WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2014

US flying aircraft over Nigeria in hunt for girls

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TEPALCATEPEC: Assault rifles to be delivered to the newly created rural police, in Tepalcatepec, Michoacan State, Mexico are seen. — AFP

LONDON: Torture is rampant across theworld and has become almost normalizedby the “war on terror” and its glamorousportrayal in shows such as “24” and“Homeland”, Amnesty International saidon Tuesday. The London-based humanrights group is launching a new campaignaimed at ending torture, which it saysremains widespread even 30 years after ablanket prohibition was agreed by theUnited Nations. In the past five years,Amnesty says it has recorded incidents in141 countries, including 79 of the 155 sig-natories to the 1984 UN Conventionagainst Torture.

The global survey of 21,000 people in21 countries also revealed a widespreaddread of the practise, with 44 percent say-ing they feared being abused if they weretaken into custody. Yet over a third percentof the respondents said they believed tor-ture was sometimes necessary and accept-able to gain information that may protectthe public. “It’s almost become normal-ized, it’s become routine,” Amnesty secre-tary general Salil Shetty told reporters atthe launch of the “Stop Torture” campaignin London.

“Since the so-called war against terror-ism, the use of torture, particularly in theUnited States and their sphere of influ-ence... has got so much more normalizedas part of national security expectations.”Support for torture ranged widely acrossnations, from 74 percent in China andIndia, to just 12 percent in Greece and 15percent in Argentina, the GlobeScan sur-vey found. In Britain, which had the lowestfear of torture among all the countries, 29percent backed its use-a fact Amnestycountry director Kate Allen attributed tothe popularity of violent, spy-based TVshows. “Programs like ‘24’ and ‘Homeland’have glorified torture to a generation, but

there’s a massive difference between adramatic depiction by screenwriters andits real-life use by government agents intorture chambers,” she said.

‘They get away with it’ Amnesty won the Nobel Peace prize in

1977 largely because of its work fightingagainst torture, and the new two-year cam-paign is an attempt to revisit one of its coreissues. The group notes how the UNConvention made torturers “internationaloutlaws” and prompted governmentsworldwide to denounce the practice. But itwarns that in reality many are endorsing orat least failing to tackle the issue head-on.

It described police brutality in Asia,where torture is a “fact of life”, and pointedout that more than 30 countries in Africahave yet to make such abuse punishableby law. Shetty spoke of “the cruelty ofinmates in the United States being held insolitary confinement with no light”, ofstoning and flogging in the Middle Eastand of the “stubborn failure” of Europeannations to investigate allegations of com-plicity in torture. The new campaign focus-es on five countries where torture is a par-ticular problem and where the NGObelieves it can have the most impact:Mexico, the Philippines, Morocco andWestern Sahara, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.

Loretta Ann P. Rosales, who was torturedunder the Marcos regime in the Philippinesin 1976 and now leads that country’shuman rights commission, said there wereseveral reasons why torture continued. Itwas seen as a shortcut to get confessionsfrom detainees, a tool of corruption or aninstrument of repression, and came from aprioritization of “the need for state securityover human security”, she told reporters.Shetty said in many instances it was simple:“People get away with it.”

‘Govts have broken promises’Amnesty is calling on governments to

prevent torture by providing medical andlegal access for prisoners and betterinspection of detention centers. But it alsowants an end to the impunity that exists inmany places, urging independent investi-gations of allegations of torture.“Governments have broken their promises,and because of these broken promisesmillions of people have suffered terribly,”Shetty said. Concern about torture is high-est in Brazil and Mexico, where 80 percentand 64 percent of people respectively saidthey would not feel safe from torture ifarrested, and lowest in Australia andBritain, at 16 and 15 percent each, the pollshowed.

“Although governments have prohibit-ed this dehumanizing practice in law andhave recognized global disgust at its exis-tence, many of them are carrying out tor-ture or facilitating it in practice”, Amnestysaid in a new report. Of the more than21,000 people in 21 countries surveyed forAmnesty by GlobeScan, 44 percent saidthey would not feel safe from torture ifarrested in their home country.

Four out of five wanted clear laws toprevent torture and 60 percent overallsupported the idea that torture is not justi-fied under any circumstances - though amajority of people surveyed in China andIndia felt it could sometimes be justified.Amnesty said 155 countries have ratifiedthe 30-year-old United Nation ConventionAgainst Torture which was started 30 yearsago but many governments were still“betraying their responsibility”.

Respect the rule of law“Three decades from the convention

and more than 65 years after the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights torture is notjust alive and well. It is flourishing,” readAmnesty’s report “Torture in 2014 - 30Years of Broken Promises”. Amnesty said ithad received reports of torture being usedin more 140 countries and the report gaveexamples from countries ranging fromNigeria to Mexico and the Ukraine.

In August 2012, Mexican marines brokeinto Claudia Medina’s home in Veracruzand took her to the local navy base whereshe was given electric shocks, forced toinhale a very spicy sauce and wrapped inplastic while beaten up, Medina said.

She denied the charge of being amember of a criminal gang but was forcedto sign a confession she had not evenread. “If they had not tortured me, I wouldnot have signed the statement,” Medinawas quoted as saying in the report. InJanuary 2014, Ukrainian police detainedand tortured 23-year-old computer pro-grammer Vladislav Tsilytskiy after protestsin Kiev which led to the overthrow of thepro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich,according to another case cited byAmnesty.

His hospital report l isted injuriesincluding “skull and facial fractures, includ-ing of the eye socket; concussion andbruising, including around the neck”.“Rather than respecting the rule of lawthrough zero-tolerance of torture, govern-ments persistently and routinely lie aboutit to their own people and to the world,”Amnesty said. — Agencies

Torture spreading as ‘glorified’ by TV: Amnesty

In 21-country poll, 44 percent fear torture in detention

BAGHDAD: Militants unleashed a wave ofcar bombings in Iraq yesterday, killing atleast 34 people and sending thick, blacksmoke into the Baghdad skies in a show offorce meant to intimidate the majorityShiites as they marked what is meant to bea joyous holiday for their sect. The attackscame nearly two weeks after Iraqis castballots in the country’s first parliamentaryelection since the US military withdrawalin 2011. No preliminary results have yetbeen released, deepening a sense ofuncertainty in a country strained by aresurgence of violence.

It was the deadliest day in Iraq sinceApril 28, when militant strikes on pollingstations and other targets killed 46. Nogroup immediately claimed responsibili-ty for yesterday’s attacks, most of whichhit Baghdad during morning rush hour,but they were most likely the work of theAl-Qaeda offshoot known as the IslamicState in Iraq and the Levant.

The militant group, made up of SunniMuslim extremists, has strengthenedcontrol over parts of western Iraq sincelate December. It seeks to undermine theShiite Muslim-led government’s efforts tomaintain security across the country.Coordinated car bomb attacks againstShiites, whom it considers heretics, are

one of its favorite tactics.All of yesterday’s blasts were caused

by explosives-laden vehicles parked inpublic areas. A short while later, a carbomb exploded in a commercial streetin the capital’s eastern district of Jamila,killing three people and wounding 10.Police said a fourth car bomb went offnear a traffic police office in easternBaghdad, killing four people andwounding seven. Juice shop ownerHaithem Kadhum was rushing home toSadr City to check on his family afterhearing of the attacks when he wasstruck by the explosion in Jamila. Flyingshrapnel struck him in the shoulder.

“I got out of the car and I saw deadand wounded people on the ground.Everybody was in panic,” Kadhum saidafter being treated at a nearby hospital.Other blasts struck commercial areas indowntown Baghdad, in the eastern dis-tricts of Ur and Maamil, and in the south-ern Dora district. Those attacks togetherkilled 15 and wounded 45, according topolice. Yet another parked car bombexploded in the afternoon in Balad, alargely Shiite town surrounded by Sunniareas some 80 kilometers (50 miles)north of the capital. That blast killed sixand wounded 17, police said. — AP

Car bombs kill 34 in Iraq