Torture

(see also Human Rights Advocacy)

Basics

On the Web: Articles

Roots of Abu Ghraib in CIA Techniques. James Hodge & Linda Cooper, National Catholic Reporter [Global Policy Forum] (11/5/04). Interrogation manuals condense years of experience in refining & teaching torture techniques.

US Ships Al Qaeda Suspects to Arab States. Faye Bowers & Philip Smucker, Christian Science Monitor (7/26/02). "Outsourcing" of interrogations?

UN Convention Against Torture & Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1987).

On the Web: Specialized Sites

Amnesty International Stop Torture Campaign.

Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT).

Center for Justice & Accountability.

Center for the Victims of Torture.

International Federation of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture.

International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.

Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. Information clearinghouse. Documents, monitors & responds to cases in Israel & Occupied Territories & under Palestinian National Authority. Public education, legal aid & advocacy for victims, legislative watchdogging, petitions to Supreme Court.

World Organization Against Torture.

In the Library: Articles

Bowden, Mark. “The dark art of interrogation,” Atlantic Monthly (10/03):51-76.

Cockburn, Alexander. "Torture them," Nation (12/11/00):9.

__________. "The wide world of torture," Nation (11/26/01):10.

Ortiz, Sister Dianna. "A nun confronts her torture," Progressive (6/96):27-28.

Tanner, Murray Scot. “Shackling the coercive state: China’s ambivalent struggle against torture”, Problems of Post-Communism (9/10/00).

Todorov, Tzvetan. "Letter from Paris," Salmagundi (sum-fall 02). Reviews Patrick Rotman book & TV program L'ennemi intime, on causes of torture by French troops in Algeria. Torture a "civilized" phenomenon: neither "culture, education, accumulated wisdom...nor...religion provides efficient protection" against its practice. In extreme situations a "convinced, resolute & active minority" can carry along the "passive, indecisive majority...Fanatics & sadists act out; others let things happen, torn between a flabby indignation & secret satisfaction."

In the Library: Non-Fiction Books

Abrahamian, Ervand. Tortured Confessions: Prisons & Public Recantations in Modern Iran (Berkeley: U. of California, 1999).

Amnesty International. Torture in the Eighties (NY, 1984).

CIA. Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual (1982). Instructions for torturers.

Conroy, John. Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People. The Dynamics of Torture (Berkeley: U. California, 2001).

Forrest, Duncan (ed.) A Glimpse of Hell. Reports on Torture Worldwide (NY, 1996).

Gordon, Neve & Ruchama Marton. Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics & the Case of Israel (London, 1995).

Greenberg, Karen J. (ed.) The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (NY: Cambridge, 2005). Documents conscious post-9/11 abandonment by US government officials of international human rights standards regarding torture.

Ruthven, Malise. Torture: The Grand Conspiracy (London: Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1978).

In the Library: Fiction

Fallaci, Oriana. A Man (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1980).

In the Library: For Young Readers

In the Library: Poetry

In the Library: Drama

In the Library: Photography

CD & Audio

Film & Video

"Brazil: Report on Torture" [1971], dir. Saul Landau & Haskell Wexler, 60m. From Cinema Guild. Brazilian political prisoners reenact tortures administered by political police.

"Taxi to the Dark Side" [2007], dir. Alex Gibney, 106m. In video stores. Documentary on routinization of torture under U.S. military occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq & Guantanamo.