Knowledge Centre : Human Rights : Freedom from Fear : Torture
Links
- The Truth Is Out on CIA and Torture new
-
In this article Milt Bearden argues that despite 'the 'gradual, but unrelenting, outing of the highest level U.S. government involvement in the sordid business of torture', the CIA may still be continuing to use torture.
http://www.truthout.org/article/the-truth-is-out-cia-and-torture
(Added: Wed Jul 02 2008 Hits: 1)
- The Pain Merchants: Security equipment and its use in torture and other ill-treatment pop
-
Amnesty International, 2 December 2003. Manufacturing, trading and promoting equipment which is used to torture people is a money-making business. Across the world, companies and individuals send equipment they say is designed for security or crime control purposes into the hands of government security personnel who often use them to commit human rights abuses. This report shows why the manufacture, use and transfer of security and police technologies needs more than ever before to be strictly regulated by governments using common criteria based on international human rights and humanitarian standards.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT400082003
(Added: Mon Dec 22 2003 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 1547)
- Tortured Beginnings: Police Violence and the Beginnings of Impunity in East Timor
-
This 60-page report is based on dozens of interviews with witnesses and victims of police abuse in East Timor. It documents excessive force during arrests, torture and ill-treatment of detainees by the National Police of East Timor. It goes over reforms, institutions and practices needed to create police accountability in East Timor, and makes recommendations to the Government of East Timor, and to donors and others providing assistance to the police. (Human Rights Watch, April 2006)
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/easttimor0406/
(Added: Tue May 02 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 291)
- "Every Morning They Beat Me" Police Abuses in Burundi [pdf]
-
This 42-page report documents 21 cases of beatings and torture of civilians carried out in October 2007 by a special reserve unit known as Rapid Mobile Intervention Group (Groupement Mobile d'Intervention Rapide, GMIR) in Muramvya province. Various victims described to Human Rights Watch how they were arbitrarily arrested, beaten with clubs and batons, subjected to death threats and mock executions, and forced to pay large bribes in exchange for freedom (human Rights Watch, 30 April 2008).
http://hrw.org/reports/2008/burundi0408/burundi0408web.pdf
(Added: Fri May 02 2008 Hits: 21)
- 16 year old torture survivor facing deportation
-
New Zealand Government decides to send 16 year old woman back to Sri Lanka where she has experienced ongoing sexual abuse.
(Added: Fri Feb 13 2004 Hits: 100)
- A Report on Torture and Human Rights Abuses in Zimbabwe
-
Since early 2007, the Zimbabwean government has brutally sought to suppress political opposition with state sponsored torture and political violence. This upsurge in political violence occurred following a peaceful prayer rally organized on March 11 2007 by a coalition of Zimbabwean church and civic organizations (December 2007).
(Added: Tue Dec 11 2007 Modified: Thu Dec 20 2007 Hits: 49)
- Amnesty International USA's supplementary briefing to the UN Committee Against Torture
-
The briefing updates Amnesty International's concerns with regard to US "war on terror" detention, interrogation and related policies, as outlined in its preliminary briefing of August 2005, and provides additional information on domestic policies and practice. It is intended for the UN Committee Against Torture, who will be examining the US compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on 5 and 8 May in Geneva. (Amnesty International, 3 May 2006)
http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maaeLo8abqhbbckuuzKb/
(Added: Wed May 17 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 99)
- Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and 'disappearance'
-
Amnesty International's new report exposes a covert operation whereby people have been arrested or abducted, transferred and held in secret or handed over to countries where they have faced torture and other ill-treatment. The report describes, using records of more than 1500 flights, how the CIA has used private aircraft operators and front companies to preserve the secrecy of "rendition" flights. Rendition is the illegal transfer of people from one country to another in ways that bypass all judicial and administrative oversight - of late used to facilitate interrogation of suspects outside the reach of the law in the "war on terror". The report shows that the CIA has exploited aviation practices that would otherwise require their flights to be declared to aviation authorities. AI cautions that states that tolerate these flights landing on their territory and companies that carry them out, may find themselves complicit in serious human rights abuses, and must act now to halt this practice. (Amnesty International, April 5 2006)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510512006
(Added: Mon Apr 10 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 101)
- Burma: Security Council Should Impose Arms Embargo
-
The United Nations Security Council should impose and enforce a mandatory arms embargo on Burma because of continuing massive violations of human rights says Human Rights Watch. India, China, Russia, and other nations are supplying Burma with weapons that the military uses to commit human rights abuses and to bolster its ability to maintain power.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/10/10/burma17066.htm
(Added: Fri Oct 12 2007 Hits: 105)
- Bush: Guantanamo's future up to Supreme Court
-
President Bush said Wednesday that he'd like to close the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where three detainees committed suicide Saturday. He said he was awaiting a Supreme Court decision about how terrorism suspects there could be tried. (Laura Parker, USA Today, 14 June 2006)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-14-bush-gitmo_x.htm
(Added: Fri Jun 16 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 113)
- By the Numbers: Findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project
-
This 27-page report presents findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project. The project is the first comprehensive accounting of credible allegations of torture and abuse in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo. (New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First, APril 2006)
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/ct0406/
(Added: Tue May 02 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 89)
- CIA 'waterboarding': Admission of a crime, now there must be a criminal investigation
-
Waterboarding - an interrogation technique under which detainees are subjected to simulated drowning - is torture. Torture is a crime under international law. The CIA has admitted to using waterboarding but no one has been held accountable for the authorization and use of waterboarding by US personnel.(Amnesty International, February 2008)
http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/9db876c2-d4c5-11dc-ae76-cd9a3dc63251/amr510112008eng.pdf
(Added: Thu Feb 07 2008 Hits: 38)
- Claims of torture by army and militia, as food shortages grip Mt Elgon
-
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has called for an investigation into allegations of torture committed by security forces deployed in the clash-torn Mt Elgon district in western Kenya.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78254
(Added: Wed May 21 2008 Hits: 10)
- Combating Torture: A Manual for Action
-
Amnesty International. Combating torture: a manual for action is an invaluable tool for all those who want to understand and fight against torture in the 21st century. It brings together the standards and recommendations of the UN, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and other sources from around the world, as well as Amnesty International's recommendations, concerning the prevention of torture and ill-treatment. There are chapters on the prohibition of torture under international law, safeguards in custody, conditions of detention, torture in other settings, and overcoming impunity. Case studies highlight successful action that has been taken to combat torture in different countries, and there are checklists of international standards and suggested further reading. The manual was produced as part of Amnesty International's worldwide campaign against torture. (Download the full publication (PDF format - 2.6Mb), or by individual chapter and section, or or order this publication from the Amnesty International shop.
http://www.web.amnesty.org/pages/stoptorture-manual-index-eng
(Added: Mon Jun 30 2003 Modified: Thu Jul 08 2004 Hits: 174)
- Crime & punishment
-
Recent decades have witnessed horrible atrocities. But a new system of international justice is slowly rising from the carnage. Global efforts to confront impunity looked at in this article include war crimes legislation, International Criminal Tribunals, the International Criminal Court, and truth commissions. (Wayne Ellwood, New Internationalist, December 2005)
http://www.newint.org/issue385/keynote.htm
(Added: Fri Apr 28 2006 Modified: Thu Jun 22 2006 Hits: 118)
- Critics condemn U.S. torture by proxy
-
Rights group alarmed by deportations `Renditions' considered useful tool Nov. 8, 2003. OLIVIA WARD FEATURE WRITER When Ottawa computer expert Maher Arar arrived back in Canada this week after a year of captivity, his account of torture in Syria and Jordan shocked many. Arar, who was seized by American officials in New York during a flight back from a family visit, has called for a full investigation of Canada's role in his ill-treatment, which he said included confinement in a dark, filthy cell, beating and psychological abuse. Arar also encountered another Syrian-born Canadian, Abdullah Almalki, in the Syrian jail, and reported he had received even more severe treatment. For Canada, accusations of complicity in offshore torture and abuse of people suspected of political crimes are unprecedented. And they are directly linked to the worldwide anti-terrorism crackdown following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. But for the U.S., deportation of suspects to countries where torture is conducted by proxy - "rendition" as it is known in American intelligence circles - is part of a larger pattern that is causing alarm, and critics say it's damaging America's image in the international community.
(Added: Fri Nov 14 2003 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 159)
- Double Jeopardy: CIA Renditions to Jordan
-
This 36-page report documents how Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID) served as a proxy jailer and interrogator for the CIA from 2001 until at least 2004. While a handful of countries received persons rendered by the United States during this period, no other country is believed to have held as many as Jordan (Huamn Rights Watch, April 2008).
http://hrw.org/reports/2008/jordan0408/
(Added: Wed Apr 09 2008 Hits: 35)
- Ill-fated Homecomings: A Tunisian Case Study of Guantanamo Repatriations
-
On June 17, 2007, the United States government took two of the 355 detainees currently incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay out of their cells, loaded them onto a plane, and returned them to their home country, Tunisia. Ten weeks later, as this report went to press, the two men-Abdullah al-Hajji Ben Amor and Lotfi Lagha-are still being held in a Tunisian prison. They have told those who visit them that things are so bad they would rather be in Guantanamo than where they are now. With the push to close Guantanamo heating up-even the US Secretary of Defense has said that he would like to see Guantanamo closed-the effort to move out many of the men is in high gear. Human Rights Watch has long called on the US government to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, and they continue to do so. But the haphazard shipping of detainees like al-Hajji and Lagha to countries with known records of torture and abuse is not the way to go about that closure (Human Rights Watch, September 2007).
http://hrw.org/reports/2007/tunisia0907/tunisia0907webwcover.pdf
(Added: Tue Sep 11 2007 Hits: 47)
- International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT)
-
The IRCT is an independent health professional organisation, founded upon the medical response to torture, which promotes and supports the rehabilitation of torture victims and works for the prevention of torture worldwide.
(Added: Sat Jun 17 2000 Modified: Thu Jun 29 2006 Hits: 215)
- Meet the New Interrogators: Lockheed Martin
-
By Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch November 4th, 2005. Apart from the monoply on war-related contracts to one single corporation, the increased outsourcing of interrogation to private contractors raises questions of accountability and of enforcement of regulations designed for the military.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12757
(Added: Fri Nov 11 2005 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 108)
- Mexico: Defend the rights of protestors and detainees
-
Demonstrations in Oaxaca began in May, when teachers went on strike and occupied the city centre to demand improved pay and working conditions. The protestors occupied official buildings and media outlets, blocking roads with barricades. As the protest spread to other parts of the city, in late 2006 state security forces used excessive force in attempts to evict the protesters. Several people were killed, and many of the hundreds of detainees were tortured. Express your cncern to the Mexican government.
http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/mexico_protestors_detainees.php
(Added: Wed Feb 21 2007 Hits: 116)
- Philippines: A Nation in the Grip of a Grave Crisis, Implications on the Lives of Grassroots Women
-
Since the last quarter of 2004, a surge of killings, abductions and disappearances have swept the Philippines. This article tells of Esmeralda Ecat, a peasant woman leader from Leyte in the Visayas, that were subjected to torture for almost 24 hours in front of her two young children, and other women having their human rights violated by the military. (National Federation of Peasant Women - Philippines, 2005)
http://www.dontglobalisehunger.org/article_tfriw.php
(Added: Thu Jun 01 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 93)
- Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay [PDF]
-
This joint report is submitted by five holders of mandates of special procedures of the Commission on Human Rights who have been jointly following the situation of detainees held at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay since June, 2004. United Nations Economic and Social Council, 15 February 2006.
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/docs/62chr/E.CN.4.2006.120_.pdf
(Added: Mon Feb 20 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 129)
- Sri Lankan girl whisked away
-
nzoom.com, Feb 12, 2004. The Sri Lankan girl who claims she had been sexually abused and traumatised in her homeland was put on a plane bound for Korea after losing her fight to stay in New Zealand. Immigration officials have confirmed the 16-year-old, whose name is suppressed, left on a commercial flight from Auckland Airport just before 10pm on Thursday night. It has been reported the girl and her grandmother were earlier dragged screaming into an ambulance at the Mangere Refugee Centre where they were staying.
http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,255054-1-7,00.html
(Added: Fri Feb 13 2004 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 219)
- State of Denial: Europe's Role in Rendition and Secret Detention
-
This Amnesty International report looks at certain practices of the CIA and other US agencies in Europe and in their dealings with European nationals, sometimes in co-operation with European national intelligence and other agencies, in the context of the "war on terror". Focusing on the disturbing picture that has emerged in the two years since Amnesty International published "Partners in crime: Europe's role in US renditions", it highlights seven aspects of Europe's role in the US programme of renditions and secret detention.
(Added: Thu Jun 26 2008 Hits: 12)
