A New Age in Torture?
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has stated that torture continues in Uzbekistan, particularly against those who try to oppose the government there (Jurist report). You may recall that Craig Murray last year spoke of the UK's quasi-complicity in torture in Uzbekistan.
Something pretty momentous is starting to happen around the world in this respect - whereas previously torture was condemned as absolutely prohibited regardless of the circumstances now it appears to be becoming almost common place. The discourses of emergency and terrorism around the world allow low level national conflicts or disputes to be reclassified as terrorist activities and, as a result, allow governments to try to justify their behaviour in torturing and ill-treating detainees. People wonder why human rights defenders and advocates are so concerned with the rising prominance of security discourse - this is why. It's not only about what's happening now. It's about what international law and relations are going to look like when they harden again.
Update Richard writes here about how the example of Uzbekistan doesn't tend to bear out the conclusions I have about torture. First of all I don't intend it to - it's more the springboard from which a thought arose. By 'this is why' I think it's quite clear (or maybe not and if not then apols) that I was referring to the sentence "The discourses of emergency and terrorism around the world allow low level national conflicts or disputes to be reclassified as terrorist activities and, as a result, allow governments to try to justify their behaviour in torturing and ill-treating detainees." which doesn't refer to Uzbekistan but is rather a general statement that can be supported by, for example, the Balochistan and Waziristan conflicts in Pakistan and the Uighur conflict in China.
Secondly it's impossible to prove whether there's more torture in the world now than before 2001 but it does appear to be condoned more (implictly that is) than before (Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi etc...).
One of the big problems for people concerned with what's going on in the world is that we can not be sure - none of us can be - of what the facts are and the scale of the facts because of the veil of secrecy that surrounds everything. That may be leading to people being over pessimistic and overestimating the amount of violatory behaviour or to people under over optimistic and underestimating it or to people being absoloutely right.
Obviously governments can't give out specific information - there are genuine security concerns to take into account - but generic information should be provided, e.g. 'there are detention centres in operation whose location have not yet been disclosed and there are ___ people in detention in these centres. ___ of them have been there for more than 12 months, ___ have been released, ___ have died in detention, ___ have suffered serious illness or injury' etc...
We can't have a democratic debate without the information - we can only think of the worst case scenario and try to prepare for it. Now there are significant indications that the US is carrying out torture and condoning/commissioning torture from other states so we have to theorise about what that means for the future if it's true. There's no point in waking up in 15 years having given them the benefit of the doubt and realising international law has changed to favour states and prejudice the individual without our being alert to it and trying to shape it. It's our job as the boring people who sit in rooms and write articles and books about international law and try not to drown in a pool of despair at how difficult legitimacy and rights and balance are in a unipolar world.
Something pretty momentous is starting to happen around the world in this respect - whereas previously torture was condemned as absolutely prohibited regardless of the circumstances now it appears to be becoming almost common place. The discourses of emergency and terrorism around the world allow low level national conflicts or disputes to be reclassified as terrorist activities and, as a result, allow governments to try to justify their behaviour in torturing and ill-treating detainees. People wonder why human rights defenders and advocates are so concerned with the rising prominance of security discourse - this is why. It's not only about what's happening now. It's about what international law and relations are going to look like when they harden again.
Update Richard writes here about how the example of Uzbekistan doesn't tend to bear out the conclusions I have about torture. First of all I don't intend it to - it's more the springboard from which a thought arose. By 'this is why' I think it's quite clear (or maybe not and if not then apols) that I was referring to the sentence "The discourses of emergency and terrorism around the world allow low level national conflicts or disputes to be reclassified as terrorist activities and, as a result, allow governments to try to justify their behaviour in torturing and ill-treating detainees." which doesn't refer to Uzbekistan but is rather a general statement that can be supported by, for example, the Balochistan and Waziristan conflicts in Pakistan and the Uighur conflict in China.
Secondly it's impossible to prove whether there's more torture in the world now than before 2001 but it does appear to be condoned more (implictly that is) than before (Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Saudi etc...).
One of the big problems for people concerned with what's going on in the world is that we can not be sure - none of us can be - of what the facts are and the scale of the facts because of the veil of secrecy that surrounds everything. That may be leading to people being over pessimistic and overestimating the amount of violatory behaviour or to people under over optimistic and underestimating it or to people being absoloutely right.
Obviously governments can't give out specific information - there are genuine security concerns to take into account - but generic information should be provided, e.g. 'there are detention centres in operation whose location have not yet been disclosed and there are ___ people in detention in these centres. ___ of them have been there for more than 12 months, ___ have been released, ___ have died in detention, ___ have suffered serious illness or injury' etc...
We can't have a democratic debate without the information - we can only think of the worst case scenario and try to prepare for it. Now there are significant indications that the US is carrying out torture and condoning/commissioning torture from other states so we have to theorise about what that means for the future if it's true. There's no point in waking up in 15 years having given them the benefit of the doubt and realising international law has changed to favour states and prejudice the individual without our being alert to it and trying to shape it. It's our job as the boring people who sit in rooms and write articles and books about international law and try not to drown in a pool of despair at how difficult legitimacy and rights and balance are in a unipolar world.
