Experts want new definition of torture?
linkLast Updated: Tuesday, March 6, 2007 | 9:55 AM ET
The Associated Press Prisoners who endure poor or degrading treatment suffer much of the same long-term psychological distress as do captives who are tortured, a new study suggests.
The study was based on interviews with victims of ill treatment and torture while imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia, and experts said the findings underscored the need for a broader definition of torture.
'Ill treatment during captivity ? does not seem to be substantially different from physical torture in terms of the severity of mental suffering they cause.'
? Study conclusions"What is the basis for the distinction between torture and other cruel and degrading treatment? Science should inform this debate," the study's lead author, Metin Basoglu of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London, told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The study was published in Monday's issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Steve H. Miles of the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics, who was not involved in the study, said the findings "show that the severity of long-lasting adverse mental effects is unrelated to whether the torture or degrading treatment is physical or psychological."
President George W. Bush's administration has said the U.S. uses legal interrogation techniques ? not torture ? to gain information that could head off attacks. It insists that the U.S. complies with the U.N. Convention Against Torture.
Yet Washington's definition of torture, as interpreted by the U.S. Justice Department after reports of American abuses at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan surfaced, is fairly narrow.
Citing a Dec. 30, 2004, U.S. Justice Department memo, the researchers said it excludes mental pain and suffering created by acts that do not cause severe physical pain, such as:
Blindfolding.
Hooding.
Forced nudity.
Isolation.
Deprivation of sleep or light.
The document also contends that for an act to be considered torture, there must be proof that it inflicts "prolonged mental harm."
"The implications of such a narrow definition of torture have raised serious concerns in the human rights community," said the study. "These findings suggest that physical pain per se is not the most important determinant of traumatic stress in survivors of torture."
Prisoner interviews
The study involved interviews with 279 victims who suffered ill treatment and torture while imprisoned in the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.
The researchers said they found that aggressive interrogation techniques, humiliating treatment, verbal abuse, threats against a captive's family and being forced to watch an acquaintance being tortured produced much of the same long-term mental trauma as physical torture.
"Sham executions, witnessing torture of close ones, threats of rape, fondling of genitals and isolation were associated with at least as much if not more distress than some of the physical torture stressors," they wrote.
Such experiences were just as likely as physical torture to lead to depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, the study said.
"Ill treatment during captivity ? does not seem to be substantially different from physical torture in terms of the severity of mental suffering they cause," it concluded. "These procedures do amount to torture, thereby lending support to their prohibition by international law."
Memories of violence like a shadow
Shukrije Gashi, a pro-independence activist in Kosovo, was jailed by Yugoslav authorities in 1983 and spent nearly two years as a political prisoner. Strictly speaking, she wasn't tortured, but 2? decades later it still feels that way, she says.
Gashi was confined to a cramped, unventilated cell and fed small rations of often-rotten food. Allowed to shower just once a month, she endured frequent beatings and verbal abuse.
Today, she still trembles whenever she sees the police. Her ordeal, she says, is "a spiritual burden that stays with you forever."
"The treatment in prison was horrific," she said, saying she copes by writing poetry and running a centre for conflict management. "I remain psychologically burdened. Memories of the violence follow me like a shadow."
? The Canadian Press, 2007
Author