Torture

DEFINITIONS OF TORTURE

TYPES AND PURPOSE OF TORTURE

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF TORTURE

TREATMENT FOR VICTIMS OF TORTURE

RECOVERY FOR SURVIVORS OF TORTURE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

As media accounts and images of torture, trauma, disaster, and rape permeate our daily lives, it is difficult to ignore the impact such destruction wields on the social fabric in which we live. Individuals directly affected by this devastation, such as refugees, asylum seekers, IDPs (internally displaced people), and illegal immigrants, struggle to piece their lives back together after enduring unimaginable cruelty and violence. The cruel and violent acts witnessed and experienced by these individuals come in many forms, one of the most common being torture. Though the word torture is commonly used without restraint in everyday language, its use should be clearly differentiated from words for inhumane and degrading actions that may fail to match the true definition of “torture.”

DEFINITIONS OF TORTURE

The two most frequently cited definitions of torture are the World Medical Association’s (WMA) 1975 Declaration of Tokyo and the definition given by the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture.

The 1975 WMA Declaration defines torture as: “The deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason.” The 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture expands upon this definition, distinguishing the legal and political components typically associated with torture:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

Currently accepted definitions of torture have two essential elements: (1) Individuals are placed in captivity and subjected to extreme mental and physical suffering; and (2) the captors have a political goal or agenda. In this way, torture as a legal definition can be distinguished from criminal acts of violence.

TYPES AND PURPOSE OF TORTURE

The most common types of torture are summarized in Table 1. Torturers use these techniques to achieve several main goals. The most obvious intention of torture is breaking down an individual both physically and mentally (frequently for military or political purposes). Secondly, torturers seek to spread collective fear throughout a particular community or culture in which the victim lives. Finally, the torturer seeks to deeply humiliate the victim’s society and community. The goal of torture is essentially to render the victim nonhuman.

One important act of torture, for example, that has only recently been recognized as such is rape, a frequently used torture practice during periods of conflict and genocide. A group with a particular agenda often executes systematic or wanton rape and sexual violence knowing that the long-term effects of this experience will be devastating to both the individual and his or her community. However, rape was only recognized globally as an act of torture after the international appraisal of violence that occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda.

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF TORTURE

Knowledge of the types of torture described in Table 1 enables medical doctors, mental health professionals, and other health-care workers to assess the medical and psychological impact of torture and determine appropriate treatment. Until very recently, the psychological effects of torture have remained largely invisible. This is because of the combined effects of the difficulty of assessing mental symptoms in culturally diverse populations, the unsuccessful search by human-rights organizations for a unique “torture syndrome,” and the popular belief in some medical circles that extreme violence leads to the psychiatric diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD may be an appropriate diagnosis. However, this emphasis on PTSD has obscured the reality that the most common mental illness diagnosed in torture survivors is depression—often a serious and socially debilitating condition associated with serious medical consequences. While physical complaints in torture survivors are very common, usually these bodily complaints are the way people from various cultures express their pain and suffering.

Head injuries caused by beatings to the head with fists, clubs, or gun butts represent one of the most common physical effects of torture, leading to neuropsychological deficits that are rarely identified. Studies have shown that victims of all types of torture often experience persistent and pervasive sensory and memory deficits, cognitive impairment, chronic pain, and certain forms of motor impairment (as serious as paraplegia) as a result of their torture experience. Other more specific physical symptoms commonly reported include headaches, impaired hearing, gastrointestinal distress, and joint pain. Scars on the skin and bone dislocations and fractures are also typically observed.

Since sexual violence is a common form of torture, its effects, including increased risk for cervical cancer, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and AIDS, and a range of sexual dysfunction including impotence, must be identified and treated by medical professionals.

TREATMENT FOR VICTIMS OF TORTURE

Physicians and health-care providers throughout the world are frequently confronted with the need to identify and treat the physical and psychological impact of extreme violence and torture. It is estimated, for example, that 60 percent of individuals who seek asylum in the United States have been tortured, as have many refugees and migrant workers. A history of torture is common in various groups that have resettled in the United States and other countries during recent decades—Cambodians, Vietnamese “boat people,” and former Vietnamese prisoners of war (POW) who arrived in the 1980s; Central Americans who immigrated in the 1980s and 1990s; and recent arrivals from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and eastern Europe. Many newcomers enter the United States not only to find economic opportunities but also to escape violence and political instability at home.

Despite routine exposure to the suffering of victims of human brutality, many health-care professionals tend to be apprehensive about confronting this reality in their clinical work. Globally, clinicians often avoid addressing torture-related symptoms of illness, believing they will not have the tools or the time to help torture survivors once they have elicited their history. As a result of this resistance, survivors and clinicians may conspire to create a relationship founded on the avoidance of all discussion of trauma.

The most effective care for torture survivors must begin with awareness. Persons who have been tortured generally do not want to be treated simply as torture survivors. Rather, they prefer a holistic approach that addresses their current reality in a culturally sensitive way. Many characteristics of the patient’s background provide clues that torture may have occurred. As health-care practitioners become more empowered to ask questions such as, “Have you experienced extreme violence or torture?,” it becomes easier to identify and treat the pathological symptoms of such trauma.

Torture survivors often do not recognize any relationship between the torture and current medical problems they may be experiencing. When asked about specific events, patients are usually grateful that the clinician is aware of what they have suffered, is interested in their history, and is encouraging them to talk about their story. Though clinicians often fear a patient’s reaction to questions about torture, patients rarely become emotionally overwhelmed or lose control when such questions are asked. Some torture survivors, especially victims of sexual violence, may have been hiding their history out of feelings of shame or fear of stigmatization, and thus be grateful to talk to someone who cares. Others may come from cultures in which physicians are not expected to be interested in patient’s personal history.

RECOVERY FOR SURVIVORS OF TORTURE

Many torture survivors recover from torture with the help of spiritual and religious practices, work, and altruistic activities that benefit themselves, their families, and their communities. These self-healing efforts need to be strongly supported by society and its health-care and mental health–care institutions. Human beings are incredibly resistant to even the most horrifying acts of human cruelty. While the majority of torture survivors recover without professional help, some do not. It has been shown that these individuals can greatly profit from proper medical and mental health care that will facilitate their return to a normal life.

A broad range of individual treatments exist that include primary health care, physical rehabilitation of torture-related disabilities, and psychological interventions aimed at eliminating traumatic memories, nightmares and chronic depression. Healing of torture survivors is also maximized when governments and the international community acknowledge the injustice they have suffered (e.g., the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa).

SEE ALSO Guantánamo Bay; Interrogation; Justice; Post-Traumatic Stress; Refugees; Reparations; Resiliency; Restitution Principle; Sexual Harassment; Terrorism; Trauma; Traumatic Bonding; Violence; Vulnerability; War

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. 2002. Geneva, Switzerland: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/6/cat/treaties/opcat.htm

Goldfield, Anne E., Richard F. Mollica, Barbara H. Pesavento, et al. 1988. The Physical and Psychological Sequelae of Torture: Symptomatology and Diagnosis. Journal of the American Medical Association 259: 2725–2729.

Krug, Etienne G., James A. Mercy, Linda L. Dahlberg, and Anthony B Zwi, eds. 2002. World Report on Violence and Health. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/en/introduction.pdf

Mollica, Richard F. 2000. Invisible Wounds: Waging a New Kind of War. Scientific American 282: 54–57.

Mollica, Richard F. 2004. Surviving Torture. New England Journal of Medicine 351: 5–7.

Mollica, Richard F. 2006. Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.

Quiroga, Jose, and James M. Jaranson. 2005. Politically-Motivated Torture and Its Survivors: A Desk Study Review of the Literature. Torture 15 (2–3): 1–111.

Richard F. Mollica

Daniel Hovelson

torture In a broad sense, torture might be regarded as any instance in which pain is inflicted by one human being on another, either for personal gratification or to demonstrate power. But historically torture has most often been defined more narrowly, as an aspect of legal systems or of state repression. The third century Roman jurist, Ulpian, noted that by torture ‘we are to understand the torment and suffering of the body in order to elicit the truth’, and much the same definition was offered by Article 1 of the Declaration against Torture adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1975: ‘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 on a person for such purposes of obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he committed, or intimidating him or other persons.’

Viewed in this way, torture has a long history. It was part of the judicial practice in a number of ancient cultures, notably among the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Among the Romans it was reserved mainly for the investigation of treason or of criminal acts perpetrated by slaves or other persons of low status. What has been termed judicial torture probably fell into at least partial disuse after the fall of the Roman Empire, but it returned in Western and Central Europe when interest in Roman Law revived during the ‘judicial revolution’ of the twelfth century. More specifically, a papal ruling of 1215 which denied the validity of the ordeal as a means of establishing proof in criminal trials left those running Europe's legal systems with the problem of how to prove that suspects were guilty. Most states adopted the notion that a confession was the best form of proof, and adopted torture as a means of gaining confessions as well as information which might implicate other persons. Torture also became part of the judicial repertoire of the Inquisition. In theory, and frequently in practice, the application of torture was subjected to set rules aimed at avoiding the infliction of excessive suffering. More specifically, torture was only to be used against persons against whom there were already strong presumptions of guilt; it was not to be used against children, pregnant women, or the aged and infirm; examining judges were not meant to shape confessions through leading questions; and, of course, in the Christian West torturing was did not take place on Sundays. Preferred forms of judicial torture were the rack, the strappado (which involved binding the arms together behind the suspect's back, and then lifting him by a rope secured to his hands and slung over a beam), thumbscrews, and irons designed to crush the legs.

Cross-cultural studies reveal that torture was used in a number of extra-European states. In Japan, for example, torture was used from a very early date to extract confessions, and from the beginning of the Tokugawa period in the seventeenth century the Japanese seem to have used something very like the strappado. Some legal systems were opposed to judicial torture. Islamic law rejected the use of coercion to gain confession, although the authorities in the Ottoman Empire frequently ignored this.

The abolition of torture as a part of criminal trial process occurred over most of Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century, and has usually been regarded as a symbol of the arrival of Enlightenment values. More recent scholarship has suggested that the emergence of forms of secondary punishment which made the former stress on the confession redundant may also have been at play, along with other changes in criminal process. Yet it is certainly true that nineteenth-century liberals regarded the abolition of torture as one of the major achievements of European culture, something which distinguished their rational and progressive world from the brutal past. Thus the entry on torture in the famous eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 1911, could congratulate itself that ‘the whole subject is now one of only historical interest as far as Europe is concerned’.

Sadly, twentieth-century developments shattered such complacency. Both Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany experienced a massive upsurge in torture, with the greater morality of the need to defend the Revolution or the State relegating other forms of morality to a secondary position. Since 1945 torture has been widely used in many parts of the world, notably in such South American States as Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and, under General Pinochet, in Chile, along with South Africa and Turkey. In such areas, torture has become one of the standard methods by which regimes have supported themselves, usually with a lack of control or supervision which would have been unthinkable in medieval Europe. The rack and the strappado have been rendered obsolete by electric shocks to the genitals, the use of electric cattle prods, regular beatings, cigarette burns, the insertion of police truncheons and similar objects in the anus or vulva, threat of rape or rape itself, and sophisticated psychological torments, applied to persons suspected of political deviance in a large number of states. Amnesty International has estimated that a third of the political regimes currently in existence use torture on a regular basis. The preface of that organization's 1973 Report on Torture commented that ‘torture has virtually become a worldwide phenomenon and that the torturing of citizens regardless of sex, age, or state of health in an effort to retain political power is a practice encouraged by some governments and tolerated by others in an increasingly large number of countries.’

As an historical phenomenon, torture, apart from those occasions when it has simply been treated as a symbol of past brutality, has been most studied in its legal aspects, and there has been little attempt to integrate it into the history of the body. Obviously, however, it does raise questions about how physical pain and suffering were regarded, and hence how one human being might regard the body of another. At least initially, medieval codes regulating torture held that persons who refused to confess under torture had removed the presumptions of guilt against them, and long before the eighteenth century European critics of judicial torture were arguing that torture was more likely to reveal individual tolerance of pain rather than encourage accurate confessions. Thus the English legal writer Sir John Fortescue, in De Laudibus Legum Anglie, a treatise probably composed around 1470, asked ‘who is so hardy that, having once passed through this atrocious torment, would not rather, though innocent, confess to every kind of crime, than submit again to the agony of torture?’ (The English common law, which Fortescue was praising, did not use torture as a part of normal criminal process.)

This theme was taken up in the mid eighteenth century, with the arrival of the Enlightenment. The most noted Enlightenment writer on crime and punishment was the Italian Cesare Beccaria, who published his influential Dei Delitti e delle Pene (On Crimes and Punishments) in 1764. Beccaria discussed torture at length, giving a number of reasons why it should be abolished, some humanitarian, others returning to a discussion of what torture was actually testing. Using contemporary notions about sensitivity to pain, Beccaria argued that ‘the impression of pain may become so great that, filling the entire sensory capacity of the tortured person, it leaves him free only to choose what for the moment is the shortest way to escape from pain … the sensitive innocent man will then confess himself guilty when he believes that, by so doing, he can put an end to his torment.’ Conversely, argued Beccaria, ‘robust scoundrels’, although guilty, would not crack under torture. This line of argument became axiomatic in Enlightenment critiques of judicial torture.

There is currently a growing corpus of studies of the effects of torture, both physical and psychological, upon those who have suffered it in the modern world, and such studies might offer perspectives on how a wider history of torture might be written. What is perhaps most needed, however, is some sort of insight into how torturers regarded those upon whom they were inflicting pain. It seems likely that in many cases the torturer would regard torture as a necessary evil, vital in either defending a regime or expediting a criminal process, or might regard the person being tortured as a creature so deviant as not to merit consideration as a fellow human. Yet it remains clear that the practice of torture does hold some clues, as yet largely uninvestigated, to past attitudes towards the human body.

J. A. Sharpe

Bibliography

Peters, E. (1985). Torture. Blackwell, Oxford and New York.

torture the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering in order to intimidate, coerce, obtain information or a confession, or punish. In international law, the term is usually further restricted to actions committed by persons acting in an official capacity.

The UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which came into force in 1987 and to which more than two thirds of the world's nations are parties, bans torture and other abusive treatment of any person, as well as forcibly transferring a person to a nation when there is reason to believe that the person will be tortured. Parties to the treaty must periodically report and answer questions on their compliance before the Committee against Torture in Geneva. The convention restates much of an earlier General Assembly declaration (1975), and the earlier Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966; in force, 1976) also banned torture. In addition, agreements sponsored by regional international organizations also forbid the practice, as do the Geneva Conventions. Despite these international agreements, Amnesty International indicated (2007) that there were reports of the use of torture or other forms of abuse by security or police forces in 102 nations in 2006.

The utility of torture in obtaining useful information from individuals is a matter of debate, and the arguments on both sides rely on anecdotal evidence. Torture is most often justified, even by those who oppose its use generally, in situations where interrogators seek to obtain information from a suspect who has knowledge of an imminent and devastating attack. Whether a terror suspect who had knowledge of a "ticking timebomb" would divulge any useful information under torture likely depends on the psychology of the suspect. That tortured individuals divulge false information is known to be true, and an instance of this was reported to have contributed to the Bush administration's belief that Iraq had helped train militant Islamic terrorists. Studies also have shown that extreme stress can detrimentally affect memory, suggesting that torture, especially if prolonged, might in fact impair recall.

The United States, which regularly denounces the use of torture and abuse internationally in the State Dept.'s well-regarded Human Rights Reports, found itself the object of international criticism when, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Justice Dept. and other administration legal officials construed international strictures against torture narrowly so as to expand the harsh techniques that could be used, especially by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), when interrogating suspected terrorists. Defense Dept. officials asserted (2003) that, as commander in chief, the president was not bound by the international commitments the United States had made concerning the use of torture and could approve any technique that would protect national security. U.S. government officials also argued that harsh treatment was not torture if an interrogator did not intend to torture a prisoner. Some have contended that such arguments directly contributed to reported abuses of terror suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base and to notorious abuses of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison. The United States also has transferred lesser terror suspects for detention and interrogation to countries where those suspects were citizens even when those countries were listed in State Dept. reports as using torture, although U.S. officials ostensibly have obtained guarantees against the use of torture in such cases.

U.S. officials subsequently (2004) issued guidelines that called torture abhorrent and retreated on many points from earlier memorandums, but it remained unclear to what degree Bush administration considered the CIA to be bound by U.S. law and international agreements. Revelations concerning Bush administration memorandums and practices led Senator John McCain , who had himself been tortured while a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, to seek (2005) legislation banning cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of terror suspects in U.S. custody, no matter where they are held. It was reported in 2007 that in 2005 the Justice Dept. secretly approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics, including simulated drowning ( "waterboarding" ), by the CIA. In 2009 it was reported that that the treatment of at least one person held at Guantánamo Bay had met the legal definition of torture and that a secret 2007 International Committee of the Red Cross report had concluded that CIA treatment of some detainees constituted torture. In 2008 President Bush vetoed legislation that would have required the CIA to adhere to U.S. army interrogation standards, but in 2009 President Obama banned any methods that could be considered torture.

Bibliography: See K. J. Greenberg and J. L. Dratel, ed., The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (2005); D. Rejali, Torture and Democracy (2007); J. Jaffer and A. Singh, Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (2007); A. M. Dershowitz, Is There a Right To Remain Silent?: Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment After 9/11 (2008); M. Cohn, ed., The United States and Torture (2011); R. M. Palitto, ed., Torture and State Violence in the United States (2011).

torture has been an occasional feature of the Irish legal system since the 13th century. An English statute of 1275 later extended to the lordship of Ireland authorized strict imprisonment and a diet of bread and water to bring pressure on criminal defendants who refused to plead in answer to charges made against them. This later developed (as in England) into peine forte et dure: the pressing of such defendants to death by loading weights on their chests. This continued until the later 18th century. In the mid‐15th century the use of torture by rack and other devices began to be authorized in England, particularly but not exclusively against those suspected of political and later also of religious offences. The purpose was not to gain confessions but to acquire information about confederates. It was used for a similar purpose in Ireland in 1584 against the Catholic archbishop of Cashel, Dermot O'Hurley, with the authority of the English privy council, but seems then to have been a novelty. Flogging and other methods were widely used, though with no statutory basis, to extract information from United Irishmen and other suspects in the period preceding the insurrection of 1798. Some of the methods used following the introduction of internment in Northern Ireland were found in 1978 by the European Court of Human Rights to have amounted to ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ but not torture.

Paul Brand

torture. In his important work De laudibus legum Angliae, Chief Justice Fortescue (c.1385–1477/9) describes torture as being foreign to English law, which he praised in comparison with the civil law of the European continent. Certainly torture was a feature of the civil law system and was used to discover truth where an inquisitorial form of trial was used. However, although not used by the common law courts, it was used by the council when investigating offences and, particularly in the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the use of torture, notably the use of the rack, was common. Torture was also occasionally used by the Court of Star Chamber. Although the common law itself did not use torture as a means of obtaining evidence, it did in practice torture those who refused to accept trial by jury under the peine forte et dure. Torture was permitted under Scottish law, but was abolished immediately after the Union by 7 Anne c. 21 s. 5 (1708).

Maureen Mulholland

tor·ture / ˈtôrchər/ • n. the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. ∎  great physical or mental suffering or anxiety: the torture I've gone through because of loving you so. ∎  a cause of such suffering or anxiety: dances were absolute torture because I was so small. • v. [tr.] inflict severe pain on: most of the victims had been brutally tortured. ∎  cause great mental suffering or anxiety to: he was tortured by grief. DERIVATIVES: tor·tur·er n.

torture Infliction of pain on a person to extract information, a confession or to indulge sadistic inclinations. It has been practised in many cultures. Until the 18th century in Europe, it was considered a legitimate means of extracting a legal confession to a crime. The 1949 Geneva Convention included a clause against torture. Despite this, the use of torture has continued. There has been increasing recognition of “psychological torture”, in which disorientation, fear and loss of sleep and self-respect are used instead of or in addition to the simple application of physical pain.

torture In his important work De laudibus legum Angliae, Chief Justice Fortescue (c. 1385–1477/9) describes torture as being foreign to English law, which he praised in comparison with the civil law of the European continent. However, although not used by the common law courts, it was used by the council when investigating offences, particularly in the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Torture was permitted under Scottish law, but was abolished after the Union by 7 Anne c. 21 s. 5 (1708).

646. Torture

1. Marsyas flute player who challenges Apollo, loses, and is flayed alive for his presumption. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Dictionary, 588]
2. St. Bartholomew martyr flayed alive before being crucified. [Hagiog.: Collier’s, III, 77]

torture sb. XVI. — (O)F. torture or late L. tortūra twisting, writhing, torment, f. tort-; see prec.,
-URE. Hence vb. XVI.

torture •botcher, gotcha, top-notcher, watcher, wotcha •imposture, posture •firewatcher • birdwatcher •debaucher, scorcher, torture •Boucher, voucher •cloture, encroacher, poacher, reproacher •jointure • moisture •cachucha, future, moocher, smoocher, suture •butcher •kuccha, scutcher, toucher •structure •culture, vulture •conjuncture, juncture, puncture •rupture • sculpture • viniculture •agriculture • sericulture •arboriculture • pisciculture •horticulture • silviculture •subculture • counterculture •aquaculture • acupuncture •substructure • infrastructure •candidature • ligature • judicature •implicature •entablature, tablature •prelature • nomenclature • filature •legislature • musculature •premature • signature • aperture •curvature •lurcher, nurture, percher, searcher