Incidence Of Torture Research Articles

PELANGGARAN HAM PADA PERISTIWA PENYIKSAAN YANG BERUJUNG PADA TERBUNUHNYA DUA WARGA SIPIL DI PAPUA OLEH ANGGOTA TNI

So far, the results of the decisions at the Military Courts have not been able to bring a sense of justice to victims and the public and are far from human rights standards that exist as courts regulated in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and The Committee Against Torture which has been ratified by Indonesia . In this article, the author wants to examine more deeply the practice of human rights violations during the torture incident which led to the killing of two civilians in Papua by members of the indonesian army and also compare the application of due process to similar cases in other countries. The method used in this article is descriptive analytical with a normative juridical approach. Data collection techniques through literature study . The results show that the incidents of torture that led to the killing of two civilians in Papua by indonesian army members who are part of the gross human rights violations which are very regrettable are still occurring . Sadly, this case will later be tried only through military court. This raises concerns for many parties because it is prone to injustice on the part of the victim. For this reason, it is recommended that the indonesian army be able to transfer this legal process to the general court or human rights court so that equality is created between indonesian army members and ordinary citizens in a legal position in accordance with the principles of the rule of law as contained in the Constitution.

Confrontations and Limitations on the Freedom of Expression in Pakistan

The significance of the right to free speech is evident from the fact that the societies that curb and limit the freedom of expression are more prone to crimes and incidents of torture, ill-treatment and disappearances. Almost every state has imposed restrictions on the right to free speech on account of national security, defamation, religious hatred, extremism or radicalism. This article starts with the general discussion on the topic of free speech under the Pakistani laws and current regime. It examines the limitations on the freedom of speech under judicial interpretations. The article explores the confrontations in the context of defamation, blasphemy laws and contempt of court in Pakistan. It concludes that the limitations and restrictions imposed on the right to free speech must be clearly defined and reasonable.

Who Files Suit? Legal Mobilization and Torture Violations in Europe

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is the most active international court. After decades with few allegations of human rights abuses, the ECHR docket expanded in the 1990s. Paradoxically, long‐standing democracies can have standardized violation rates of the prohibition against torture that compare to transitional democracies that struggle to protect rights. Yet it is implausible that human rights abuses increased or that established democracies engage in more torture than new democracies. Instead variations in legal mobilization generate the surge and puzzling distribution of European judgments. I argue that discrepancies between the incidence of torture and litigation reflect variations in support structures, where declared violations can reflect the level of support that individuals receive in pursuing claims rather than the incidence of torture. This dynamic is most pronounced for foreign nationals, who typically possess fewer resources than citizens to access legal institutions and encounter popular and official hostility. As a result, much European litigation concerning torture in long‐standing democracies is transnational in character.

Counter-Terrorizing: The Use of Torture in Peru's Counterterrorism Campaign

In this article I identify and evaluate numerous reasons why torture became common practice during the state counterterrorism campaign in Peru between 1980 and 2000, despite international and domestic legal obligations to protect human rights. I describe common structural conditions, organizational factors, and individual-level explanations often associated with torture practices. I then identify seven logics and motivations behind torture use in counterterrorism campaigns. I describe and analyze actual torture use in Peru using quantitative incident-level data, and I provide descriptive statistics concerning variation in the frequency and methods of torture. Finally, I examine specific incidents of torture to illustrate and assess the different logics and motivations for torture. I draw heavily from testimonies collected by Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I also rely on personal interviews carried out during fieldwork in the Junín and Ayacucho regions of Peru. I find that aggregate torture incidents generally coincide with political developments and shifts in violence levels and that the various state security forces used torture differently. A review of testimonies regarding specific incidents of torture suggests that multiple logics motivate state security forces, even for a single incident of torture, complicating academic efforts to formulate a parsimonious causal explanation.

Traumatic Stories of Humiliation and Ill-Treatment in African American Biographies.

The evolution of the racial supremacy of whites against African Americans in US history has spanned over four hundred years. It has been documented in the lives of the innumerable people who participated in the class struggle against whites. The aspect of colour of skin, fragmented the societal norms and culture, had started off when US encouraged the import of Black slaves. This led to the formation of an invisible workforce supporting the nation. Brutality in the form of racial hatred has evolved to the finer nuances of abuse and harassment at every sphere of life in US against African Americans over the years, against men and women across the ages. Incidents of torture, rape, plunder and looting, denial of economic sustenance in the ‘land of free’ was a sort of mockery. This study will try to throw light on the different perspectives of the impact on African American society, their lives and a profession that has made their lives much different as espoused by the human rights commission. This opens up the debate of group abuse and ill treatment or the wider agenda of a personalized hatred as a result of ego gratification. Different perspectives of ill treatment, torture and humiliation which are hugely race specific was reported earlier. Many forms of these were not reported in the press but documented in biographies which illuminates our knowledge on what used to happen. Biographies reported both the racial discrimination and personal experience pertaining to the issue, that are evidences of how these pactices were executed. Legal help in judiciary was formulated as a fallout of relentless revolution against the white to help the African American community. The result led to modifications in the approach of hatred towards African Americans, in a more subtle form. Harassment in different forms evolved to match up the previous records of psychological humiliation inflicted on African Americans under the disguise of civilised societal norms. As the world has evolved through the ages, so has the societal norms and laws to exercise control, but the treatments African Americans underwent was different from what it used to be earlier. The history through biographies tells us now what to expect from an African American and white fallout, so with the legal aspect controlling the outcome, freedom of speech, actions of African Americans is still considered as a cherished dream. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n11p323

Interviewing by Law Enforcement Officials: The Need for an International Regulatory Framework and the Form This Might Take

This article acknowledges the important role of policing and the essential element of interviewing suspects during investigations. Despite the prohibition of torture there are frequent reports of breaches and these are often interview-related. International law is weak in this sphere and despite calls for strengthening no change has occurred. This article proposes a new non-treaty international instrument specifically aimed at regulating investigative interviews and a draft is offered. Whilst this does not guarantee protection, if adopted it is likely to discourage and reduce the incidence of torture, remove opportunity and provide for greater accountability.

THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND THE DETENTION OF REFUGEES

AbstractThe Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture entered into force on 22 June 2006. It establishes a Sub-Committee for the Prevention of Torture that has authority to visit places of detention and to assess the conditions of that detention as a way to reduce the incidence of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Additionally, States parties are required to set up complementary national preventive mechanisms. This article explores both how these mechanisms established under the Optional Protocol could operate in the context of the detention of refugees and/or asylum-seekers, which is an increasingly common occurrence in many parts of the world, as well as whether they add value to existing international mechanisms that are already available in this field. It examines the purported applicability of the Optional Protocol to four refugee/asylum situations, namely detention at airports and other border zones; immigration (or administrative) detention, including semi-open (or semi-closed) asylum centres; closed refugee camps; and extraterritorial processing or holding centres. Reviewing definitional, jurisdictional, and practical issues that may impact on the success or otherwise of these new preventive mechanisms, this article concludes by making a number of recommendations to aid their work in the refugee/asylum context.

Prevalence of mental disorders and torture among Bhutanese refugees in Nepal: a systemic review and its policy implications

The mass expulsion and exile of Bhutanese de facto refugees to displaced camps in Nepal represents one of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises. We aimed to summarize the impact of the long-term displacement on refugee mental illness using systematic review techniques, a methodology seldom used in the humanitarian field. In order to examine the impact among the population and the association between tortured refugees over non-tortured refugees, we searched 11 electronic databases from inception to 12 May 2006. We additionally contacted researchers at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and at the Centre for Victims of Torture, Kathmandu, and searched the websites of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Relief-Web, and the US State Department. We included any studies that use a pre-defined protocol to determine mental illness within this population. Six studies met our inclusion criteria. All were conducted amongst the Bhutanese populations residing in Nepalese refugee camps, and include a sub-sample of 2,331 torture survivors residing in the camps, identified in 1995. All studies report a dramatically high incidence of mental illness including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Both tortured and non-tortured participants reported elevated rates of mental illness. Our review indicates that the prevalence of serious mental health disorders within this population is elevated. The reported incidence of torture is a possible contributor to the illnesses. The use of systematic review techniques strengthens the inference that systematic human rights violations were levied upon this population and that they continue to suffer as a result. The international community must resolve this protracted crisis.

Ways of Death: Accounts of Terror from Angolan Refugees in Namibia

AbstractIn their accounts of the war in Angola, refugees from south-eastern Angola who now live in Rundu (Namibia) draw a distinction between warfare in the past and the events that happened in their region of origin after Angolan independence in 1975. Although they process their experiences through recounting history, these refugees maintain that the incidence of torture, mutilation and massive killing after 1975 has no precedent in the area's history and forms an entirely new development. This article investigates the reasons for this posited modernity of killing, torture and mutilation. The placement of the recent events outside local history is shown to represent an expression of outrage, anger and indignation at the army's treatment of the civilian population during the recent phase of the war. The outrage not only concerns the scale of the killing, torture and mutilation but is also linked with the issue of agency. The informants accuse UNITA army leaders in particular of wanton disregard for the lives and livelihood of their followers. They furthermore maintain that UNITA ordered ordinary soldiers to take part in killings which released powers the soldiers were unable to handle.

Ways of Death: Accounts of Terror from Angolan Refugees in Namibia

In their accounts of the war in Angola, refugees from south-eastern Angola who now live in Rundu (Namibia) draw a distinction between warfare in the past and the events that happened in their region of origin after Angolan independence in 1975. Although they process their experiences through recounting history, these refugees maintain that the incidence of torture, mutilation and massive killing after 1975 has no precedent in the area's history and forms an entirely new development. This article investigates the reasons for this posited modernity of killing, torture and mutilation. The placement of the recent events outside local history is shown to represent an expression of outrage, anger and indignation at the army's treatment of the civilian population during the recent phase of the war. The outrage not only concerns the scale of the killing, torture and mutilation but is also linked with the issue of agency. The informants accuse UNITA army leaders in particular of wanton disregard for the lives and livelihood of their followers. They furthermore maintain that UNITA ordered ordinary soldiers to take part in killings which released powers the soldiers were unable to handle.

Can Ethnographers Contribute to an Anti-Torture Movement in the Middle East?

Although campaigns for universal human rights have been intellectually and emotionally compelling for many anthropologists, they have tended to embroil them in fruitless polemics about cultural relativism with non-Western thinkers and policy-makers. Often “universalist” discourses about “rights” depend on values and distinctions that are far from universal and that stem, in fact, from Christian, secular, or “modernist” notions about punishment, suffering, and redemption. To make some practical contribution to the struggle for human dignity in the Middle East, it may be preferable to aim for a more limited goal: the abolition of torture in the region. Consensus about the illegitimacy of torture is more easily reached, since none of the Middle East's religious or philosophical traditions condone it. What is more, empirical data demonstrate that torture has increased in frequency in the region and is widely perceived, both by insiders and outsiders, as a growing problem. Ethnographers could play a role in documenting incidents of torture and in building coalitions of Middle Eastern and outsider activists who, working together, could expose torture and bring pressure to bear on those who inflict it.

Recent medical evidence for torture and human rights abuse in Sierra Leone: A report for the medical foundation for the care of victims of torture*

A study was carried out using the case notes of all Sierra Leoneans referred to the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture between 1996 and 1998 for medical reports. Data were abstracted on the type and extent of torture reported, and the cases were followed up to the present day to ascertain how long the United Kingdom asylum and immigration process had taken to process their claims. In the sample of 36 cases there were 68 reported incidents of torture or human rights abuse. Sixty‐nine per cent (18/26) of the women in the sample had been raped at least once, and 72% (26/36) of the sample had been beaten at least once. The average time for the minimum due process of the asylum claim to be processed was 44 months (3.7 years). On 31 January 1999, 61% of the sample (22 people) were still involved in the asylum process. Waiting times must be reduced and safeguards imposed so that those who have suffered torture can be rapidly identified and referred for medical treatment, care and documentation.