This article describes the use of torture since the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which prohibited it. Torture is prohibited by international law and is illegal in most countries. However, it is still used by many governments.
Torture is widely practiced worldwide: Amnesty International received reports of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in more than 150 countries during the four-year period from 1997 to 2001. These accusations concerned acts against political prisoners in 70 countries and other prisoners and detainees in more than 130 countries.Amnesty International, Combating torture – a manual for action , October 2002, p. 2. State torture has been extensively documented and studied, often as part of efforts at collective memory and reconciliation in societies that have experienced a change in government. Surveys of torture survivors reveal that torture "is not aimed primarily at the extraction of information ... Its real aim is to break down the victim's personality and identity."Orlando Tizon, CovertAction Quarterly, Summer 2002. Tizon is assistant director of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) in Washington, D.C. When applied indiscriminately, torture is used as a tool of repression and deterrence against dissent and community empowerment.
While many states use torture, few wish to be described as doing so, either to their own citizens or to international bodies. So a variety of strategies are used to circumvent their legal and humanitarian duties, including plausible deniability, secret police, "need to know", denial that certain activities constitute torture, appeal to various laws (national or international), use of a jurisdictional argument, claim of "overriding need", the use of torture by proxy, and so on.Amnesty International, End impunity: Justice for the victims of torture , 2001. Almost all regimes and governments engaging in torture (and other crimes against humanity) consistently deny engaging in it, in spite of overwhelming hearsay and physical evidence from the citizens they tortured. Through both denial and avoidance of prosecution, most people ordering or carrying out acts of torture do not face legal consequences for their actions. UN Special Rapporteur for the Commission on Human Rights, Sir Nigel Rodley, believes that "impunity continues to be the principal cause of the perpetuation and encouragement of human rights violations and, in particular, torture."Nigel Rodley, "Report on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," UN Document A/54/426, 1 October 1999.
While states, particularly their prisons, law enforcement, military and intelligence apparatus, are major perpetrators of torture, many non-state actors also engage in it. These include paramilitaries and guerrillas, criminal actors such as organized crime syndicates and kidnappers.
A recent approach to interrogations has been to use techniques such as waterboarding, sexual humiliation and sexual abuse, and dogs to intimidate or pressure prisoners in a manner claimed to be legal under national or international law. Electric shock techniques such as the use of stun belts and tasers have been considered appropriate provided that they are used to "control" prisoners or suspects, even non-violent ones, rather than to extract information. These techniques have been widely criticized as torture.
Technology Methods of torture are often quite crude, a number of new technologies of control have been used by torturers in recent years. The Brazilian government devised a number of new electrical and mechanical means of torture during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, and proceeded to train military officials from other right-wing Latin American countries in their techniques.Lawrence Weschler, A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers, 1990: 62–63.
Inter-state collaboration
Substantial cooperation between states in the methods and coordination of torture has been documented. Through the Phoenix Program, the United States helped South Vietnam co-ordinate a system of detention, torture and assassination of suspected members of the National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong. During the 1980s wars in Central America, the U.S. government provided manuals and training on interrogation that extended to the use of torture (see U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals). The manuals were also distributed by Special Forces Mobile Training teams to military personnel and intelligence schools in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru. The manuals have a chapter devoted to "coercive techniques".
The southern cone governments of South America – Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil – involved in Operation Condor co-ordinated the disappearance, torture and execution of dissidents in the 1970s. Hundreds were killed in coordinated operations, and the bodies of those recovered were often mutilated and showed signs of torture. This system operated with the knowledge and support of the United States government through the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Department.J. Patrice McSherry, "Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System", Social Justice, Winter 1999 v26 i4.
The United States government has, at least since the Bush administration, used the tactic of legal rendition in which suspected terrorists were extradited to countries where they were to be prosecuted for crimes allegedly committed. In the "war on terror" this has evolved into extraordinary rendition, the delivery of prisoners or others recently captured, including terrorism suspects, to foreign governments known to practice torture are South Africa, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Afghanistan. Human rights activists have alleged that the practice amounts to kidnapping for the purpose of torture, or torture by proxy. A related practice is the operation of facilities for imprisonment, and it is widely believed torture, in foreign countries. In November 2005, the Washington Post reported — citing administration sources — that such facilities are operated by the CIA in Thailand (until 2004), Afghanistan, and several unnamed Eastern European countries.Dana Priest, "CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons", The Washington Post, 2 November 2005. Human Rights Watch reports that planes associated with rendition have landed repeatedly in Poland and Romania."Statement on U.S. Secret Detention Facilities in Europe", Human Rights Watch, 7 November 2005.
Recent instances of torture in selected countries
The use of torture is geographically widespread. A review by Amnesty International, which did not use the United Nations Convention Against Torture as its definition of torture, of its case files found "reports of torture or ill-treatment by state officials in more than 150 countries from 1997 to 2000". These reports described widespread or persistent patterns of abuse in more than 70 countries and torture-related deaths in more than 80."Denounce Torture" , Amnesty International.
Afghanistan
Torture has been reported in Afghanistan under each of its recent governments. Under Najibullah's Soviet-backed regime, beating and electric shocks were widely reported.Richard S. Ehrlich, "Psychiatric center treats victims of Afghanistan torture", The Washington Times, 11 April 1988. After the mujahidin victory, Afghanistan fell into a state of chaos, and, according to Amnesty International, "Torture of civilians in their homes has become endemic ... In almost every jail run by the armed political groups, torture is reported to be a part of the daily routine"."International responsibility for a human rights disaster" , Amnesty International, November 1995. > AI Index: ASA/11/09/95. The Taliban are likewise reported to have engaged in torture.Christina Lamb, "I was one of the Taliban's torturers: I crucified people", The Daily Telegraph, London, 30 September 2005. Since the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban, torture has been reported on several occasions, both by Afghan groups and by U.S. troops. In the Herat region, dominated by the warlord Ismail Khan, Human Rights Watch reported extensive torture in 2002."Afghanistan: Torture and Political Repression in Herat", Human Rights Watch, 5 November 2002. Torture by US troops has been alleged in news reports by The New York Times.Tim Golden, "In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths", The New York Times, 20 May 2005. In March 2008 the UK Ministry of Defence claimed that they and the Afghan army had uncovered a Taliban torture chamber where two individuals were believed to have been beaten."Coldstream Guards Find torture Chamber" , Ministry of Defence, 11 March 2008.
Albania Under Enver Hoxha's People's Socialist Republic of Albania, torture was widely used by police and prison camp guards. Since the fall of communism, Amnesty International has reported police abuses amounting to torture; the government says it has "made efforts to punish all acts of torture under the Albanian criminal justice system". In 2020 more than 3000 Albanians signed a petition accusing the government of Edi Rama of torture against the Muslim cleric Genci Balla who was isolated under the article 41-bis prison regime in solitary confinement and deprived of halal food.
Algeria According to Pierre Vidal-Naquet in "Torture; Cancer of Democracy" and "Les Damnees de la Terre" by Franz Fanon, torture was practiced endemically by the French forces, commanded by General Jacques Massu, bringing together the experience of "Les Paras" in the Indo-China War and German troops in the French Foreign Legion. One of the most notorious methods was the gegène, or generator, in which victims were tied down and electrocuted with a primitive device that delivered electric shocks to the genitalia.
Angola In Angola's 27-year civil war, according to Amnesty International, "many were tortured" by both sides."Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", U.N. Commission on Human Rights."Angola: A new cease-fire – a new opportunity for human rights" , Amnesty International USA, AI Index AFR 12/002/2002 – News Service Nr.60, 5 April 2002. Since that time, AI has also reported that "unarmed civilians are being extrajudicially executed and tortured""Angola: Extrajudicial executions and torture in Cabinda", Amnesty International Index: AFR 12/002/1998, 1 April 1998. in Angola's war against Cabindan separatists.
Argentina
During the so-called "Dirty War" carried out in the 1970s, in particular, but not only, by the military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, tens of thousands of Argentines were "disappeared" by the junta, many never to be seen again. The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons concluded:
In nearly all the cases brought to the attention of the Commission, the victims speak of acts of torture. Torture was an important element in the methodology of repression. Secret torture centres were set up, among other reasons, to enable the carrying out of torture to be carried out undisturbed.
Bahrain
Torture has been used frequently by the Bahraini government in the 20th century. Notable cases include that of Ian Henderson, a former colonial officer employed in Bahrain who was accused by multiple witnesses of torturing prisoners. Adel Flaifel, a notorious security officer identified by many detainees as having overseen torture, was given immunity under Royal Decree 56 of 2002. Between 1980 and 1998, nine people died in detention as a result of torture, with five more dying shortly after being released as a result of injuries sustained from torture. Reports released by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in the 1990s point to the widespread use of torture in Bahraini prisons.