Day in Support of Victims of Torture
27 June 2008, 10:59AM
Amnesty International called on all states to eradicate the scourge of torture and all other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The call came on 26 June 2008, the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
This day marked the 21st anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted in 1984 for signature and ratification after long campaigning by Amnesty International and other organisations. A substantial majority of the world's states -- 145 in all regions – will now have ratified the Convention and a further eight states will have signed it. Its adoption has contributed to regional treaties prohibiting torture and torture has been included as a war crime and a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The Committee against Torture regularly reviews reports of states parties on the implementation of the Convention, making findings and recommendations to states on how to prevent and punish torture and provide reparations to victims. The Committee also examines individual complaints by victims alleging torture. During the past year, the Committee has issued a General Comment on Article 2 of the Convention, which among other things, in the Committee's words, requires states parties "to take actions that will reinforce the prohibition against torture through legislative, administrative, judicial, or other actions that must, in the end, be effective in preventing it." Article 2 also proscribes any justification for torture in any circumstances whatsoever. The Committee noted that it is "deeply concerned at and rejects absolutely any efforts by States to justify torture and ill-treatment as a means to protect public safety or avert emergencies in these and all other situations. Similarly, it rejects any religious or traditional justification that would violate this absolute prohibition." It added that "amnesties or other impediments which preclude or indicate unwillingness to provide prompt and fair prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of torture or ill-treatment violate the principle of non-derogability."
On 22 June 2006, the Optional Protocol to the Convention, which had been adopted on 18 December 2002, entered into force. To date, 33 states have signed the Protocol, and 35 have ratified or acceded to it. The Protocol authorises independent international experts to conduct regular visits to places of detention within states parties, and requires states parties to set up national mechanism to conduct visits to places of detention and to cooperate with the international experts. The past year has seen the first visits to states parties by the UN Sub-Committee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which also submitted to the UN Committee against Torture its first annual report.
The UN has appointed a Special Rapporteur on torture to address reports of torture and recommend actions by all states, whether they are parties to the Convention or not. The Human Rights Council has just welcomed the Special Rapporteur’s latest report and recommendations and renewed the mandate of Special Rapporteur on torture for a further three years.
The struggle to rid the world of torture and other ill-treatment continue to face serious challenges. These challenges include, first and foremost, the continued infliction, in many countries, of torture and other ill-treatment on detainees, prisoners and others. In police stations, prisons, military detention facilities, interrogation centres and other locations all around the world officials abuse the absolute power they have over defenceless persons deprived of their liberty and inflict pain on them, or else they allowed others to inflict such pain with impunity.
Amnesty International's annual reports depressingly show, year after year, that the dozens of states in the world still torture or ill-treat persons under their control. Amnesty International documented cases of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in more than 81 countries in 2007.
The struggle to enforce the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment continues to be challenged by states, groups and even academics who try to erode it by claiming, against all the evidence, that the prohibition is not absolute, that it does not extend to ill-treatment or that there are ways of reconciling an absolute prohibition with impunity for torturers. However, the Human Rights Council on 12 June 2008 squarely rejected this assertion, condemning
"all forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever and can thus never be justified, and calls upon all Governments to implement fully the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"
States must take their international obligations seriously. Those which have not ratified the Convention must do so. Those which have attached reservations weakening the Convention's protections must withdraw them. Those which have not allowed individual complaints to be considered by the Committee against Torture must now allow such complaints. Those which have not ratified the Optional Protocol must do so. States must also contribute generously to the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture.
At the national level, states must amend flawed implementing legislation and enact effective implementing legislation where none exists, and repeal any laws or practices which result in impunity for perpetrators of torture and other ill-treatment. They must provide training, establish special units of police and prosecutors to investigate reports of torture and to prosecute suspects, including on the basis of universal jurisdiction, or extradite them to states able to do so in fair trials without the death penalty or the risk of torture or ill-treatment. Indeed, they must never transfer anyone to any place where they would be at risk of torture or ill-treatment. They must establish independent, professional and adequately resourced national visiting mechanisms in accordance with the provisions of the Optional Protocol.
Torturers must not be allowed to get away with their crimes -- be they perpetrators, their civilian superiors or military commanders or the state as a whole. Victims must not be left to suffer – their torture must be stopped, their torturers punished, and their right to reparation ensured.
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