usmarine wrote:
define torture methods. see we disagree on what is torture and what is not.
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
That's the official definition. The legal interpretations of this vary from country to country, though fortunately the old US interpretation (which stated "severe pain" must be severe enough to result in organ failure or death) has been overturned (circa 2005) and
replaced with a less mediaeval interpretation.
In fact even the original legal definition of torture in the US includes many of the techniques used against Gerry Conlon that many in this thread have tried to claim are not torture:
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
Taken from definitions in the US Code, from Cornell University Law School.
Being threatened at gunpoint of course constitutes threat of imminent death (2c). Threatening his family clearly counts as torture under clause 2d.
The definition of torture places no stress on injury being caused by it, so techniques such as "belly slapping" (intended to cause an equivalent amount of pain to simply hitting the subject, without causing lasting physical harm), are just as much classed as torture as simple beatings.
Moving on to mental torture, which is covered by the definition and so is most certainly still classed as torture, we need more involved definitions from experts on mental health and psychology. The APA (American Psychological Association) classes the following techniques as mental torture:
Mock executions
Simulated drowning
Sexual and religious humiliation
Stress positions
Sleep deprivation
Exploitation of prisoners' phobias
Use of mind-altering drugs
Hooding
Forced nakedness
Use of dogs to frighten detainees
Exposing prisoners to extreme heat and cold
Physical assault and threatening the use of such techniques against a prisoner or a prisoner's family
These definitions in general fit with the general consensus of psychological experts from western nations.
Studies have shown that the long term effects of physical and mental torture can be very similar. Steven Miles, professor of bioethics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis is quoted as saying that: "The distinction between torture and degrading treatment is not only useless, but also dangerous" - therefore the distinction between physical and mental torture (mental torture is treated separately to cruel and degrading treatment under the Anti-Torture convention, though it should be stressed that both are condemned equally (along with physical torture) within the text of the document) is at least equally pointless.
FEOS wrote:
And just how many US citizens have been picked up on the street for no reason whatsoever and denied due process?
I mean, it "actually happens all the time", so I'm sure there are TONS of examples.
Who's talking about US citizens? This thread is about the torture situation in Northern Ireland, where the British employed torture techniques similar to those employed by the US over recent years and which are totally wrong and the victims of these techniques should undergo a review process and where suitable have their criminal records wiped and be compensated by the state.
In any case, what is the relevance of them being US citizens? Why should nationality make any difference whatsoever? They are people.
FEOS wrote:
Those guys were questioned. They probably didn't get much sleep while being questioned. According to your ridiculously low threshold, those guys likely got "tortured". And apparently I got tortured last night by my two-year-old daughter because she deprived me of sleep.
No. The first reason being that she was not doing it for: "such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."
So it doesn't count as torture under the international definition straight off. In any case, ignoring sleep deprivation as a form of torture flies in the face of the opinion of experts on these matters and so could quite justifiably be considered to be taking an extremely foolish viewpoint.
But then I've already seen that you don't care much for literary definitions and would prefer to make up your own. So international, legal and expert definitions are unlikely to be of any interest to you either.
