Countries in which torture is legal

Under U. Sain , U. Investigators are not severely handicapped by not being able to use "truth serums. Under the influence of such drugs, people may become highly suggestible, picking up cues from the interrogators and agreeing to information that is not true; they may relate fantasies; and they may still be able to deliberately mislead.

According to a study by medical and legal experts:. On the other hand, some are able to withhold information and some, especially character neurotics, are able to lie. Others are so suggestible they will describe, in response to suggestive questioning, behavior which never in fact occurred But drugs are not 'truth sera. As another expert noted, "the intravenous injection of a drug by a physician in a hospital may appear more scientific than the drinking of large amounts of bourbon in a tavern, but the end result displayed in the subject's speech may be no more reliable.

Q: Are there any situations in which torture is permitted? Under customary international law as well as underinternational human rights treaties, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is prohibited at all times and in all circumstances.

It is a non-derogable right, one of those core rights that may never be suspended, even during times of war, when national security is threatened, or during other public emergencies. According to the U. The European Court of Human Rights has applied the prohibition against torture contained in European Convention on Human Rights in several cases involving alleged terrorists.

As it noted in one case, "The Court is well aware of the immense difficulties faced by States in modern times in protecting their communities from terrorist violence. However, even in these circumstances, the Convention prohibits in absolute terms torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, irrespective of the victim's conduct. United Kingdom , Nov. Similarly, the Committee against Torture, reviewing Israel's use of torture as a method of interrogation against suspected Palestinian terrorists, stated, "The Committee acknowledges the terrible dilemma that Israel confronts in dealing with terrorist threats to its security, but as a State party to the Convention Israel is precluded from raising before this Committee exceptional circumstances as justification for [prohibited] acts" [United Nations Committee against Torture.

Q: Shouldn't torture be permitted if its use will save lives? Some people argue that the goal of saving innocent lives must override a person's right not to be tortured. This argument is presented in its starkest form in the "ticking bomb" scenario: a bomb has been set to explode that will kill thousands of people and a detained person is known to have information on where the bomb is and how to defuse it. Is torture justified in such a case to force the detainee to talk?

Those who say that it is argue that governments should be permitted to choose torture as the lesser of two evils in such a situation. The international community, however, rejected the use of torture even in the "ticking bomb" case. International human rights law - as well as U. There are practical as well as moral reasons for not permitting a "ticking bomb" -or terrorist attack -- exception to the ban on torture. Although such an exception might appear to be highly limited, experience shows that the exception readily becomes the standard practice.

For example, how imminent must the attack be to trigger the exception and justify torture - an hour, a week, a year? How certain must the government be that the detainee actually has the necessary information? Under the utilitarian logic that the end saving many innocent lives justifies the means, torture should be permitted even if the disaster might not occur until some point in the future, and it should be permitted against as many people as is necessary to secure the information that could be used to avert the disaster.

Israel provides a good example of how this logic works in practice. For years Israel justified its use of torture - what it called "moderate physical force" - by citing the "ticking bomb" scenario.

But despite a genuine security threat, Israeli security forces rarely if ever were able to identify a particular suspect with knowledge about a particular bomb set to explode imminently. Rather, they ended up applying the scenario metaphorically to justify torturing virtually every Palestinian security detainee - thousands of people - on the theory that they might know something about some unspecified, future terrorist act.

In , the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the use of torture, although the practice seems to have increased in the past year. In addition, the ticking bomb scenario offers no logical limitations on how much or what kind of torture would be permitted. If the detainee does not talk when shaken or hit, why shouldn't the government move unto more severe measures, such as the application of electric shocks? Why not threaten to rape the suspect's wife or to torture his children?

Once torture is allowed, setting limits is extraordinarily difficult. Q: Does the U. Torture is as likely to yield false information as it is to yield the truth. Cesare Beccaria, the eighteenth century philosopher whose critique of torture remains influential today, observed that when a person is tortured, the "impression of pain…may increase to such a degree, that, occupying the mind entirely, it will compel the sufferer to use the shortest method of freeing himself from torment…[H]e will accuse himself of crimes of which he is innocent.

Contemporary law enforcement professionals concur. Oliver Ravel, former deputy director of the FBI, has stated that force is not effective: "people will even admit they killed their grandmother, just to stop the beatings.

The prohibition on torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading conduct does not leave the government helpless before terrorists.

Convictions in recent cases involving terrorism show that investigators currently have the means and legal methods to acquire the evidence necessary for successful prosecutions.

Q: May the U. The United States may not send detainees to another country to be questioned by police or security forces who use torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during their interrogation. Article 3 of the Convention against Torture expressly prohibits sending a person to another state "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. The purpose of U.

But there are numerous practical obstacles to such lawsuits - including the difficulty of securing evidence of torture and the financial costs of legal representation - as well as legal and procedural impediments to a successful conclusion.

Moreover, even if a case is successful and damages are awarded, the financial compensation does not undo the harm done - the experience of torture and its often ongoing physical, psychological, and emotional consequences. Officials who engage in torture - including those who give the orders as well as those who carry them out - can and should be prosecuted criminally as well as disciplinarily sanctioned. Nevertheless, history counsels that the decision to prosecute public officials, the actual charges brought, and the penalties sought are often influenced by such extra-legal considerations as public sympathy for the victim or support for the officials and the political context in which the crime took place.

The best "remedy" for torture is thus prevention. Get updates on human rights issues from around the globe. Join our movement today. Help us continue to fight human rights abuses. Please give now to support our work. Human Rights Watch. Donate Now. Take Action. Join Us. Give Now. Last Updated on June 1, What is torture? Q: What is torture? Q: What laws prohibit torture?

Q: Can a person be compelled to provide evidence? In that regard, Amnesty claims they have received numerous reports accusing security forces of unwarranted detention and brutal torture while the state attempts to crush Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. Other countries have also been highlighted by Amnesty to rely on torture methods when questioning suspects, particularly when it comes to minorities. More extreme regimes and terror groups are increasingly using medieval and brutal torture practices to do nothing more than instil fear in citizens.

Activists have claimed that the terrorist group ISIS punishes anyone that does not live by their rules by breaking their spines, handing out lashings and electric shocks and parading women on the streets in cages filled with human skulls to humiliate them. One of the most well-known and controversial methods of torture is waterboarding — effectively causing an individual to experience the sensation of drowning. President Barack Obama banned torture as an interrogation technique in and an anti-torture amendment became law in So while many will be concerned that Trump will push to bring the practice back in matters of national security, he cannot simply just overturn it in an executive order.

What may be truly alarming is that these reports are only the ones known to them — with governments across the world breaking the promises they made over 30 years ago. A gust of wind caused fall leaves to twirl and dance on a tennis court in Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday, November According to the National Weather Service, wind gusts reached a peak of around 35 miles per hour in the Boulder area.

This video was posted to Twitter by boulderdaily. Credit: Boulder Daily via Storyful. Michael Fawcett and his party planning company will also no longer be providing services to Clarence House a spokesperson said. The Duchess of Cornwall was attending a Poetry Together event and tea party.

A student has been found guilty of murdering his step-grandmother after admitting to friends he had killed her during a game of "truth or dare" - with a coroner initially ruling the year-old had died in an accidental fire. Mary Gregory was discovered under a table in the conservatory of her smoke-logged bungalow in Heysham, Lancashire, in the early hours of 28 May During the police inquiry it emerged Darnton had made a similar confession several weeks after Mrs Gregory's death, where he revealed his "darkest secret" during a game of truth or dare with two friends.

Police have renewed an appeal for information following the rape of a year-old woman in an alleyway in Camden in October. Detectives have released a CCTV image of a man they would like to identify and speak with in connection with the investigation.

The young woman reported she had been raped by a man in an alleyway off Camden High Street shortly after Britain has fallen silent on Thursday in remembrance of the nation's war dead. There have been a variety of human rights abuses permitted by the former Sudanese government of Omar al-Bashir over his year rule.

In particular, we have evidence of torture committed from after the Darfuri war under the premise of non-Arab ethnic cleansing. More recently, protests in early calling for Omar al-Bashir to step down led to a new torrent of oppression with government forces detaining, torturing, and killing scores of civilians.

Since then, al-Bashir relinquished power and the military council formed a transitional government with the main opposition coalition. Where I lived in Sudan young boys like me would be forced into the army, they made you kill your own family.

The boys in my village refused so the army took us. I was burnt, beaten, locked up on my own. I still have the scars.

I was just crying for my mum every day. For years, there has been authoritarian rule in Ethiopia where torture has been a staple of the government. Attempts to claim a wide range of rights, including land rights or freedoms of expression or association etc. When Daesh took the state, torture was used consistently on citizens as a means of oppression and control. Since Daesh lost its grip on the Mesopotamian state in , the Iraqi government has repeatedly used torture as an interrogation technique instead of carrying out proper criminal investigations.

Our evidence shows that torture has been happening in Turkey for decades, mainly to repress the Kurdish minority and the political involvement of its people. Based on 60 medico-legal reports we produced between February and March , our country briefing highlighted the systematic use of torture between to Read more about torture in Turkey.

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, warring parties have continuously disregarded human rights and humanitarian law protections. Arbitrary detentions, kidnappings and torture have been widely reported on both side s. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights , over 14, people have been killed under the use of torture between and In Egypt, torture has been used routinely by successive regimes in response to any form of opposition including peaceful protests.

In addition to people being tortured for their peaceful protest against the last three Egyptian governments, we also have evidence of people being tortured for their sexual orientation.

The government response to separatism in Cameroon has been heavy-handed. Though waves of abuse have come from both sides, Anglophone separatists have equally used force against civilians perceived to be associated with the government. Whilst oppositionists from Cameroon have been tortured for opposing the state, our evidence shows that many people - both men and women - are tortured on the grounds of their sexual orientation.

Despite espousing the values of human rights, even the UK has been implicated in torture in recent years. Although the ISC report was a good start, we still don't know the full extent of abuses and how politicians were involved. If the UK is to live up to the reputation it sets itself as a global leader post-Brexit, it needs to deliver accountability for its past crimes, and make clear that torture will never again be tolerated.

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