(Download) "Torture on the Road to Freedom (Commentary)" by Arena Journal * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Torture on the Road to Freedom (Commentary)
- Author : Arena Journal
- Release Date : January 01, 2004
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 164 KB
Description
Publication of photographs taken by US soldiers of gross ill-treatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison raises important questions about the growing use of torture around the world. This is despite the fact that the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading Treatment or Punishment has been signed by almost all states and reaffirmed in recent regional conventions on specific forms of human rights abuse and cruelty. (1) Depressingly, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented an increase in torture over the last decade. As the 2003 Amnesty International Report comments, 'governments around the world [have] appeared to take on board the message that human rights standards could be jettisoned in times of emergency'. (2) The US government reaction to the Abu Ghraib photographs has been to justify the 'harsh interrogation' of detainees in order to save innocent American lives, to deny that these interrogation techniques amount to torture, and to hold responsible a few low ranking individuals presently being prosecuted before US military courts. For Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the interrogation methods were not torture: 'My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe is technically different from torture ... and therefore I'm not going to address the "torture" word'. (3) This word has been removed from the US government's lexicon because, as President Bush has declared, these images 'do not represent America'. (4)