Is Torture ever OK?
It seems that everywhere you look these days there is talk of torture, not just in the usual 3rd World Regimes but in the apparently more civilised West. Indeed some are calling for a reappraisal of our attitude to torture following the tragic events of 9/11 and other terrorists attacks. But can torture ever be justified? When is torture OK?
It is easy enough to imagine a doomsday scenario where a known terrorist is in custody but the nuclear bomb his team have planted is still out there somewhere in a city of millions. It is easy to imagine that, however distasteful at first, the idea of torturing the information out of him is spoken aloud and acted upon. But consider this: How reliable would the information so extracted be? If the terrorist in question is suitably fanatical, probably not very. If he believes that he’s going to die anyway, why not lie and cause even more disruption, panic and loss of life? How would we know unless the bomb was found (or not)?
Look at it another way. What would the torture do, both to the person being tortured and those performing the torture? If the terrorist was sentenced to a long term in prison would the torture make him more likely or less likely to strike again if he was ever released? What effect would it have on the torturers? Would it brutalise them, make them into moral monsters? Is that a price worth paying to protect our freedoms?
What if the terrorist was actually a terrorist suspect? The authorities might think they have the right person but they may be wrong. It’s certainly not unknown for the police to arrest the wrong person – even when acting in perfectly good faith. Is it OK to torture a suspect knowing they might not be guilty and are merely unlucky? What effect would such an experience have on all parties concerned? Is there anything that could compensate a recipient of torture after they were discovered to be innocent?
Let’s widen it out a little more. You have three people in custody and are confident that one of them knows the location of the bomb. Successfully torturing them could save a million lives, but you have to torture two innocent people in the process. Is that OK? Do you traumatise two people to save a million? Is that a price worth paying? What if one of those innocent people was your sister, your lover, your friend? Is it still OK for them to be tortured to save a million lives? Or ten thousand lives or twenty… Just where do the sums balance?
What freedoms are we actually protecting using these methods? Would we still be living in a free and liberal society if we allowed torture to be legalised? The parallel with the European Witch-hunts is frighteningly easy to draw. Women under torture gave false witness in order to relieve their pains inevitably dragging in other innocents into the hands of sanctioned torturers. As the torture continued, evidence for a continent wide conspiracy grew fuelled by the imagination of the authorities and the pain induced ravings of the innocent. Is this what we wish for our future? A return to the dark ages? Is this where the protection of our freedoms is leading us? Is this the kind of world you want your children to inherit?
10 comments:
IMHO torture is never OK. I can not envision a circumstance where I would commit it or condone it.
There is currently a case going through the house of Lords asking if English courts should accept evidence produced under torture abroad (is this was sparked your blog?). Obviously not - how can we ban something here, but condone it elsewhere?
I've actually been thinking about the issue for a while - but I caught the news item on Ch4 tonight which sort of 'double' prompted me to write on the subject.
Unsurprisingly I totally agree with you. I can not think of a single circumstance where torture is justified and it bothers me greatly that supposedly educated people can even think of condoning it.
Whatever next? Prison without trial? (sardonic grin)
Sad but true.
I never really thought I'd 'hear' myself say this... but I'm quite thankful for the House of Lords and the way they stood up to the Government when the last round of Anti-Terror Legislation was proposed. I was quite torn seeing them fight for freedom - from their position of privilege. Maybe the Lords have their usage after all...
I do find if difficult to understand how we can fight for a freedoms by actively destroying them...
Hi to you too.. BTW. Like what I've done with the place...? Still needs a bit of work.. but a few more postings should reduce the echo's...
Watch this space.. (grin)
Some thoughts off the top of my head:
• I like your analogy with the witch hunts. I think experts generally agree that torture elicits a lot of inaccurate information, and its utility is thus limited.
• I wonder how you feel about lesser measures: sleep deprivation, playing acid rock music at loud volumes 24 hours per day, that sort of thing.
Perhaps such lesser measures would befuddle the suspect, rendering him less capable of lying, so that the authorities could extract useful information — e.g. about terrorism.
• And on the issue Mrs. Aginoth raises — one could argue that the UK's hands would be clean, if it did not torture anybody, and it would be irresponsible not to use the information to protect citizens: even if the information was extracted by terror elsewhere.
Allow me to put it this way. There are two principles butting heads here. The first is, governments ought to protect human rights — not merely the rights of their own citizens. The second principle is, governments are responsible to protect their own citizens — e.g. against terrorist attacks.
The moral dilemma arises because these two responsibilities of government are in direct conflict, and it has no easy resolution.
Q
Oops, I meant to comment on one further point.
I think your illustration of torturing three suspects when you know only one of them is guilty is a red herring.
I like to think that Western governments would never knowingly torture an innocent party. Certainly that would be the official policy.
So in the situation you describe, the authorities' hands would be tied. They would have to acquire further evidence to indicate which one of the three was the terrorist — evidence which measured up to some appropriate legal standard — before they could torture that individual.
Q
I would like to believe that the well-being of humanity comes above that of any single state, therefore using information from torture abroad is condoning that torture & should not be acceptable.
Equally English Law is quite arrogant & you acn be arrested for breaking it even if you did so while abroad in a country that allows that act to take place legally (there have been a number of high profile cases: Euthanasia, Paedaphilia, bigamy all come to mind), therefore any act of torture used anywhere in the world is in contravention of the Police & Crimnal Evidence Act & evidence so gained can not be used in a court of law.
Although come to think of it, terrorists are not tried in a court of law are they?
I wasn't thinking about criminal trials, but preventing terrorist acts. If the British Government receives information that there's a certain terrorist cell operating in a certain place, and they intend to carry out a subway bombing … wouldn't you want them to intervene somehow?
You wouldn't want them to say, "We'll just have to let the bombing go ahead because the information was obtained via torture." That's the scenario I'm envisioning.
Q
Q said: I wonder how you feel about lesser measures: sleep deprivation, playing acid rock music at loud volumes 24 hours per day, that sort of thing.
That's still a form of torture. How would you restrict such activites to just that if the suspect didn't 'break'? Isn't mental cruelty just the thin edge of the wedge? And what does it say about a Criminal Justice System that would allow such things? Isn't it likely that suspects would confess more readily even under this form of duress? Isn't likely that more miscarrages of justice would occur?
As a good example we had some high profile trials here over the past 5 or so years were convicted IRA 'terrorists' were released years after their conviction because it transpired that the police fabricated evidence, tampered with interview records and used intimidation and threats of violence to obtain false confessions. The 'crime' these people were guilty of was being Irish. You might indeed get more convictions under a torture regime but would you have more terrorists in jail or more innocent people and under that regime how would you tell the difference?
Q also said: The moral dilemma arises because these two responsibilities of government are in direct conflict, and it has no easy resolution.
Sorry, but I can't agree. Basic Human Rights are non-negotiable. After all how can you be in the business of defending something by throwing it away. How can a government defend a 'way of life' by turning its back on that very thing it is meant to be defending. This makes no sense to me. If our rights can be taken away on the whim of a government official.. then the idea that we have rights at all is an illusion. We are not 'given' rights. We have rights by the very fact we are human beings.
The Geneva Convention says torture is not allowed. Period.
Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm
cq
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