We are happy to present this booklet containing the proceedings of the Third Workshop on the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT). This series of workshops form an integral part of our ongoing campaign to stamp out torture from society. Our intention in publishing the proceedings is to broaden the debate on the issue of torture and not be restricted to the limited number of participants in the workshop.
Initiating a national dialogue requires the participation of persons from various segments of the population who can influence the thinking of the larger society. Thus in selecting participants for the workshop we made an effort to ensure that lawyers, journalists, human rights activists, clergy and victims of torture were present. The participants were also from various religious persuasions. This diversity of participants ensures that the discussion can be taken to the larger society where the actual debate must take place if effective remedies are to be achieved.
The main objectives of these workshops have been to emphasize the gravity of torture, to examine the breakdown of law and order that it stems from, and to provoke a response regarding its elimination. Attending to the needs of the victims of torture is also a priority. The workshops serve as a common platform for all persons to meet, irrespective of their differences based on ethnic, religious or other grounds.
Our own experience at the workshops has been that some of the participants share a tacit approval of torture—that “a bit of torture is alright”, and that “getting the truth out is difficult without recourse to torture”. Such comments reflect broadly held perceptions. They reflect ordinary persons’ sense of impotence to effect any change amid the moral decadence and breakdown in law and order in our societies. Only through an enlightened discussion on various facets of torture have the participants come to fathom its intrinsic injustice. This has confirmed our own conviction that a conscious effort is necessary for the inherent injustice of torture to be made to emerge.
The methodology followed in our workshops allows the initial perceptions of the participants to be re-examined in light of basic human rights, so that the gravity of torture is revealed. Torture is thus discovered not merely as physical violence, but violence against the victim’s family, the society, the torturer and the whole system of justice. It is a crime against the whole of humanity. As persons committing a crime against humanity, torturers may be tried by any judiciary in any country. What the present Pope wrote about torture in “Right to Physical and Psychic Integrity: The Prohibition of Torture” (p. 273b), is relevant:
The condemnation by the Magisterium could not be clearer regarding one of the most intolerable offenses against human dignity. It is the very image of Christ crucified which motives Christians to reject this heinous practice which ultimately wreaks havoc not only with the person tortured but also with the torturer.
Conversely, attempts at stamping out torture are also attempts at promoting the right to life, freedom, security and personal safety, trust and confidence in the judicial system, respect for the law and order, and establishment of the credibility of law enforcement officers.
Basil Fernando has remarked that
Human rights can be rooted in a culture only when the ethical and moral foundations of that society are compatible with human rights concepts, norms and standards. The religions play a significant role in the formation of the ethical and moral foundation of all societies. Religion can play either a positive or a negative role in making the ethical and moral norms of society compatible with human rights.
The following statement by British Jurist Sir Ivor Jennings, who was well known in South Asia in the middle of twentieth century (as he played a role in writing some constitutions in the region), is useful to illustrate this point. What he said about the role of public opinion relating to crime applies equally to all human rights violations:
The establishment of a sound public opinion about crime is obviously not an easy matter. Perhaps at this stage I ought to try to explain how the change occurred in England during the nineteenth century. It seems to me to have been almost entirely a religious movement which became secularised late in the century. So far as the wealthier classes were concerned it was an evangelical revival within the Church of England which produced among many an acute social conscience.
Thus behind the campaign against torture is the attempt to drive home the need to initiate ethical and religious movements founded on the centrality of the dignity of persons. This booklet, we hope, will contribute to the ongoing debate on the reform of justice delivery systems and on the promotion of the rights of all. We would appreciate if this book is read and passed onto others for their comments and reflection.
Philip Setunga
Religious Groups for Human Rights
Asian Human Rights Commission
Hong Kong
August 16, 2001
