Archive for category Asia
(Not) “Only incompetent investigation officers believe in torture”
Posted by IRCT in Asia, News & Clippings on 24/01/2012
While the HRW reports a disastrous year for human rights in Pakistan, positive signals are arriving from Punjab. The province’s police have been instructed to stop torturing suspects in custody after the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights took note of media reports of an ‘increasing trend of police torture’ in the province. Read the news here.
We welcome the news that the committee seem to have convinced the police to revise their investigation methods and concentrate on collecting physical evidence using forensic techniques rather than coercing suspects into making confessions. It also called for improvements in the recruitment and training of police and other law enforcement personnel.
According to the committee “Only incompetent investigation officers believe in torture”. Yet sadly, it’s not just incompetent police officers who torture. Despite being a gross violation of human rights, which has many times been proved inefficient, many prison officers and detention staff, military personnel, paramilitary forces, state-controlled contra-guerilla forces, and even some health and legal professionals still believe in it. Read more about who the perpetrators of torture are.
Access to justice for torture survivors: an Asian perspective
Posted by IRCT in Asia, Justice, Uncategorized on 29/11/2011
By Giorgio
Peter Helmers (IRCT’s Head of Programmes) and I recently travelled to Manila, in the Philippines, to take part in the annual Asian regional seminar of IRCT member centres which, this year, focused on the subject of access to justice.
The Philippines is an apt country in which to discuss justice for torture survivors: its relatively new law on torture – supported by a set of implementing rules and regulations – positions the country as one of the most advanced in the region in the struggle against torture and attempts to prevent it. It provides an example for other countries to follow, and much of the credit for this advanced legal and regulatory framework goes to our Filipino member centres the Medical Action Group – hosts of the regional meeting – and Balay.
Access to justice for victims of torture can be a complicated area, but luckily, over the course of the seminar we had the opportunity to learn from those working in the field about what it means and how it can be achieved. Not only were our colleagues and friends from many Asian countries able to join the seminar, but several local NGOs enriched the learning experience for us all.
According to international standards, justice for victims of torture entails access to restitution, satisfaction, guarantee of non-repetition, compensation and rehabilitation. This means that victims should, to the fullest extent possible, have restitution to the status quo before torture happened; their suffering should be acknowledged and perpetrators should be punished by the law; they should receive the guarantee that no-one will ever torture them or anybody else again; they should receive financial compensation and they should receive medical and psycho-social rehabilitation.
That’s the theory anyway, but, what does this mean in practice? Well, this is where it can become complicated! Of course, international standards are recognized by all as the ones to follow, yet, they can be difficult to achieve in practice. Limits are imposed by the national socio-political context that differs from country to country and sometimes even within the same country.
One of the great influencing factors in accessing justice can be the presence of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) which often balance the immediate needs of survivors with peace and confidence-building measures in post-conflict situations. Another important influencing factor identified was the possibility to file legal complaints in front of national courts. In some countries legal advocacy for torture victims is hindered by either fear of immediate retaliation or judicial complacency regarding crimes committed by police forces and / or the army.
Of course, the concept of justice has differing meanings across national and cultural boundaries. When we asked each other what justice meant, one of the participants wrote the following: social justice, spiritual justice, cultural justice, customary justice and collective community justice. What characterizes all of these is a strong community oriented approach which may reflect what some perceive to be the rather individualistic nature of many of the legal standards developed around the status of victim of torture.
Moreover, the very idea of who is ‘generally’ a victim of torture might influence the concept of justice. While the traditional image of the torture survivor is one of a political opponent, the torture survivor in Asia is often the worker, the farmer, the indigenous person, the person of low socio-economic status. Is then the concept of justice larger than the one many have focused on in the past?
Well…it’s certainly food for thought, and we look forward to furthering exploring with our Asian member centres, how the concept can be further developed as they continue their day-to-day work of helping torture survivors overcome the trauma inflicted on them.
Giorgio supports the IRCT’s programmes in the Middle East / North Africa and Asia.
Research in action: giving evidence of ongoing torture in Sri Lanka to the UN Committee against Torture
Posted by IRCT in Asia, Europe, Justice, Rehabilitation on 21/11/2011
I didn’t expect to find myself, after a little over a year at Freedom from Torture (formerly the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture), giving evidence to a special session of the UN Committee against Torture following our report on ongoing torture in Sri Lanka. As the researcher of the report I had the task of reviewing the clinical evidence documented in our medico-legal reports, physical and psychological, of FFT’s Sri Lankan clients who had been tortured since the end of the conflict in Sri Lanka in 2009. These cases revealed in distressing detail, that a wide range of different forms of torture continue to be used in Sri Lanka with apparent impunity, and that severe suffering is being inflicted on victims leaving devastating psychological and physical consequences.
I was lucky enough, thanks to the support of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), to be able to present our evidence in person to the Committee at the special NGO briefing, held in advance of the public examination of the Sri Lankan government delegation. Although the briefing session was held in the formal and imposing headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, the Committee endeavoured to create an open dialogue. NGO representatives from different European states and from Sri Lanka highlighted their key concerns and the issues they hoped would be addressed with the government delegation and the Committee asked us questions to clarify the evidence we had brought to them.
The session, only an hour long, was over too soon for any of us to feel really satisfied, including some of the members of the Committee it seemed, as they stayed behind in their lunch hour to continue our discussions. The Committee Rapporteurs had attempted to manage our expectations of the public session to follow, saying that they would need weeks to do justice to the wealth of information in front of them and the issues of concern to be addressed with the Sri Lankan government, instead of the few hours they had.
I left feeling that our evidence had been well received by the Committee, detailing as it did specific torture allegations in forensic detail, albeit on the basis of anonymity for the protection of our clients. NGO colleagues also welcomed our report, saying that they hoped we would continue to make use of the incredibly rich resource of evidence contained in our medico-legal reports. Although the face to face session with the Committee was brief, being there in person clearly focused their attention on our written submission and provided me with the opportunity to answer their questions.
Freedom from Torture followed up with the launch of a public version of our report and a package of media work (including with Channel 4 and the Guardian) ahead of CAT’s open session with the Sri Lankan government to ensure that our concerns – and the Committee’s scrutiny – were highlighted publicly. We were then able to follow this with advocacy, targeting our own government whom we have called on to take action to ensure they are not returning Sri Lankan refused asylum seekers to a risk of torture. It made such a difference that IRCT was able to ensure the open session was available by live-streaming so that we – and our media contacts – were able to follow what was happening in real time.
Above all, I felt glad that that the testimony and evidence of the horrific experiences endured by our clients, who generously allowed us to make use of this information, could contribute powerfully to the efforts of those who are seeking to hold the government of Sri Lanka to account and most importantly to their efforts to prevent torture from continuing to be perpetrated there in the future.
A huge thank you to Asger from IRCT for all the advice and support in preparation for the CAT session and in Geneva!
Jo Pettitt, Researcher, Freedom from Torture
Friday News Clippings
Posted by IRCT in Asia, News & Clippings, North America, Women/Girls/Gender on 18/11/2011
China does not fall under our radar very often, but today a very interesting piece on torture in China caught our attention. The German Der Spiegel tells the story of the poet Liao Yiwu and presents his recently published memoir. In his memoir, forbidden to be published in China, Liao Yiwu reveals the abuses and torture he suffered during four years in prison.
When you think you’ve heard everything there is to hear about Guantánamo, here comes a new angle. The Russian daily Pravda reports that Guantanamo is the world’s most expensive jail, using $800,000 for each of the 171 detainees.
Finally, the Bahraini Muscat Daily published exclusive interviews with two Bahraini women medics. These women, who were sentenced to 15 years each in jail for their alleged role in the anti-government protests in Manama early this year, have revealed that they were severely tortured during their detention.
“Are children being tortured?”
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part mini-series on our work in coordination with member centres in the Philippines. Look back to Thursday for Tessa’s post on the Balay Rehabilitation Centre on monitoring torture in detention.
By Line
“Are children being tortured?”
This is a question I have been asked many times when explaining IRCT‘s current project on children and torture.
Unfortunately, the answer is yes. The next question is usually an (understandable) staggering, “Why?”
On a recent IRCT mission to the Philippines, the aim was to investigate this question in the context of the Philippines together with IRCT’s Quezon City-based member centre BALAY Rehabilitation Centre.
Globally, the issue of tortured children is rarely highlighted. Often reference is made to child abuse and violence against children, but torture against children is rarely included as a specific category. The objective behind the children’s project is to document cases of tortured children in the Asian region, and not least to find out why and how it is happening in order to develop measures for prevention and rehabilitation.
In Manila and its surrounding cities, it is especially street children, children living in poverty and children coming from broken families who are at risk of being tortured; either as a punishment for having committed a crime, or as a means of making them confess to a crime they might never have committed. Why this is happening is a complex matter, but the root causes include poverty, corruption, lack of awareness and lack of preventative measures.
During the mission to the Philippines, a round-table discussion on the issue of children and torture in the Philippines was held. The round-table brought together representatives from national and international NGOs working with children, agencies of the Philippine government working on child-related matters, prison management staff, social workers, lawyers and health professionals.
The purpose of round-table discussions is exactly that – bringing together different perspectives and disciplines in order to highlight an issue. At this round-table the presence of so many different perspectives proved crucial for understanding why torture against children is happening in the Philippines and what can be done about it.
For example, representatives from the prison management showed that they are receiving children from the police, although the police know or should know that the children are to be referred to youth homes according to a 2006 law on juvenile justice. At least one of the reasons as to why the police continue to refer the children to the prison authorities is the insufficient number of youth homes available in the Philippines and the incapability of the existing ones to accommodate and rehabilitate the children due to a lack of funding and support.
One of the representatives of the prison management explained yet another reason when discussing torture of children by the police at the round-table:
“The police still turn over children to us saying they are not minors because of their behavior. For the police, what the children have done is not something children can do, so to them they are not children any longer.”
As an answer to the recommendations given at the round-table she continued:
“What we can do is recommend a policy of hiring, which demands of a person to have understanding of care for children. Even uniform people are also humans they can be made to respond to children. If you strip off their uniform, they are still humans.”
On a practical level the round-table provided for a possibility to raise the awareness of and need for documentation on cases of tortured children. On an idealistic level, the round-table became a reminder that dialogue with all people involved – NGOs, the government, child advocates, prison officials, and police – including the ones you disagree with or do not expect to know or understand the issue, is crucial to address torture of children in the Philippines.
UPDATE:
About a week after the recent our mission to the Philippines, we received a mail from BALAY saying they had been asked for input to the Philippine National Plan of Action for Children (NPAC) 2011-2016 and that the input could concern children and torture in the Philippines.
The NPAC forms part of the Philippine’s response to signing the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and is based on the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations. The main purpose of the NPAC is to set out five year plans and goals for improving the welfare and well-being of children in the Philippines. Since the knowledge of the issue of tortured children is low even among organizations working with children in the Philippines, the possibility of providing input to the national planning on this matter is of immense importance.
The draft NPAC we received did not include any programming or information on tortured children. Instead, they focused on issues related to children and violence and child abuse. This reflected the information we had been able to gather during the mission that made it clear that torture of children has failed to reach the national agenda and attention in the Philippines, although it is a concerning and highly prevalent practice.
In cooperation with BALAY we were able to add comments on torture and children in the NPAC policy. This is the first time children and torture is mentioned in a national policy document on children in the Philippines. By the 10th December we will know whether our comments were accepted – for now we are crossing our fingers.
Line is a sociologist and researcher at the IRCT, where she currently heads the project on children and torture in Asia.
Targeting the marginalised: Detainees in the Philippines
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a two-part mini-series on our work in coordination with member centres in the Philippines. Look next Tuesday for Line’s post on the project on children and torture.
By Tessa
Every Friday morning at the Copenhagen office, the available staff of the IRCT gathers for breakfast.
Generally, we take an hour to present our work to each other and catch up on the different departments over a cup of coffee and some Danish rugbrød. Last week, however, we were very pleased to have some guests from the member centre Philippines join us and share about their work in Manila on torture prevention and rehabilitation.
“We have faced some great challenges, and have had new opportunities emerge,” said Ernesto Anasarias, executive director of Balay Rehabilitation Centre, of the recent years of work in fighting torture and impunity in the Philippines.
While there has been a long history of torture in the Philippines, Ernesto says that the targets of torture have begun to change. Previously, torture was applied to political dissidents and protesters. Now, police use torture in interrogating suspects or as punishment for their crimes, and they consistently target the poor. Inside prisons, ill treatment of detainees is not uncommon.
Balay joined a coalition of anti-torture groups and campaigns in the Philippines to recognise the annual 26 June Day in Support of Torture Victims in 2008.
Alongside several projects that target particularly marginalised groups of torture victims – children, women, religious minorities, and the poor – Balay has been focusing on monitoring prisons and providing psycho-social rehabilitation services to those in detention.
With a population of about 94 million people – the world’s 12th most populous country – there are more than 1,000 prisons scattered about the archipelagic nation. Around 10% of which detain the political prisoners. And there is massive overcrowding in the Philippines’ prisons, says Matabai Mustapha, who runs the prison monitoring project at Balay.
However, in addition to the added possibility of abuses among inmates in the prisons, Matabai says the overcrowding creates a problem in treating victims of torture in prisons – there is simply no space for privacy and confidentiality usually required for such counselling or treatment.
“We maximize what is available,” she explains. Sometimes that means trying to find a quiet corner; on other occasions, when they have established a working relationship with prison authorities, they may use management offices.
Despite the sometimes-makeshift circumstances, Balay offers a comprehensive programme of psycho-social rehabilitation services, which includes the torture victim and his or her family.
For more information on the Balay Rehabilitation Centre and their work throughout the Philippines, please visit their website.
Tessa is communications assistant at the IRCT.
Indonesian military torture Papua civilians
Posted by IRCT in Asia, News & Clippings, Pacific on 13/10/2011
Yesterday, we tweeted a press release from the Asian Human Rights Commission that described the arrest and torture of 15 Papua civilians by the Indonesia military.
Siki Kogoya, a villager who was in his yard at the time, was shocked upon hearing the gunshot, after which he saw the joint team members make their way to him. One of the members pointed his gun at Siki’s mouth, while three others pointed their long barreled rifles at his neck. They then beat him with rifle butts and kicked his head, face, ribs and chest.
Today, we noticed also through Twitter of a Channel 4 (UK) news broadcast on an unrelated case of torture also involving the Indonesian military and Papua civilians. A warning: although a news broadcast, the video below is disturbing and depicts violence and torture.
Here’s a link to support the AHRC Urgent Appeal.
