. Kazakhstan asked to use both the red cross and the red crescent in the 1990s; the rules provided for the crescent instead of the cross, not alongside it, and the Kazakh Red Crescent Society joined the Movement in 2003 with the crescent alone. The red crystal, adopted in 2005, allows the cross and crescent to be used together inside it.

Who may display it in the United States

Under 18 U.S.C. § 706a, using the Red Crescent emblem on a white ground, an imitation of it, or the name “Red Crescent” is an offence punishable by a fine or up to six months in prison. The law allows its use by National Societies that are members of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, by the ICRC and the Federation, and by the medical services of the armed forces of states party to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The British Red Cross notes that the names Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal are protected too.