Torture


The Iron Maiden of [[Nuremberg was a famous torture device]] Torture is the infliction of severe physical or psychological pain as an expression of cruelty, a means of intimidation, deterent or punishment, or as a tool for the extraction of information or confessions. Sometimes torture is practiced even when it appears to have little or no functional purpose beyond the gratification of the torturer or because it has become the norm within the context. Torture is an extreme violation of human rights. Signatories of the Third Geneva Convention agree not to commit torture under certain circumstances in wartime, and signatories of the UN Convention Against Torture agree to not commit certain specific forms of torture. These conventions and agreements notwithstanding, it is estimated by organisations such as Amnesty International that around 2/3 of countries do not consistently abide by the spirit of such treaties. Realistically, torture or similar techniques have been a tool of many states throughout history and for many states they remain so (when expedient and desired, and often unofficially) today.

Aspects of torture

Incrimination of innocent people

One well documented effect of torture is that with rare exceptions people will say or do anything to escape the situation, including untrue "confessions" and implication of others without genuine knowledge, who may well then be tortured in turn. There are rare exceptions, such as F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, G.C., who refused to provide information under torture.

Secrecy / publicity

Depending on the culture, torture has at times been carried on in silence (official denial), semi-silence (known but not spoken about) or openly acknowledged in public (in order to instill fear and obedience). Since torture is in general not accepted in modern times, professional torturers in some countries tend to use techniques such as electrical shock, asphyxiation, heat, cold, noise, and sleep deprivation which leave little evidence, although in other contexts torture frequently results in horrific mutilation or death. Evidence of torture also comes from testimony of witnesses and from breaches of discipline as for example, the untrained and indiscreet amateur photographers of Abu Ghraib prison.

Motivation to torture

It was long thought that "good" people would not torture and only "bad" ones would, under normal circumstances. Research over the past 50 years suggests a disquieting alternative view, that under the right circumstances and with the appropriate encouragement and setting, most people can be encouraged to actively torture others. Stages of torture mentality include: Organisationally, like many other procedures, once torture becomes established as part of internally acceptable norms under certain circumstances, its use often becomes institutionalised and self-perpetuating over time, as what was once used exceptionally for perceived necessity finds more reasons claimed to justify wider use.

Medical torture

Main article: Medical torture At times, medicine and medical practitioners have been drawn into the ranks of torturers, either to judge what victims can endure, to apply treatments which will enhance torture, or as torturers in their own right. A famous example of the latter is Dr. Josef Mengele the so-called "Angel of Death".

Effects of torture

Organizations like the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture try to help survivors of torture obtain medical treatment and to gain forensic medical evidence to obtain political asylum in a safe country and/or to prosecute the perpetrators. Torture is often difficult to prove, particularly when some time has passed between the event and a medical examination. Many torturers around the world use methods designed to have a maximum psychological impact while leaving only minimal physical traces. Medical and Human Rights Organizations worldwide have collaborated to produce the Istanbul Protocol, a document designed to outline common torture methods, consequences of torture and medico-legal examination techniques. Torture often leads to lasting mental and physical health problems. Physical problems can be wide-ranging, e.g. sexually transmitted diseases, musculo-skeletal problems, brain injury, post-traumatic epilepsy and dementia or chronic pain syndromes. Mental health problems are equally wide-ranging; common are post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety disorder. Treatment of torture-related medical problems might require a wide range of expertise and often specialized experience. Common treatments are psychotropic medication, e.g. SSRI antidepressants, counseling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, family systems therapy and physiotherapy.

Opposition to torture / supervision of anti-torture treaties

The use of torture has been criticized not only on humanitarian and moral grounds, but on the grounds that evidence extracted by torture tends to be extremely unreliable and that the use of torture corrupts institutions which tolerate it. Torture victims have often reported that the purpose is as much to force acquiescence on an enemy as it is to gain information. Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, are actively involved in working to stop the use of torture throughout the world. The Istanbul Protocol, an official UN document, is the first set of international guidelines for documentation of torture and its consequences. It became a United Nations official document in 1999. The use of torture is regulated by many international treaties, of which the two major ones are the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.

United Nations Convention Against Torture

The "United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment"(UNCAT) came into force in June 1987. The most relevant articles are articles 1, 2 and the first paragraph of article 16. :Article 1 :''1. Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.'' :''2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.'' :Article 2 :''1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.'' :''2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.'' :''3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.'' :Article 16 :''1. Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture of references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.'' There has been some debate at various times whether there are forms of physical pressure which do not fulfil the criteria laid down in the convention and therefore do not constitute torture and/or whether there are situations or territories where the convention would not apply to officials of a signatory state. This debate is ongoing. At the moment this treaty has been signed by about half the countries in the world.

Geneva Conventions

The four Geneva Conventions provide protection for people who fall into enemy hands. They envisage war in its traditional form, whereby people in uniforms fight clearly defined enemies in uniform, within a clearly defined arena. It therefore divides people into three groups: Combatants, non-combatants (civilians), and unlawful combatants, the latter being people who fight or spy in secret without uniform. Whilst combatants and non-combatants are provided substantial protection, a lesser level of protection is afforded to so-called "unlawful" combatants. The Third Geneva Convention (GCIII) covers basic rights, and rights of Prisoner of War. If there is any doubt as to which category a prisoner falls into, they must be treated as a combatant POW unless and until they are determined by a "competent tribunal" to be either a non-combatant or an unlawful combatant. Their protection is then as follows: :Basic protection (applies universally) :The minimum requirement in any event is that "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms... shall in all circumstances be treated humanely" and that there must not be any "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture." (GCIII Article 3) :Combatants :''"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."'' (GCIII Art 17). :Non-combatants :Have the right to protection from "murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments..., but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by non-combatant or military agents." (GCIV Art 32) :Unlawful combatants and GCIV Article 5 :Most unlawful combatants must be treated as POW's "until their status has been determined by a competent tribunal". Non-combatants are not given any other specific protection other than the basic level applicable to everyone. In practice however, GCIV is often cited against such combatants (see below). CGIII also does not define when a tribunal is "competent" or not, a loophole in its protection.

Geneva Convention IV exemptions

GCIV provides an important exemption: :''"Where in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention [ie GCIV] as would ... be prejudicial to the security of such State."'' (GVIV article 5) In a conflict like the US War on Terrorism many unlawful combatants have little or no protection under the Geneva Conventions, because they are either excluded by their nationality (see below) or they are deemed to be so dangerous that Article 5 can be invoked. There are two further groups who are not protected by GCIV: # Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. # Nationals of a neutral State in the territory of a combatant State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, cannot claim the protection of GCIV if their home state has normal diplomatic representation in the State that holds them (article 4). Since nearly every state has diplomatic recognition of every other state, most citizens of neutral countries in a war zone are not able to claim any protection from GCIV.

Other Conventions

During the Cold War in Europe a treaty called European Convention on Human Rights was signed. The treaty was based on the UDHR. It included the provision for a court to interpret the treaty and Article 3 "''Prohibition of torture''" stated "''No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment''". In 1978 the court ruled that the five techniques of "sensory deprivation" were not torture but were "''inhuman or degrading treatment''". See Accusations of use of torture by United Kingdom for details. This case was 9 years before the UNCAT came into force and had an influence on States thinking about what constitutes torture ever since.

Domestic and national law

Countries which have signed the "United Nations Convention Against Torture", have a treaty obligation to include the provisions into domestic law. The laws of many countries therefore formally prohibit torture. However, such de jure legal provisions are by no means a proof that, de facto, the signatory country does not use torture. To prevent torture, many legal systems have a right against self-incrimination or explicitly prohibit undue force when dealing with suspects.

Use of torture

Recent times in the context of this article is from December 10, 1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as Article 5 states "''No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment''".

Historical use of torture

Torture was used by many governments and countries in the past; in the Middle Ages especially and up into the 18th century, torture was considered a legitimate way to obtain testimonies and confessions from suspects for use in judicial inquiries and trials. In the Roman Republic, for example, a slave's testimony was admissible only if it was extracted by torture, on the assumption that they could not be trusted to reveal the truth voluntarily. In much of Europe, medieval and early modern courts of "justice" freely inflicted torture, depending on the accused's crime and the social status of the suspect. Torture in the Medieval Inquisition was used starting in 1252. The torture methods used by inquisitors were mild compared to secular courts, as they were forbidden to use methods that resulted in bloodshed, mutilation or death. One of the most common forms of medieval inquisition torture was known as strappado. The hands were bound behind the back with a rope, and the accused was suspended this way, dislocating the joints painfully in both arms. Weights could be added to the legs dislocating those joints as well. Other torture methods could included the rack (stretching the victim’s joints to breaking point), the thumbscrew, the boot (crushing the foot and leg), water (massive quantities of water forcibly ingested), and the medieval red-hot pincers, although it was technically against church policy to mutilate a persons body. If stronger methods were needed, or death, the person was handed over to the secular authorities who were not bound by any restrictions. Torture was abolished in England about 1640, in Scotland in 1708, in Prussia in 1740, in France in 1789 (one early measure of the French revolution), in Russia in 1801. http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/hcc4/htm/i.vi.viii.htm http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0013250.html

Modern use of torture

:''Main article: Uses of torture in recent times Torture remains a frequent method of repression in totalitarian regimes, terrorist organizations and organized crime. Even in Western democratic societies, the police sometimes resort to torture and are frequently backed-up by sympathizing politicians. In undemocratic regimes, torture is often used to extract confessions from political dissenters, so that they admit to being spies or conspirators, probably manipulated by some foreign country. Most notably, such a dynamic of forced confessions marked the justice system of the Soviet Union (thoroughly described in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago). However, the use of torture is by no means restricted to totalitarian and dictatorial regimes. Established democracies can also use torture, albeit illegally, for instance when it is estimated that national security is more important than the rights of suspects. In 2003 and 2004 there was a lot of controversy over the "stress and duress" methods that were used in the U.S.'s war on terrorism, that had been sanctioned by the U.S. Executive branch of government at Cabinet level http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56753-2004Jun20.html?referrer=email. Similar methods in 1978 were ruled by ECHR to be inhuman and degrading treatment, but not torture, when used by the UK in the early 1970s in Northern Ireland.

Frequency of occurrence

Many countries find it expedient from time to time to use techniques of a kind used in torture; at the same time few wish to be described as doing so, either to their own citizens or international bodies. So a variety of devices are used to bridge this gap, including state denial, "secret police", "need to know", denial that given treatments are torturous in nature, appeal to various laws (national or international), use of jurisdictional argument, claim of "overriding need", and so on. Realistically, torture has been a tool of many states throughout history and for many states it remains so (unofficially and when expedient and desired) today. Despite worldwide condemnation and the existence of treaty provisions that forbid it, torture is still practiced at times, in two thirds of the world's nations.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/opinion/23HOCH.html?ex=1086315207&ei=1&en=dd8a4b003ac8f504.

Torture devices and methods

It is plainly evident that, since the earliest times, tremendous ingenuity has been devoted to the devisal of ever more effective and mechanically simpler instruments and techniques of torture. That those capable of applying such genius to the science of pain could in future employ their capabilities in other directions was not lost on the authorities: for example, after Perillos of Athens demonstrated his newly invented brazen bull to Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, Perillos himself was immediately put to death therein. It is a myth that torture requires complex equipment. Several methods need little or no equipment and can be improvised from innocuous household or kitchen equipment. Methods such as consummation by wild animals (antiquity), impalement (Middle Ages) or confinement in iron boxes in the tropical sun (World War II Asia), are examples of other methods which require little more than readily available items.

Torture using chemicals

Torture victims may be forced to ingest chemicals or other products (such as broken glass, heated water, or soaps) that cause pain and internal damage. Irritating chemicals or products may be inserted into the rectum or vagina, or applied on the external genitalia. Cases of women being punished for adultery by having hot peppers inserted into their vagina were reported in India. Similar means were used in many instances in African strife.

Electrical torture

A modern method of torture is to apply electrical shocks to the body. For added effects, torturers may apply the shocks to the genitalia or insert the electrode into the mouth, rectum or vagina. During the Algerian War of Independence, sections of the French Army were notorious for the use of the gégène (electrical generator) on suspects. There are many reported instances of electrical torture by the government of the People's Republic of China in Tibet, especially against Buddhist nuns, with, in particular, the insertion of electrodes into the rectum or vagina.

Torture devices

Psychological torture

Stress and duress tactics used by police

Some methods employed by law enforcement and states are seen by some as being tantamount to torture.

Methods of execution to carry out capital punishment

Any method of execution which involves, or has the potential to involve, a great deal of pain or mutilation is considered to be torture and unacceptable to many who support capital punishment.

Quotes

Philip Limborch, a preacher and able annotator, quotes in his History of the Inquisition, a writer of the name of Julius Clarus, whom it would appear formed a very forcible idea of the powers of imagination, since he allows them four parts in five of the torments decreed by that satanic tribunal. Limborch represents Clarus as saying, "Know that there are five degrees of torture, videlicit, first, the torture of being threatened to be tortured; secondly, the torture of being conveyed to the place of torture; thirdly, the torture of being, and bound for torture; fourthly, the torture of being hoisted on the torturing rack; and fifthly, and lastly, the torture of squassation."

Other meanings of the word

Sometimes in countries which are spared routine exposure to real torture, the word "torture" is used slackly (and to some people, inappropriately) for ordinary discomforts, e.g.:-

See also

Category:Human rights abuses Category:Violence de:Folter eo:Torturo fr:Torture ms:Siksa nl:Martelen ja:拷問 fi:Kidutus

Search box

More info