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Torture is systematic in many parts of the world despite the international agreements that forbid it and despite the many denials from governments that use it. It is often used to gain information, to force confessions, to intimidate others and to punish and terrorize.
Amnesty International opposes torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of all prisoners without reservation. It calls on governments to implement the provisions of the United Nations Declarations on the Protection of All Persons from Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. This declaration includes a universal ban against torture and stipulates that governments are responsible for investigating torture allegations, instituting criminal proceedings in torture cases and compensating the victims. Work is also underway to promote international mechanisms to prevent torture, such as independent international inspection of detention centres. Amnesty International has launched a 12-Point Program for the Prevention of Torture that includes measures that could be taken by all governments to halt the torture of prisoners. The full text of the Program follows.
Torture is a fundamantal violation of human rights, condemned by the General Assembly of the United Nations as an offence to human dignity and prohibited under national and international law.
Yet torture persists, daily and across the globe. In Amnesty International's experience, legislative prohibition is not enough. Immediate steps are needed to confront torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment wherever they occur and to eradicate them totally.
Amnesty International calls on all governments to implement the following 12-Point Program for the Prevention of Torture. It invites concerned individuals and organizations to join in promoting the program. Amnesty International believes that the implementation of these measures is a positive indication of a government's commitment to abolish torture and to work for its abolition worldwide.
1. Official condemnation of torture The highest authorities of every country should demonstrate their total opposition to torture. They should make clear to all law enforcement personnel that torture will not be tolerated under any circumstances.
2. Limits on incommunicado detention Torture often takes place while the victims are held incommunicado- unable to contact people outside who could help them or find out what is happening to them. Governments should adopt safeguards to ensure that incommunicado detention does not become an opportunity for torture. It is vital that all prisoners be brought befor a judicial authority promptly after being taken into custody and that relatives, lawyers and doctors have prompt and regular access to them.
3. No secret detention In some countries torture takes place in secret centres, often after the victims are made to "disappear". Governments should ensure that prisoners are held in publicly recognized places, and that accurate information about their whereabouts is made available to relatives and lawyers.
4. Safeguards during interrogation and custody Governments should keep procedures for detention and interrogation under regular review. All prisoners should be promptly told of their rights, including the right to lodge complaints about their treatment. There should be regular independent visits of inspection to places of detention. An important safeguard against torture would be the seperation of authorities responsible for detention from those in charge of interrogation.
5. Independent investigation of reports of torture Governments should ensure that all complaints and reports of torture are impartially and effectively investigated . The methods and findings of such investigations should be made public. Complainants and witnesses should be protected from intimidation.
6. No use of statements extracted under torture Governments should ensure that confessions or other evidence obtained under torture may never be invoked in legal proceedings.
7. Prohibition of torture in law Governments should ensure that acts of torture are punishable offences under the criminal law. In accordance with international law, the prohibition of torture must not be suspended under any circumstances, including states of war or other public emergency.
8. Prosecution of alleged torturers Those responsible for torture should be brought to justice. The principle should apply wherever they happen to be, wherever the crime was committed and whatever the nationality of the perpetrators or victims. There should be no "safe haven" for torturers.
9. Training procedures It should be made clear during the training of all officials involved in the custody, interrogation or treatment of prisoners that torture is a criminal act. They should be instructed that they are obliged to disobey any order to torture.
10. Compensation and rehabilitation Victims of torture and their dependants should be entitled to obtain financial compensation. Victims should be provided with appropriate medical care and rehabilitation.
11. International response Governments should use all available channels to intercede with governments accused of torture. Intergovernmental mechanisms should be established and used to investigate reports of torture urgently and to take effective action against it. Governments should ensure that military, security or police transfers or training do not facilitate the practice of torture.
12. Ratification of international instruments All governments should ratify international instruments containing safeguards and remedies against torture, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights and its Optional Protocol which provides for individual complaints.
The 12-Point Program was adopted by Amnesty International in October 1983 as part of the organization's Campaign for the Abolition of Torture.
Whenever there are substantial fears that a prisoner may be tortured immediate appeals can be sent to the authorities. Officials may be urged to guarantee the prisoner's safety, allow access by lawyers and relatives and provide medical care. Doctors may be included in Amnesty International missions in order to help investigate torture allegations by interviewing prisoners or former prisoners. Aftercare and rehabilitation for torture victims is another concern of Amnesty International, once such people are released from custody.
Amnesty International opposes both "torture" and other "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners. Both are specifically prohibited, without exception, in international law.
"Torture" is defined in the United Nations Declaration against torture as follows:
1. For the purpose of this Declaration, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official or a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or her or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other persons. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or accidental to, lawful sanctions to the extent consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
2. Torture constitutes an aggravated and deliberate form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Amnesty International tries to act against torture in all individual cases where it has reliable information and where it is possible to do so in a practical way. It works against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment only where the practice constitutes a pattern- individual cases are taken up as a means of illustrating general problems and contributing to the setting of improved standards for the treatment of prisoners. In the cases of prisoners of conscience Amnesty International's approach is broader. Since the organization opposes their imprisonment, it criticizes any aspect of their treatment or conditions that imposes additional hardship on them.
The pain and suffering experienced by prisoners need not only result from deliberate force inflicted on them. For example, Amnesty International has taken up the cases of detainees suffering from acute medical conditions requiring treatment who have been systematically deprived of care in order to punish them or force a confession from them.
In deciding whether a particular instance or pattern of treatment comes within Amnesty International's field of action, the organization considers the following questions, among others:
• Is the practice prohibited by international standards such as the United Nations Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners? (For example, keeping prisoners in darkened cells is forbidden.)
• Is the treatment or punishment applied for prolonged periods or repeatedly in such a way as to cause severe pain or suffering to the individual prisoners? (For example, solitary confinement, deprivation of exercise or use of handcuffs may be permissible for short periods but once prolonged may become cruel treatment, regardless of the authorities' intentions.)
• Does the treatment cause mental or physical damage to the prisoners?
• Is a particular procedure or set of prison conditions deliberately used by the authorities to inflict suffering? In seeking to assess this, Amnesty International pays attention to whether or not particular prisoners are intentionally discriminated against, or whether there is other evidence of intent to inflict suffering. It may, however, regard a policy of negligence, even in the absence of evidence of intention to inflict suffering, as amounting to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
Amnesty International is not a penal reform organization, nor does it seek to duplicate the efforts of other bodies more specifically concerned with prison inspection. In the course of its regular work, however, it frequently asks that prisoners be held in proper conditions as set forth in the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. In the case of prisoners of conscience, whom Amnesty International believes should be immediately and unconditionally released, the organization may seek improvements, where necessary, in any aspect of their prison conditions and treatment. Amnesty International does this as a consequence of its stand that these people should not be in prison at all.
Many prisoners are kept in overcrowded, filthy and grossly inadequate conditions. Prisoners are vulnerable and are often exposed to harsh conditions or poor treatment in many places around the world. When prison conditions amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and affect detainees other than prisoners of conscience, Amnesty International may raise the issue in general terms in order to contribute to the setting of improved standards for the treatment of prisoners. However, this is not normally a matter to which Amnesty International is able to devote its own limited resources; it relies on those bodies specialized in dealing with prison conditions to tackle the problem internationally.
