Posts Tagged torture
Torture in black and white: books on torture
Posted by IRCT in News & Clippings on 17/04/2012
Recently, on our organisation’s website, we wrote about a new book from former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Manfred Nowak. The book, titled Torture: the banality of the unfathomable (in German: Folter: Die Alltäglichkeit des Unfassbaren) chronicles Professor Nowak’s experiences in documenting torture around the world, both during his professional career and during his mandate for the UN, where he traveled to almost 20 countries in all regions of the world.
However, Nowak’s book is only in his native German; but it started us thinking about other books – both fiction and non-fiction – that address torture and its impact on the victims and their families. Similarly to our previous list on the top films, we present here our top books on torture. If there are any we have left off or neglected, please remind us in the comments.
To start, it’s fitting to point to the current UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Juan Mendez, and his recent book Taking A Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights. Mendez, who is himself a torture victim from the Argentine Dirty War, describes it as; “a way to illustrate and enable people to understand how far we’ve come to make the international human rights groups diverse in their composition”. The book provides a very moving and in-depth telling of his own experiences as a torture victim in Latin America in the late 70s, and how since, he has dedicated his life to furthering the cause of human rights.
Many staff here at the IRCT recommended Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. Mayer examines the legal justification and excuses for the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ AKA torture, on terrorism suspects by the CIA. As a long-time foreign correspondent, war reporter, and now at the New Yorker, Mayer’s journalistic background and method in writing creates a well-researched and gripping account.
Professor Juan Mendez actually recommended this historically-derived drama in an interview when his own book was published. Set in Chile, Dorfman chronicles a country seeking justice and peace after the violent Pinochet regime. Set several years after the end of the Pinochet dictatorship, Death and the Maiden follows the perspective of a women who hears the voice of the man who raped and tortured her several years prior – a man who is now a guest in her kitchen. Beautifully written, Dorfman’s play points to the long-term impact of torture.
While this may come as a surprise for some, George Orwell’s classic novel about a totalitarian state depicts well one of the tools of repression, fear, and control that occurs in such regimes. Although better known for its creation of terms such as ‘Orwellian’, ‘Big Brother’ and ‘though police’, the final chapters focus on the torture and interrogation of protagonist Winston Smith. Smith seeks love and individuality in this dystopian novel, only to find it snuffed out by apparatuses of the state.
The third book in our list written by a current or former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, The Treatment of Prisoners Under International Law is a seminal work on torture, human rights, and international law by Sir Nigel Rodley. Places of detention, such as prisons, immigration detention centres, police lock-ups, or psychiatric centres, are the most common space in which one would find torture in any given country. As such, Rodley’s book and descriptive analysis is a fundamental read for those interested in how international human rights law came to be applied to a wider manner of human rights concerns, such as the inhumane or ill-treatment of detainees.
Horacio Verbitsky, author of Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior, is among the most well-known investigative journalist and human rights advocate in his native Argentina. After the ‘Dirty War’, the decades of human rights violations, extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture in Argentina, the former perpetrators of these crimes – largely the military branches under the regime – kept silent. Impunity prevailed. Verbitsky’s book is a first-hand account of the confessions of retired navy officer Adolfo Scilingo, the first man to break the military’s pact of silence and come forth with the crimes.
Torture: Does It Make Us Safer? Is It Ever OK?: A Human Rights Perspective is a series of essays and analysis from some of the top human rights thinkers, experts, and anti-torture activists in the world on a range of timely, current issues in human rights and the discourse around torture, particularly in the era of the so-called ‘war on terror’. For example, Minky Worden, Media Director of Human Rights Watch, conducts a survey of countries that torture. Eitan Felner, formerly of the Center for Economic and Social Rights and B’Tselem, writes on the Israeli experience. Twelve essays comprise the book.
There were a lot of memos that comprise the almost bureaucratic and systematic manner in which the U.S. government most recently approved the use of torture in interrogation. Among the most famous of these memos was a series of notes from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. After 18 pages of interrogation techniques that defied well-established law on torture, Rumsfeld approved, thus leading to such atrocities as Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay Prison and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.
Are there any we have missed? Please let us know in the comments.
The most interesting blog post you’ll ever read on ‘capacity development’
Posted by IRCT in Sharing Knowledge - Project Work on 10/04/2012
Andrés Bastidas Beltrán of Colombian member centre Corporación AVRE (Support to Victims of Sociopolitical Violence for Emotional Recovery) gave a presentation during the 2011 seminar of the Latin American region in Lima, Peru in September. Hosted by Peruvian member Centre of Psychosocial Attention (CAPS), last year's regional seminar brought together professionals from 15 torture rehabilitation centres in the region to discuss issues such as public policy on torture documentation and different treatment methods.
As I started working at NGOs, a phrase kept popping up that, honestly, I didn’t quite understand at the time.
“Capacity development” or “building capacity” was among the new NGO-ese I had yet to become acquainted with. In this field – as any other – there is a whole new language to learn. This included “concept note”, “actors”, “stakeholders”, “facilitators”, “good governance”, among many others. However, as I started working at the IRCT, I heard this particular phrase a lot, and most often in context with our Non-State Actors project.
“Non-state actors” is also not a very helpful term, and it doesn’t get any better with the longer version: developing the capacity of IRCT member centres to deliver holistic torture rehabilitation services through south-south and south-north peer supervision and support.
But this is my attempt to explain this project, and why building capacity is so vital for the future of the global anti-torture movement.
We are a membership organisation comprised of more than 140 rehabilitation centres all over the world. We have members in Sudan and Peru, Australia and Nepal, Egypt and, most recently, Namibia – more than 70 countries. And as one might surmise, not all the centres have the same resources or expertise.
EATIP in Argentina has a lot of experience in supporting torture victims – medically, psychologically, and financially – through justice proceedings. They have done so with several victims who are providing witness testimony in cases from the former dictatorial regime. African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims in Uganda has been at the forefront at developing livelihood programmes – training women how to sew or weave, for example – as part of their rehabilitative care for female victims of sexual violence and torture. Other centres are stars at fundraising and understanding how to apply for grants from the European Union or philanthropic foundations.
These are all skills that are not evenly distributed across the 140 centres. Building capacity is simply trying to improve all the rehabilitation centres by having the centres teach each other. Our project is to facilitate that through exchanges, seminars and organising training. A doctor in Sri Lanka travels to an Indian centre to learn a new psycho-social treatment method. A partner in Cameroon meets with other Sub-Saharan African treatment centres to discuss fundraising options – to work together rather than in competition. A forensic specialist from Colombia might visit a centre in Mexico to explain the most up-to-date information on documenting torture in the proper fashion (according to the Istanbul Protocol), so that the information can be used to prosecute the perpetrators or apply for asylum cases.
Capacity development – despite the esoteric wording – is simply making organisations better through training, sharing information and expertise, and cooperating, so that all members of the IRCT benefit from the incredible wealth of knowledge in each of the rehabilitation centres that comprise that membership. Improving the centres means improving their ability to treat victims of torture, aid survivors in accessing justice, and prevent torture from happening in the first place.
Tessa works in the Communications Team at the IRCT.
Investigating human rights violations in Chechnya together
Posted by IRCT in From our members on 05/04/2012
Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in an ongoing series from Russian member centre Committee Against Torture on their use of a Joint Mobile Group to investigation human rights violations, such as torture. See the first , second and third post.
After the murder of Natalya Estemirova, Memorial Human Rights Centre stopped working in Chechnya; many of its employees who used to work in Grozny had to temporarily leave the country. Soon after that, on 4 August 2009, Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik Dzhabrailov, chairperson of the Let’s Save the Generation charity and her husband, were abducted and killed in Grozny.
The CAT realised that it should either investigate the crimes allegedly perpetrated by Kadyrov’s agents, or stop all activities in Chechnya, as efficient operation of a human rights NGO was not possible without constant threat to the lives of its members. In the face of the alternative – either admit its impotence or risk the lives of the Chechen representation staff – it found another option: creation of a Joint Mobile Group consisting of employees permanently residing in other Russian regions. The JMG started working in Grozny on November 30, 2009.
JMG tasks in Chechnya
Taking into account the widespread and large scale nature of human rights violations in Chechnya and almost total impunity for them, it would be naive to assume that the JMG could conduct a public investigation of all reported cases of violations, murders and enforced disappearances. The task was much more unpretentious and narrow – to choose several cases of abductions, perform a detailed in-depth analysis of the reasons for the ineffectiveness of investigations carried out by the Investigative Committee and find out why none of these such cases were fully investigated. The CAT decided that these should be fresh 2009 cases with no suspects among Russian servicemen or law enforcers from other regions temporarily serving in Chechnya; only crimes allegedly committed by local policemen in the period when Ramzan Kadyrov was already Chechnya’s president.
On the basis of these criteria, the JMG selected nine cases and its lawyers officially joined the proceedings as victims’ representatives. Investigative authorities had instigated criminal proceedings under Article 126 of the Russian Criminal Code (abduction of a person) under all those crime reports. In one case, we have established that state agents were not involved in the abduction; in another case, victims’ relatives have refused to further cooperate with human rights defenders due to intimidation. Thus, the JMG is now dealing with seven public investigation cases.
Peculiarities of the method and security measures
The major peculiar features of JMG activities in Chechnya are unusual mission lengths and increased security measures.
The Joint Mobile Group encompasses three people who work in the Republic on a rotating basis for one month. Each team is headed by a leader. Each leader has power-of-attorney to represent victims’ interests in criminal proceedings. Thus, they have a right to participate in investigative activities, file petitions and otherwise monitor the official investigation progress.
The JMG rents a four-room flat in Grozny that serves both as an office and accommodation. The JMG has a car; there is at least one person with a driving license in each team.
Security rules do not allow JMG members to leave the flat and move around the Republic alone. The team leader notifies the supervisor located in Nizhny Novgorod about the agenda and actual movements of the JMG on a daily basis. There is a time frame (controlled intervals) when the JMG leader has to contact the supervisor. The JMG headquarters and car are equipped with hidden video and audio recording devices.
The JMG has once experienced unlawful detention (in fact, abduction) of all its members by police agents suspected of grave human rights violations. Thanks to strict compliance with the security rules, prompt response of human rights defenders in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, and quickly drawing public attention to the violation, the abducted JMG members escaped tragic consequences.
“They become shells of their former selves”: Long-term solitary confinement is torture
Posted by IRCT in News & Clippings on 04/04/2012
Walking across the cell would probably take no more than three paces. There is no light. There are no other people. And a prisoner will be there for 23 of 24 hours a day.
A BBC article today recalls the solitary confinement experience of one member of the infamous Angola 3 – three prisoners of one of America’s most brutal prisons who have long claimed their innocence and been the subject of a growing call to address justice issues in the U.S. The three men have spent a combined 100 years in solitary confinement, in cells no larger than three by two meters.
And that is not uncommon in the country with the most people in prison (the U.S. has, by far, the highest incarceration rates in the world – twice as many Americans are imprisoned as in China, where there are five times as many people). Although determining figures are hard to come by, some estimate there are anywhere between 25,000 to 80,000 people locked up in long-term solitary confinement.
“Lock yourself in your bathroom for 10 years, then come out and tell me that that’s not torture”, said one former inmate.
And the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, agrees. Just last year in his first report as the special investigator, Professor Mendez reported that, “Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit (SHU)… whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique”. Any terms of confinement where an individual is alone for more than 22 hours per day, for a total of more than 15 days, may constitute torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.
Sarah Shourd would agree. The American woman became famous a few years ago when she, her fiancé, and their friend were apprehended by Iranian security forces during a hiking trip on the border with Kurdistan. She spent 9,495 hours in solitary confinement. She recently wrote about this experience:
After two months with next to no human contact, my mind began to slip. Some days, I heard phantom footsteps coming down the hall. I spent large portions of my days crouched down on all fours by a small slit in the door, listening. In the periphery of my vision, I began to see flashing lights, only to jerk my head around to find that nothing was there. More than once, I beat at the walls until my knuckles bled and cried myself into a state of exhaustion. At one point, I heard someone screaming, and it wasn’t until I felt the hands of one of the friendlier guards on my face, trying to revive me, that I realized the screams were my own.
As we find ourselves often having to reiterate, no person shall be subject to torture, and, as Professor Mendez has stated, that includes long-term solitary confinement.
A state of impunity: a brief history of human rights violations in Chechnya
Editor’s note: This is the third post in an ongoing series from Russian member centre Committee Against Torture on their use of a Joint Mobile Group to investigation human rights violations, such as torture. See the first and second post.
The armed conflict in Chechnya has a long history. In 1859, following long and murderous wars, Chechnya, located in the south-east of the North Caucasus, joined the Russian Empire. After the October Revolution of 1917, Chechnya became part of the Mountain (Gorskaya) Republic, which announced independence. In 1921 the Mountain (Gorskaya) Republic recognized the Soviet Union and joined it, subject to broad autonomy. Violations of the autonomy terms and conditions by the Soviet government provoked a series of armed insurrections and the birth of a permanent guerilla movement in Chechnya. In 1944, upon Stalin’s order, all Chechens and kindred Ingush were relocated to Kazakhstan; many were killed at that time. After Stalin’s death the Chechen-Ingush autonomy was restored.
In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya unilaterally declared independence and Russia de facto lost sovereignty over its territory. In December 1994 the Russian Government attempted to restore its sovereignty over Chechnya by means of violence. That gave rise to an armed conflict that lasted until August 1996 and terminated in Russian army’s defeat, withdrawal of troops from Chechnya and signature of a peace agreement. Yet, Chechnya’s legal status was still unclear, and in August 1999, the hostilities between Russia and Chechnya resumed. By summer 2000 the Russian army had full control over the majority of the Chechen territory and created its regulatory bodies there. However, the guerrilla movement continued with varying intensity, and at the present moment, an armed underground is active.
These turbulent events were accompanied by massive and grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws, committed by both parties to the conflict, including shelling of civilians,, “punitive” operations, terror acts, murder, torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty, enforced disappearances, rape, the use of civilians as human shields, hostage-taking, collective punishment, plunder of civilian property, etc. Representatives of the Russian side of the conflict have been committing crimes, in fact, in an atmosphere of total impunity.
The Council of Europe took up this issue in 2003, passing a resolution that read: “To ensure that those responsible for abuses are brought to justice, the Assembly … considers that, if the efforts to bring to justice those responsible for human rights abuses are not intensified, and the climate of impunity in the Chechen Republic prevails, the international community should consider setting up an ad hoc tribunal to try war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Chechen Republic”.
In 2007 the Russian government installed Ramzan Kadyrov as president, acting with the support of newly created armed units loyal to him (colloquially called “Kadyrovtsy”).
A 2010 resolution by the Council of Europe describes: “In the Chechen Republic, the current authorities continue to nurture a climate of pervading fear …recurrent disappearances of opponents of the Government and champions of human rights still remain widely unpunished and are not elucidated with due diligence, reprisals are taken against the families of persons suspected of belonging to illegal armed factions (setting fire to their dwellings; the close relatives of the suspect or suspects are abducted or receive dire threats), there reigns a climate of intimidation of the media and civil society, and the judicial organs plainly do nothing about the misdeeds of the security forces.”
Thus, for that last 15 years, Chechnya has been a zone of large scale and systematic human rights violations. Prominent national and international human rights NGOs have documented the circumstances of murder and enforced disappearance of at least 4,000 civilians committed by the Russian side of the conflict; the real number is much higher, of course. At the present moment, more that 150 rulings from the European Court for Human Rights have shown that the Russian government is both reluctant to effectively investigate such crimes and is incapable of doing so.
Consequently, the scale and severity of human rights violations committed in Chechnya are unparalleled in modern Russian history.
Amid the violence, human rights NGOs try to find justice for the victims
In the mid 90s, many domestic and international human rights and humanitarian organisations turned their eyes to Chechnya. Following resumption of hostilities in 1999, representatives of such organisations as the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Memorial Human Rights Centre (in 2000, it opened a branch office in Grozny that is still active), International Helsinki Federation and its member organizations, Russian-Chechen Friendship Society,. are permanently or occasionally present in Chechnya. At the beginning of the current century, several local human rights NGOs were created in the Republic.
In 2003 the Committee Against Torture, which used to work in Chechnya from time to time, opened a permanent representative office in Grozny. Its staff consists of local lawyers headed by defense lawyer Supyan Baskhanov. The organisation investigates allegations of torture, murders and enforced disappearances committed by state agents against civilians.
Like other NGOs in the region, the Committee Against Torture has faced total sabotage of their investigations by prosecutorial bodies, especially regarding systematic crimes perpetrated as part of the overall warfare strategy.
In 2004 federal servicemen gradually handed the carte blanche for unlawful violence over to representatives of the pro-Moscow military units made up of ethnic Chechens. By 2008 those military units were incorporated into the local security agencies and subsequently came under effective control of Ramzan Kadyrov who dexterously eliminated all rivals from the pro-Russian camp. Unlike federal servicemen, “kadyrovtsy” (Kadyrov’s agents) are perfectly aware of local customs and close connections between relatives, therefore, they started systematically using the mechanisms of collective punishment and collective responsibility. They resorted to the arson of homes, unlawful detention, torture and enforced disappearances of alleged militants’ relatives and those opposing Kadyrov’s policy. Yet, human rights NGOs received fewer complaints of violations – Chechen residents became increasingly fearful and did not perceive human rights defenders as a force capable of effectively protecting them and their near and dear from state terror. Of the few applications received, they did report crimes committed by local security agents.
For local lawyers working in CAT, public investigation into such applications entailed serious risks, since in the majority of cases, the suspects were law enforcement agents subordinate to Ramzan Kadyrov’s supporters. Therefore, CAT leaders decided that its Chechen representation should not work with such crime reports.
However, that decision did not prevent a tragedy in the human rights community. Victims’ relatives now brought their applications to the Grozny office of Memorial Human Rights Centre. Natalya Estemirova, one of the oldest Chechen Memorial activists, began to investigate them. Natalya did not have the legal expertise, experience and resources required for such work, however, she possessed sufficient courage to conduct non-governmental investigations and even managed to trace abductors in one case. On July 15, 2009 Estemirova was kidnapped upon leaving her home, taken to Ingushetia and shot. Her murder is still unsolved.
Penalties and Punishments of Yesteryear?
Posted by IRCT in Europe, News & Clippings on 29/03/2012
A pillory: 500€
Next Tuesday, 3 April, if you happen to pass by 11, rue Berryer, in Paris, you might be confronted with a display of torture instruments, for sale!
The auction house Cornette de Saint Cyr will be presenting, among the more than 300 objects and documents, a few sets of handcuffs, a hand crusher, and hanging ropes.
The collection belonged to Fernand Meyssonnier, France’s last executioner, who carried out nearly 200 executions in French-ruled Algeria.
Several human rights organisations already expressed their disagreement with the sale, denouncing the “commercialisation of torture”, and called on the French state to put a halt to the sale, if necessary by buying the lot for national museums.
What those behind the auction house may not know is that torture is at the moment a widespread practice in the majority of the countries. If they had known this they probably wouldn’t have accepted to carry out the sale, and they certainly wouldn’t have called the event “Penalties and Punishments of Yesteryear”.
Fabio is a Communications Officer and Assistant Editor of Torture Journal at IRCT.
Torture in Brazil: what changed in a decade?
Posted by IRCT in Latin America & the Caribbean, News & Clippings on 27/03/2012
The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) recently visited several Brazilian penitentiary and police institutions, as well as detention facilities for children and juveniles in the states of Espírito Santo, Goiás, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. Four months after the visit, its confidential preliminary observations were presented to the Brazilian government.
At the time of the visit, President Dilma Rousseff, a torture survivor herself, was being pressed to get on with a national mechanism to fight torture. This mechanism is based on the recommendations by the former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Sir Nigel Rodley, following his visit to Brazil in 2000. His report pointed out the need to end the Brazilian cultural tolerance to torture and highlighted the poor treatment of prisoners in “massively overcrowded” police jails.
Nearly a decade on, the 2009 UNCAT report again raised concern about the systematic practice of torture in Brazil along with “endemic overcrowding, filthy conditions of confinement, extreme heat, light deprivation and permanent lock-ups”. Earlier reports also highlighted the inefficiency of police investigations and to the extreme impunity that prevails in the country, to which judges contributed by ignoring the law defining crimes of torture. According to Conectas, a human rights organisation, the Brazilian government admits a serious problem of torture in the country and admits its own fault in failing to produce systematic data on this abuse.
Many things have changed in Brazil in the past decade. Most notably the consolidation of its status as a global economic power and the outstanding poverty reduction that came with it. While in 2003, 36% of Brazil’s population lived below the national poverty line, that rate fell to 21% in 2009. Torture is, in fact, a cause and effect of poverty. Does this mean we can hope for positive signals in the SPT report? We shall see. That is, if Brazil decides to make the SPT recommendations public.
In the spirit of transparency, which should be a cornerstone of any detention system, we call on the Brazilian government to do so.
Fabio is a Communications Officer and Assistant Editor of Torture Journal at IRCT.
‘Torture’ advert mocks survivors’ experiences
Posted by IRCT in News & Clippings on 22/03/2012
I’m much too late in seeing this ad, but recently, a World Without Torture supporter e-mailed us a link to an atrocious advert from Woolite, a laundry detergent company.
‘Don’t let detergents torture your clothes’ says Woolite, a subsidiary of Reckitt Benckiser, in an advertisement that mocks the experiences of torture and takes the misuse of this term to a tragic low.
This statement follows several scenes of a masked man, trudging through muddy paths, pulling a jumper on a Medieval style stretcher, and dipping other clothes into boiling water. You can watch the full 30-second commercial below.
Directed by famed musician, director, and horror film enthusiast Rob Zombie, the commercial is at best, gimmicky and tacky, and at worst, reveals a disturbing lack of awareness of the reality of torture. Despite using motifs and torture methods associated with the middle ages, the reality is that torture is still used today – more than 90% of countries around the world use torture, estimates international torture experts.
Most significantly, it’s likely that a torture survivor would actually see this ad. Up to a third of asylum seekers to European and North American countries – such as the U.S. where this commercial was targeted – have been tortured. Re-traumatisation of the torture victim, who happens upon this ad during a seemingly banal evening of TV viewing, is among the possibilities of such callous usages of the term ‘torture.’
Regardless, while the misuse of the term torture (as we previously wrote about) is degrading the reality of torture victims experiences, this ad takes this many steps too far. The Woolite ad makes it seem as if torture only occurred during the middle ages, a part of uncivilized history, rather than a current problem; and then cruelly demonstrating torture to sell… laundry detergent. Woolite should be ashamed.
Have you seen any other videos, advertisements or commercials like this, that use the torture experience to sell things? If so, please send them to us.
Tessa works in the IRCT’s Communication Team.
A rotten debate in the state of Denmark
Posted by IRCT in Europe, News & Clippings on 15/03/2012
Both former Prime Minister (and current Secretary-General of NATO) Anders Fogh Rasmussen and current Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt have publicly stated their support for the use of information obtained through torture, despite its prohibition in the UN Convention against Torture, to which Denmark has ratified. Left photo by Jose Sena Goulao, and right photo by Arbeiderpartiet; both available via Flickr through Creative Commons License.
The Danish debate on torture has continued this week since our first post on the matter. And it has revealed a disturbing level of acceptance of torture at all levels of society – from the general public to heads of state – within this Scandinavian nation.
While many are retracting and doubling-back on public statements, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has agreed* that Denmark may use information obtained through the use of torture.
Earlier this week, journalists asked Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Danish Prime Minister and current Secretary-General of NATO, about his opinion on the debate – should Denmark use information obtained through torture by third-parties? Despite all NATO states having ratified the UN Convention against Torture, which clearly prohibits this practice, Rasmussen invoked the faulty “ticking bomb” argument and stated that it may be a necessary practice to fight terrorism.
IRCT Secretary-General Brita Sydhoff found that abhorrent.
“This is nonsense. In your position, you really should know better than this, Mr Rasmussen. Courts around the world know it. Intelligence services know it. The armies in many countries deplore its use. Torture is counterproductive, harmful and it creates victims who often suffer for a lifetime. Torture solves nothing.
“While the “ticking bomb” scenario continues to be invoked in such arguments, it has, countless times been discredited [PDF].
“Moreover, torture is illegal. At all times. In all places. The use of information obtained through torture is also illegal under the terms of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which Denmark along with all other NATO countries, has ratified.
“If you don’t understand the Convention, or the rationale behind it, I, and my colleagues throughout our worldwide movement of 150 rehabilitation centres in over 70 countries, can help you. Our doors are always open to you for dialogue. They can also show your our work with survivors of this deplorable act.”
Everyone has begun weighing in. Danish Conservative Party spokesman Tom Benke stated that Denmark’s police force should be ready to use torture if necessary. He later amended this statement.
Shockingly – and most disappointingly - these state officials are not alone in this opinion. A Gallup poll this week found only 57% of Danes say torture should never be used to obtain information. In 2004, 68% of Danes agreed with that statement; this is a disturbing trend, but not so surprising given the mixed messages coming from those in positions of power.
*Note: Almost all links are in Danish.
From our members: When human rights defenders continue the fight
Editor’s Note: This will be the first post in an ongoing series featuring the work of our 140+ member centres around the world in more than 70 countries. It’s in these centres, from Argentina to The Philippines, where the fight against torture is most direct – where victims are treated for their physical and psychological wounds, where testimonies are first heard, and where healing begins.
Human rights defenders often face grave dangers for those who investigate violations, such as torture, committed by the state. In the upcoming weeks, IRCT member centre Committee Against Torture, a Russian interrregional NGO, will be updating us on their work with the Joint Mobile Group. The group, coordinated from NGOs and human rights defenders from across Russia, joined together to investigate the human rights violations, including torture and enforced disappearances, in Chechnya. They describe it as follows:
Working in the framework of the Joint Mobile Groups (JMG) is one of the ways to conduct a public investigation into grave human rights violations. We must admit that this type of activity is, in fact, induced, as it requires extraordinary organizational resources and funding. Therefore, it is used only in the context of large scale or systematic violations, when the region featuring such violations: 1) lacks human rights NGOs capable of conducting a professional public investigation on their own; or 2) when due to the large scale of violations local NGOs do not have the capacity to conduct such an investigation; or 3) when involvement of local human rights defenders into such investigations might pose a real threat to their lives, health and security, or that of their families.
When at least one of these conditions is present, establishing a JMG is basically the only way to effectively fight unlawful violence and seek redress for victims.
The Joint Mobile Group was awarded the 2011 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders At Risk. This video, explains why:
In a second video, Igor Kalyapin, a member of the Joint Mobile Group, speaks about how the international attention and, specifically, the award from Front Line has impacted their work: “Because the authorities there, having realised that it is not possible to scare us away, have started to treat us with total indifference. That is, they still try to frighten the Chechen human rights activists and control them in some way, but with us, they simply pretend that we’re not there.”
Check out the website of Committee Against Torture here, where they have several news stories in English on the work of the Joint Mobile Group in Chechnya. Visit us next week to read more about their work.
