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29.10.09 12:54BURMA: Use of torture in ordinary criminal casesSeite 1 von 4http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2009statements/2275/
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BURMA: Use of torture in ordinary criminalcases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-STM-220-2009October 29, 2009
A Statement by the Asian Human RightsCommission
BURMA: Use of torture in ordinarycriminal cases
Much of the human rights advocacy concerning the useof torture in Burma is centred on cases of politicaldetainees. These cases rightly deserve close attentionand study. However, the Asian Human RightsCommission (AHRC) is aware that most victims of torture in Burma are not political prisoners but, as inother parts of Asia, poor citizens accused of ordinarycriminal offences. The perpetrators do not discriminate.Victims range from teenage girls to the elderly.Recently the AHRC obtained the details of a case of twoyoung male victims who were tortured at a policestation in an urban area during September 2009, overan alleged robbery. For reasons of their security, itcannot divulge the facts of this case, including thename of the police station and the officers involved. Inthis extract of their account, all identifying details havebeen omitted, but the allegations of torture are as theymade them. According to the first:"I was interrogated by eight police for three days. Theysaid to give back what I had robbed. They covered myface with a sarong and then four or five of themassaulted me. They hit me on the cheeks and punchedme in the face. They hit me with batons over ahundred times on my ankles, finger and elbow joints,shoulder bladesand head. They made me stand on my tip-toes then put something with sharp points undermy feet and made me hold a pose like I was riding amotorcycle, for about two hours. They prodded myback with a baton. During this time they were drunk.” He added that his wife paid a total of the equivalent of around USD100, which is the equivalent of more than acouple of month's wages for poor people in Burma, topolice so that they would not torture him. His 
 
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companion also said that, "I was detained andinterrogated for two days. While interrogating me theyhit my cheeks and pressed a piece of bamboo on myshins and ran it up and down. They kept mywristwatch."From the above allegations, we can make out thefollowing.First, the techniques used are advanced methods of routine torturers. They are the types commonlyassociated with military intelligence officers or withtroops in outlying areas. The motorcycle and rollingbamboo are particularly familiar methods in thedocumentation in those categories of cases. However,the torturers in this case were police in an ordinarysuburban station. Thus the methods of tortureordinarily associated with cases of political prisoners oralleged insurgents are actually in the entire system.Second, the torture victims are, as noted above, typicalof the overwhelming majority of victims throughoutAsia: poor people accused of ordinary crimes, for whichthe purpose of the torture is both to extractconfessions and/or to obtain money. In this case, theaccused were freed after some payments. However,there is no guarantee that they will remain this way.Once they have gone through this type of experienceonce, it can happen again at any time. In fact, one of them had already been interrogated over the samealleged crime, and both have expressed fear that theymight be picked up again any day. Neither of them wastaken before a judge, even though this should havehappened within 24 hours of arrest.Third, the victims claim that they were innocent andthat the police know this but they tortured themanyway to conduct a fake investigation as a favour to alocal businessperson. This too is a common feature of torture throughout Asia. It is also likely that the policehave interrogated, tortured and taken money fromother young poor men in the vicinity over the crime forwhich these two were also accused. One case like thiscan be very profitable for police. It is common to hearreports of dozens or even hundreds of people roundedup from an area in a general attempt to find somepeople on which to pin blame and make money at thesame time.The distinctive problem for these victims of torture,then, is not that they were tortured over an ordinarycrime in an ordinary police station. This, as noted, isan experience they have in common with victims inIndia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bangladesh
 
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and Pakistan, among others. Rather, it is that there isnothing that they can do about it. In those othercountries, the obstacles to bringing complaints of torture against the police are enormous, and the risksimmense. But in them there at least exist courts thatare in some way separate from the administration,rights groups and lawyers who can work on the caseswith some effect and media that can report andpublicize to generate public opinion.By contrast, in Burma the only thing that the victimscan really do is to lodge a complaint with high-upauthorities in the police and ministries and hope thatsomeone will believe them and take sympathy. If theytry to lodge a complaint in the courts, not only will theyrisk police reprisals, against which they will have noprotection--since there are no groups in the countrywho can hide them and no media that can report onthe case to assist with their safety through somepublicity--but they are unlikely to get any help fromthe courts either. In a 1991 case of alleged policetorture the Supreme Court already made clear thatunless persons alleging torture have firm physicalevidence--which the methods of torture used aredesigned to conceal--then they need not waste theirtime complaining to the judiciary.Even if the victims are lucky enough to get asympathetic judge, it may make no difference. Thecourts in Myanmar have no effective authority overother parts of government and are used as an arm of the executive to obtain what it wants. They are notsupposed to hit back. Unless an army general orsomeone else in a position of real importance issupporting a court order, the police can easily ignore itor get around it. Since in this case the allegations areagainst police officers, the police would use manymethods to prevent them from being successful, or if inthe extremely unlikely event that the court actuallymade an order against the police, could see that theofficers concerned escape punishment by abscondingand changing their identities, which has been done inthe past.Therefore, persons and groups concerned with torturein Burma should be concerned not only with its simpledocumentation, or with torture in only certain types of cases, but should be concerned above all to expose theabsence of institutions and measures to do anythingabout torture, specifically, the lack of an independent judiciary and also the lack of an open media in whichcases can be publicized.The Asian Human Rights Commission also notes that
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