Torture And Impunity

Author : Alfred W. McCoy
Publisher : University of Wisconsin Pres
Page : 423 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2012-08-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780299288532

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Torture and Impunity by Alfred W. McCoy Pdf

Many Americans have condemned the “enhanced interrogation” techniques used in the War on Terror as a transgression of human rights. But the United States has done almost nothing to prosecute past abuses or prevent future violations. Tracing this knotty contradiction from the 1950s to the present, historian Alfred W. McCoy probes the political and cultural dynamics that have made impunity for torture a bipartisan policy of the U.S. government. During the Cold War, McCoy argues, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency covertly funded psychological experiments designed to weaken a subject’s resistance to interrogation. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the CIA revived these harsh methods, while U.S. media was flooded with seductive images that normalized torture for many Americans. Ten years later, the U.S. had failed to punish the perpetrators or the powerful who commanded them, and continued to exploit intelligence extracted under torture by surrogates from Somalia to Afghanistan. Although Washington has publicly distanced itself from torture, disturbing images from the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are seared into human memory, doing lasting damage to America’s moral authority as a world leader.

Author : Alfred McCoy
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2007-04-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781429900683

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A Question of Torture by Alfred McCoy Pdf

A startling exposé of the CIA's development and spread of psychological torture, from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and beyond In this revelatory account of the CIA's secret, fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy uncovers the deep, disturbing roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Far from aberrations, as the White House has claimed, A Question of Torture shows that these abuses are the product of a long-standing covert program of interrogation. Developed at the cost of billions of dollars, the CIA's method combined "sensory deprivation" and "self-inflicted pain" to create a revolutionary psychological approach—the first innovation in torture in centuries. The simple techniques—involving isolation, hooding, hours of standing, extremes of hot and cold, and manipulation of time—constitute an all-out assault on the victim's senses, destroying the basis of personal identity. McCoy follows the years of research—which, he reveals, compromised universities and the U.S. Army—and the method's dissemination, from Vietnam through Iran to Central America. He traces how after 9/11 torture became Washington's weapon of choice in both the CIA's global prisons and in "torture-friendly" countries to which detainees are dispatched. Finally McCoy argues that information extracted by coercion is worthless, making a case for the legal approach favored by the FBI. Scrupulously documented and grippingly told, A Question of Torture is a devastating indictment of inhumane practices that have spread throughout the intelligence system, damaging American's laws, military, and international standing.

Author : Amnesty International
Publisher : Amnesty International
Page : 68 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Political Science
ISBN : UTEXAS:059173009814763

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Mexico by Amnesty International Pdf

Author : Metin Baolu
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 571 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780199374625

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Torture and Its Definition in International Law by Metin Baolu Pdf

This book presents an interdisciplinary approach to definition of torture by a group of prominent scholars of behavioral sciences, international law, human rights, and public health. It represents a first ever attempt to compare behavioral science and international law perspectives on definitional issues and promote a sound theory- and evidence-based understanding of torture.

Author : Tyrell Haberkorn
Publisher : University of Wisconsin Pres
Page : 373 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2018-01-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780299314408

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In Plain Sight by Tyrell Haberkorn Pdf

Following a 1932 coup d’état in Thailand that ended absolute monarchy and established a constitution, the Thai state that emerged has suppressed political dissent through detention, torture, forced reeducation, disappearances, assassinations, and massacres. In Plain Sight shows how these abuses, both hidden and occurring in public view, have become institutionalized through a chronic failure to hold perpetrators accountable. Tyrell Haberkorn’s deeply researched revisionist history of modern Thailand highlights the legal, political, and social mechanisms that have produced such impunity and documents continual and courageous challenges to state domination.

Author : Christoph Wilcke,Human Rights Watch (Organization)
Publisher : Human Rights Watch
Page : 97 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781564323828

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Torture and Impunity in Jordan's Prisons by Christoph Wilcke,Human Rights Watch (Organization) Pdf

Author : Deana Heath
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2021-03-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780192646163

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Colonial Terror by Deana Heath Pdf

Focusing on India between the early nineteenth century and the First World War, Colonial Terror explores the centrality of the torture of Indian bodies to the law-preserving violence of colonial rule and some of the ways in which extraordinary violence was embedded in the ordinary operation of colonial states. Although enacted largely by Indians on Indian bodies, particularly by subaltern members of the police, the book argues that torture was facilitated, systematized, and ultimately sanctioned by first the East India Company and then the Raj because it benefitted the colonial regime, since rendering the police a source of terror played a key role in the construction and maitenance of state sovereignty. Drawing upon the work of both Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault, Colonial Terror contends, furthermore, that it is only possible to understand the terrorizing nature of the colonial police in India by viewing colonial India as a 'regime of exception' in which two different forms of exceptionality were in operation - one wrought through the exclusion of particular groups or segments of the Indian population from the law and the other by petty sovereigns in their enactment of illegal violence in the operation of the law. It was in such fertile ground, in which colonial subjects were both included within the domain of colonial law while also being abandoned by it, that torture was able to flourish.

Author : Initiative to Combat Against Torture and Impunity (Project)
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 61 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Human rights
ISBN : 9937806356

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Final Project Execution and Evaluation Report by Initiative to Combat Against Torture and Impunity (Project) Pdf

Author : Richard Carver,Lisa Handley
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781781383308

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Does Torture Prevention Work? by Richard Carver,Lisa Handley Pdf

In the past three decades, international and regional human rights bodies have developed an ever-lengthening list of measures that states are required to adopt in order to prevent torture. But do any of these mechanisms actually work? This study is the first systematic analysis of the effectiveness of torture prevention. Primary research was conducted in 16 countries, looking at their experience of torture and prevention mechanisms over a 30-year period. Data was analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Prevention measures do work, although some are much more effective than others. Most important of all are the safeguards that should be applied in the first hours and days after a person is taken into custody. Notification of family and access to an independent lawyer and doctor have a significant impact in reducing torture. The investigation and prosecution of torturers and the creation of independent monitoring bodies are also important in reducing torture. An important caveat to the conclusion that prevention works is that is actual practice in police stations and detention centres that matters - not treaties ratified or laws on the statute book.

Author : Human Rights Watch (Organization),Henrik Alffram
Publisher : Human Rights Watch
Page : 82 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781564324832

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Ignoring Executions and Torture by Human Rights Watch (Organization),Henrik Alffram Pdf

A short history of impunity -- Key cases of impunity the new government should address -- Causes and solutions for impunity in Bangladesh -- Recommendations.

Author : Lawrence Weschler
Publisher : Pantheon
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2013-01-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307819031

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A Miracle, a Universe by Lawrence Weschler Pdf

In recent years as countries around the globe have begun to move from dictatorial to more democratic systems of governance, no more traumatic (or dramatic) ethical problem has arisen than what to do with the previous regime’s torturers. In most cases, the security and military apparatuses, responsible for the overwhelming majority of human-rights abuses, still retain tremendous power—and will not abide any settling of accounts. Now, New Yorker staff reporter Lawrence Weschler tells the extraordinary story of how, against tremendous odds, torture victims and human-rights activists in two Latin American countries—Brazil and Uruguay—tried to bring their torturers to justice and to rehabilitate their whole societies from harrowing periods of silence and repression. In this first of his two accounts, he tells how a tiny group of torture victims, clerics, and human-rights activists in Brazil launched an extremely risky, nonviolent plot to get even with the former torturers by publishing an indisputable account of their savage system of repression—indisputable because it is drawn from the regime’s own files. In the second, set in Uruguay, he tells how a more broadly-based movement attempted to bring to light the dark history of a military regime engaged in more political incarceration per capita than any other on earth at that time. In this illuminating and beautifully written book (portions of which appeared in five issues of The New Yorker), Weschler examines what a small number of individuals can do to retrieve history and truth from the hands of torturers.

Author : Michael Welch
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2009-01-07
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780813546506

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Crimes of Power & States of Impunity by Michael Welch Pdf

Since 9/11, a new configuration of power situated at the core of the executive branch of the U.S. government has taken hold. In Crimes of Power & States of Impunity, Michael Welch takes a close look at the key historical, political, and economic forces shaping the country's response to terror. Welch continues the work he began in Scapegoats of September 11th and argues that current U.S. policies, many enacted after the attacks, undermine basic human rights and violate domestic and international law. He recounts these offenses and analyzes the system that sanctions them, offering fresh insight into the complex relationship between power and state crime. Welch critically examines the unlawful enemy combatant designation, Guantanamo Bay, recent torture cases, and collateral damage relating to the war in Iraq. This book transcends important legal arguments as Welch strives for a broader sociological interpretation of what transpired early this century, analyzing the abuses of power that jeopardize our safety and security.

Author : Shadi Sadr,Shadi Amin
Publisher : Aida Book
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2012-12
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 3944191900

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Crime and Impunity by Shadi Sadr,Shadi Amin Pdf

Throughout the 1980s in Iran, thousands of individuals were arrested and detained for supposedly supporting or participating in oppositional political organizations that were critical of the Islamic Republic regime's undemocratic practices. So far, many reputable reports have been published detailing the various torture methods inflicted upon the political prisoners in that decade. 1 However, despite anecdotal evidence on sexual abuses in the prisons of Iran, the topic has not yet been subject to systematic study. This report based on the first phase of the research project, 'Crimes without Punishment', aims to document the cases of rape and other forms of sexual torture used against female political prisoners in the 1980s. The second report will cover the subsequent period between 1990s-2009, and the third will cover events following the 2009 elections.

Author : Alejandro Anaya-Munoz,Barbara Frey
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2018-12-24
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780812251074

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Mexico's Human Rights Crisis by Alejandro Anaya-Munoz,Barbara Frey Pdf

Lawless elements are ascendant in Mexico, as evidenced by the operations of criminal cartels engaged in human and drug trafficking, often with the active support or acquiescence of government actors. The sharp increase in the number of victims of homicide, disappearances and torture over the past decade is unparalleled in the country's recent history. According to editors Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz and Barbara Frey, the "war on drugs" launched in 2006 by President Felipe Calderón and the corrupting influence criminal organizations have on public institutions have empowered both state and nonstate actors to operate with impunity. Impunity, they argue, is the root cause that has enabled a human-rights crisis to flourish, creating a climate of generalized violence that is carried out, condoned, or ignored by the state and precluding any hope for justice. Mexico's Human Rights Crisis offers a broad survey of the current human rights issues that plague Mexico. Essays focus on the human rights consequences that flow directly from the ongoing "war on drugs" in the country, including violence aimed specifically at women, and the impunity that characterizes the government's activities. Contributors address the violation of the human rights of migrants, in both Mexico and the United States, and cover the domestic and transnational elements and processes that shape the current human rights crisis, from the state of Mexico's democracy to the influence of rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the decisions of Mexico's National Supreme Court of Justice. Given the scope, the contemporaneity, and the gravity of Mexico's human rights crisis, the recommendations made in the book by the editors and contributors to curb the violence could not be more urgent. Contributors: Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz, Karina Ansolabehere, Ariadna Estévez, Barbara Frey, Janice Gallagher, Rodrigo Gutiérrez Rivas, Susan Gzesh, Sandra Hincapié, Catalina Pérez Correa, Laura Rubio Díaz-Leal, Natalia Saltalamacchia, Carlos Silva Forné, Regina Tamés, Javier Treviño-Rangel, Daniel Vázquez, Benjamin James Waddell.

Author : Karen Engle,Zinaida Miller,D. M. Davis
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2016-12-15
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781107079878

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Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda by Karen Engle,Zinaida Miller,D. M. Davis Pdf

This volume presents and critiques the distorted effects of the international human rights movement's focus on the fight against impunity.