PENAL CODE of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste e) Imprisonment or any other coercive form of depriving a person of physical liberty, in violation of the standards and principles of international law; f) Torture, construed as infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in custody or under control of the perpetrator; g) Rape, sexual enslavement, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization or any other form of sexual violence of comparable seriousness; h) Persecution, construed as deprivation of the exercise of fundamental rights contrary to international law against a group or a collective entity due to politics, race, nationality, ethnicity, culture, religion, gender or for any other reason universally recognized as unacceptable under international law; i) Enforced disappearance of persons, construed as arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge said deprivation of freedom or to provide information regarding the fate or whereabouts of said persons, with the intention of denying them protection of the law for a prolonged period of time; j) Apartheid, construed as any inhumane act committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime; k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health; is punishable with 15 to 30 years imprisonment. CHAPTER II WAR CRIMES Article 125. War crimes against individuals 1. Any person who, within the context of an armed conflict of an international or noninternational nature, commits against a person protected by international humanitarian law: a) Homicide; b) Torture or cruel, degrading or inhumane treatment, including biological experiments; c) Acts causing serious suffering or serious aggression to physical integrity; d) Taking of hostages; e) Compels a person to serve in a hostile army or conscripts or enlists children under the age of 18 into the armed, military or paramilitary forces of a State, or into armed groups other than the armed, military or paramilitary forces of a State, or uses them to participate in hostilities; 35