Social quarantine area

Social quarantine areas (French reformed: Zone d'quarantaine sociale), abbreviated SQA (ZQS), refers to the practice of internal exile in Gylias. The areas are used to enact "expulsion from the community", the most severe punishment in the Penal Code.

SQAs are closed areas with minimal facilities, located in isolated parts of Gylias far from other settlements, and guarded by the Popular Guards. Those sentenced to permanent expulsion from the community are relocated to SQAs and left to their own devices. Guards make no contact with SQA dwellers, and are solely responsible for preventing unauthorised access or departure.

The exiled do not receive supplies or dwellings, and are completely isolated from society. It is common for SQA dwellers to gather their own food and build their own dwellings. Murder and suicide rates in SQAs are very high, as a result of guards' detachment and isolation.

There are 50 known SQAs as of 2018. The Ministry of Interior Affairs and Public Security maintains an official list of SQAs and their location by region; no further details are publicly available. Different SQAs are reserved for different threats to society, such as criminals incapable of rehabilitation, political extremists, or bigots and discriminators.

SQAs evolved as a practice from the jurisprudence of the Free Territories, which abolished the death penalty and prisons, and gained their current form in the Arnak Trials. They are considered part of a Gylic mindset preferring to induce metanoia in enemies, dating back to Longinus and the Southern missions. They are comparable to the Megelanese practice of withdrawing legal protection from criminals, allowing anyone to persecute or kill them without consequence.

The use of SQAs is an infamous illustration of Gylias' "universal but not absolute" approach to human rights, and has been very controversial abroad. It has been compared to life imprisonment, the death penalty, and mass-scale solitary confinement.