Amnesty International

[Ed. Note: Further information about the campaign outlined below can be obtained at Amnesty International's web site at www.stoptorture.org.]

In London on Oct. 16, 1998, British police arrested Augusto Pinochet, former military ruler of Chile. The news of Pinochet's detention in the United Kingdom was celebrated around the world. Why? Because for millions of people, the former Chilean ruler's name was a byword for torture, killings and political repression. Although Pinochet was eventually allowed to return to Chile on health grounds in March 2000, his arrest transformed the human rights landscape. It affirmed that even those who had governed their countries with absolute power were no longer immune from prosecution.

For more than 25 years following the violent coup that brought Pinochet to power, Chilean human rights activists continued their courageous struggle to see the torturers brought to account. For Veronica de Negri, the long journey in pursuit of justice took her to the public gallery of the House of Lords in London in 1999 to witness the proceedings against Pinochet.

Veronica was tortured by the Chilean secret service in 1975. A former Communist Party activist, she was beaten and raped at a naval base near Valparaiso and a concentration camp in the capital Santiago.

"The abuse was physical and mental," she explains. "They did unspeakable things with rats as well as little things, like denying me tampons. I find the details painful to recall."

In 1977, Veronica fled the country. Nine years later, in July 1986, her son Rodrigo became another victim though of the Chilean security forces. Torture under Pinochet had moved beyond the interrogation chamber into the streets.

"I was tortured for months and survived," Veronica says. "Rodrigo was tortured for 10 minutes, and he died."

Rodrigo Rojas de Negri and his friend Carmen Quintana were walking down a street in a poor suburb of Santiago when they were rounded up by a Chilean army patrol. The soldiers dragged them into a side street and started beating them, breaking their bones. According to Carmen, who survived the attack, some 30 men were involved. In front of eyewitnesses, the soldiers doused Carmen and Rodrigo in kerosene and set them alight. The soldiers then wrapped their charred bodies in blankets and dumped them in a ditch. By the time Veronica was able to see Rodrigo in the hospital, he was just hours from death; the only way she could communicate with him was by rubbing the soles of his feet.

What was the response of the authorities? When 6,000 people attended Rodrigo's funeral in Santiago, riot police fired water cannons at the mourners. Pinochet himself went on national television to deny any army involvement in the burnings, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Eventually, and under pressure, he appointed a special judge to investigate; the judge absolved the army patrol of any blame. Only the leader of the patrol has ever been prosecuted - for "negligence."

Efforts to hold Pinochet accountable for the many crimes of torture committed by his regime continue. The challenge to his impunity comes after 25 years in which much has been achieved in the struggle against torture. A global human rights movement has emerged, and, largely thanks to its efforts, numerous new international standards have been adopted prohibiting torture and setting out governments' obligations to prevent it. An impressive array of international human rights mechanisms has been put in place to press States to live up to their commitments.

Despite these advances, torturers continue to inflict physical agony and mental anguish on countless victims and get away with it. While the torturers evade accountability, the wounds of their victims cannot heal, and society is poisoned from within.

The report Hidden Scandal, Secret Shame: Torture and Ill-treatment of Children launches a new Amnesty International (AI) campaign against torture. It examines the reasons why torture persists. It explores avenues for achieving the goal of eradicating torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In preparing this report, AI conducted a survey of its research files on 195 countries and territories. The survey covered the period from the beginning of 1997 to mid-2000. Information on torture is usually concealed, and reports are often hard to document so the figures presented in this report almost certainly underestimate the extent of torture.

The statistics are shocking. There were reports of torture or ill-treatment by state officials in more than 150 countries. In more than 70, they were widespread or persistent. In more than 80 countries, people reportedly died as a result. The evidence strongly suggests that most of the victims were people suspected or convicted of criminal offences. Most of the torturers were police officers.

In the light of this grim evidence, the urgency of the task ahead is undeniable. Every human being has the right to live free from the threat of torture. States must move beyond paper pledges to implement international human rights law and deliver the protection it promises. Governments must be held to account. Those in authority must be forced to honour their commitments.

The law is unequivocal: torture is absolutely prohibited in all circumstances. However, the very people charged with implementing the law frequently flout it. Some governments use torture as part of their strategy for holding on to power. Many more pay lip service to human rights, but their rhetoric conceals a profound lack of political will to hold torturers to account. Around the world, the people who inflict torture commit their crimes with impunity. More than any other single factor, impunity sends the message that torture, although illegal, will be tolerated.

The world has changed immeasurably since AI first began denouncing torture at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s. The challenges and opportunities facing the fight against torture have also evolved. It is clear that torture is not confined to military dictatorships or authoritarian regimes; torture is inflicted in democratic nations too. It is also clear that the victims of torture are criminal suspects as well as political prisoners, the disadvantaged as well as the dissident, people targeted because of their identity as well as their beliefs. They are women as well as men, children as well as adults.

As a result of the work of women's movements around the world over the past four decades, there is now greater awareness of the abuse women experience in everyday life, such as rape and domestic violence. This has given increased impetus to the demand that governments fulfil their responsibilities to prevent and punish torture, whether inflicted by state officials or by private individuals.

Technological developments have influenced both the means of inflicting torture and the possibilities for combating it. Electroshock devices have been developed to restrain, control or punish. At the same time, communications technology means that anti-torture campaigners can organise in new ways. Today it is harder for torturers to hide; new international activist networks and coalitions can pursue them wherever they go.

Cases of torture can become headline news the world over within hours. Millions of people have been exposed to the reality of torture through the media. For the witnesses to the pain and suffering of fellow human beings, this knowledge brings responsibility. A responsibility to do everything possible - as individuals, professionals or members of our communities - to bring the eradication of torture one step closer.

In the last few years, groundbreaking measures have been taken to ensure that alleged torturers who evade justice in their own country can be held to account internationally. Significant steps have been taken towards establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) to try cases of torture and other international crimes against humanity. The arrests of Hissène Habré, former ruler of Chad, in Senegal to face charges of human rights abuses, including torture, and of Pinochet in the United Kingdom illustrate a greater willingness by courts to bring torturers to justice wherever they may be, although both cases also show the ability of political officials to impede the course of justice.

For all that the world around us has changed, the persistence of torture at this moment in history calls into question the very notion of human progress. It is an indictment of the collective failure of governments to honour the pledge they made more than 50 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

AI's recent report not only attempts to describe the problem of torture today, but it also sets out a strategy for eradicating it. AI's new campaign - Take a Step to Stamp Out Torture - seeks to galvanise people around the world in a collective effort to eradicate torture. The campaign builds on AI's experience over four decades of researching and working against torture. AI, with its million-plus members, aims to collaborate with human rights organisations, trade unions, community organisations and concerned individuals in order to strengthen the global anti-torture network.

The campaign's strategy is to achieve progress in three major areas - preventing torture, confronting discrimination and overcoming impunity. There is no shortage of information on how to prevent torture. Procedures, laws and international conventions have been elaborated which governments can use to reduce the likelihood of torture. AI's 12-point Program for the Prevention of Torture by Agents of the State brings together the most important measures for preventing torture in custody.

In this campaign, AI aims to challenge political leaders around the world to declare their opposition to torture and to implement these measures. AI sections, groups and members around the world will intensify their work to raise awareness of torture and how to stop it. National strategies to combat torture are being developed and implemented by AI and partner organisations in more than 20 countries. The insights gained and the links forged during the campaign will, it is hoped, serve the fight against torture for years to come.

This campaign also seeks to highlight the links between discrimination and torture and calls on governments to take action to combat discrimination. Torture involves dehumanising the victim, and this dehumanisation is made easier if the victims come from a disadvantaged social, political or ethnic group. AI activists around the world, moreover, will focus on confronting violence against women that constitutes torture, lobbying for action against torture at the U.N. World Conference on Racism in August 2001, working to end the torture of children and campaigning against the torture of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.

Impunity is one of the main factors which allow torture to continue. Impunity undermines the systems built up over the years to protect people against torture. When society's defences are down, any opportunistic pretext, such as the need to combat "terrorism," the fight against crime or hostility to such groups as asylum seekers, may be used as a licence to torture. If torturers are not brought to justice, it encourages others to believe that torture can be committed with impunity. It also prevents victims and their families from establishing the truth and denies them justice. AI sections will campaign in their countries to ensure that national legislation provides for torturers to be brought to justice, either by prosecution or extradition to stand trial in another country. The campaign also seeks to strengthen international mechanisms to ensure that those responsible for torture are brought to justice.

We have waited too long for governments to honour their commitment to end torture. The campaign against torture has to be led by ordinary people. It is time for human rights activists and their supporters to join forces to step up the fight against torture and hold governments accountable. The prevalence of torture can seem daunting, but a campaign founded on unity in action has the potential to empower and motivate. Torturers thrive on the indifference of the general public. Our task must be to turn indifference into outrage and outrage into action.