TORTURE is not only alive and well across the globe, it’s flourishing in our own region — with China and North Korea among the worst offenders.
A shocking new global survey has revealed more than 140 countries still practice cruel and inhumane treatment of its own citizens.
A worldwide Globescan survey commissioned to coincide with the launch of Amnesty International’s campaign, Stop Torture, found more than 21,000 people fear becoming a victim of abuse.
Beating, electric shocks, being held in stress positions or isolation for long periods are among the most commonly used methods of abuse.
Whipping, water boarding, asphyxiation, and mock executions follow close behind.
Needles have allegedly been pushed under fingernails, prisoners have been burnt with cigarettes and even stabbed while in custody according to Amnesty.
There have even been reports of prisoners being forced to drink their own urine, dirty water and chemicals.
According to the human rights group, torture is prolific across the Asia-Pacific region and isn’t limited to China and North Korea.
Torture is used to force confessions or to silence activists in politically oppressive countries including China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
It’s also used to extort money in places such as Myanmar and Nepal, where poor people are unable to bribe their way out of being tortured.
North Korea is renowned for carrying out torture and abuse within its notorious prison camps, including reports of detainees being kept in solitary confinement. Picture: Amnesty International Source: Supplied
The survey found the vast majority of people in the Asia-Pacific region believe there should be clear laws against torture.
But shockingly, in China and India almost three quarters of respondents (74 per cent) felt torture was sometimes necessary.
In a number of Asia-Pacific countries the use of torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishments is routine and accepted by many.
Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director Richard Bennett said the survey proved torture was rife across the Asia-Pacific.
“The problem isn’t limited to a few rogue states, but is endemic throughout the region,” Mr Bennett said.
“Asian countries must stop paying lip service to their commitment to end torture. Signing up to the international treaties is important but not enough. It must be backed up with concrete action.”
According to Amnesty at least 23 Asia-Pacific countries still use torture or ill-treatment more than 30 years after the UN adopted the 1984 Convention Against Torture.
Amnesty has detailed some of the worst known cases.
North Korea:
The rogue state is renowned for its gross human rights abuses, especially in its notorious prison camps which hold up to 50,000 inmates who are forced to live in subhuman conditions before being made to dig their own graves.
Beatings, starvation and rape are routinely used as a form of torture here.
A roulette wheel allegedly used to pick a list of torture techniques meted out to prisoners in a house converted to a prison south of Manila. Source: AFP
The Philippines:
Allegations of torture are rife in the Philippines, which emerged from a brutal era of dictatorship nearly three decades ago.
The country came under the spotlight earlier this year after a secret detention facility was discovered in which police reportedly spun a ‘wheel of torture’ to decide how to punish prisoners.
Detainees reported being beaten, electrocuted or hit by steel bars, baseball bats, chairs and even helmets.
China:
Torture and abuse is officially illegal in China, but beatings, electrocutions, forced injection of drugs and the denial of medical treatment are regularly used to abuse people despite the closure of its notorious “Re-education Through Labour” camps.
Pakistan:
Torture is common and used on a regular basis in conflict-ridden tribal areas, with police, intelligence services and the army the worst culprits.
Lawyers, journalists and political activists are the most likely victims.
Sri Lanka:
Torture and abuse in Sri Lanka is high and routinely used, Amnesty says.
In 2012 at least five people died as a result of torture and police brutality, and the country’s National Human Rights Commission registered 86 complaints of torture in the first three months of last year.
These sketches were drawn with the assistance of a fellow detainee under guidance from Ali Aarrass and show his torture in Morocco in 2010. picture: Amnesty International Source: Supplied
Morocco:
Spanish authorities recently extradited accused terrorist Ali Aarrass to Morocco despite fears he would be tortured.
He was picked up by intelligence officers and taken to a secret detention centre, where he claims they electrocuted his testicles, beat the soles of his feet and hanged him by his wrists for hours on end.
Officers reportedly forced Arrass to confess to assisting a terrorist group. He was convicted and sentenced to 12 years behind bars on the basis of that confession but his allegation of torture has never been investigated.
Mexico:
The central American nation has also been named as a serial torture offender despite the government’s denials. Abuse by police and security forces is widespread and goes unpunished, Amnesty says.
The central American nation has also been named as a serial torture offender despite the government’s denials. Abuse by police and security forces is widespread and goes unpunished, Amnesty says.
Torture methods vary from country to country and region to region, but these are the most commonly used methods, according to Amnesty.
1. Beating
2. Electric shocks
3. Stress positions
4. Prolonged isolation
5. Whipping
6. Mock executions
7. Water torture and forced suffocation
8. Prisoners having needles pushed under their fingernails
9. Cigarette burns
10. Stabbing
11. Forced drinking of dirty water, urine and chemicals (chiffon)
12. Sleep deprivation
13. Sensory deprivation
14. Forced abortion and sterilisation
15. Rape or the threat of rape
16. Humiliation
17. Threats of violence to prisoner/their family
18. Forced administration of drugs
19. Inhumane detention conditions
20. Deprivation of food and water
21. Judicial corporal punishment including flogging and amputation
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