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“TORTURE”
Etymology :
The word 'torture' comes from the French torture, originating in the
Late Latin tortura and ultimately deriving the past participle of
torquere meaning 'to twist'.The word may be used loosely for more
ordinary or daily discomforts which would be described as tedious
rather than painful.
DEFINITION :
Torture by proxy :
In 2003, Britain's Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, made
accusations that information was being extracted under extreme
torture from dissidents in that country, and that the information was
subsequently being used by Western, democratic countries that
officially disapproved of torture.
The accusations did not lead to any investigation by his employer, the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and he resigned after disciplinary
action was taken against him in 2004. No misconduct by him was
proven. The National Audit Office is investigating the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office because of accusations of victimisation, bullying,
and intimidating its own staff.
Murray later stated that he felt that he had unwittingly stumbled upon
what others called "torture by proxy" and with the euphemism of
"extraordinary rendition". He thought that Western countries moved
people to regimes and nations knowing that torturers would extract
and disclose information. Murray alleged that this practice
circumvented and violated international treaties against torture. If it
was true that a country participated in torture by proxy and it had
signed the UN Convention Against Torture then that country would be
in specific breach of Article 3 of that convention.
Torture murder :
Effects of torture :
The purpose of torture was to break the will of the victim and to dehumanize
him or her. The intent was also to punish, obtain information, extract a
confession from the victim or a third party, or to intimidate the victim and
others.
Torture has been used for at least 2,000 years and has been widespread.
Early Greek and Roman laws specified that only slaves could be tortured, but
soon freemen could be tortured in cases of treason. The right to torture
slaves was abolished in Roman law in AD 240. In the Middle Ages, torture
was included in proceedings of the Catholic Church, which legally employed
torture to obtain confessions.
It was during the times of the Tudors that the use of torture reached its
height in England. Under Henry VIII, torture was frequently used. When
Edward and Mary were on the throne, torture wasn't used as much.
However, when Elizabeth took the throne, torture was used more than in any
other period of history. Queen Elizabeth thought that treason was one of the
worst crimes that could be committed, and the majority of incidents of
torture were for reasons of high treason. Lords and high officials were
exempted, and woman were rarely put through torture.
The punishment for poisoning during this period was to be boiled to death.
Mutilation and branding were also common. People often had their right hand
cut off if they were caught stealing, and on certain occasions eyes were
plucked out with hot pinchers and fingers were torn off.
Some minor cruelties included the pillory, the stocks, the finger pillory, the
ducking stool, and the ranks. The dunking stool was a stool or chair in which
a woman who had been accused of adultery or other crimes would be
repeatedly dunked under water until pronounced dead.
The pillory was another device that was commonly used. There were a
couple of different forms of the pillory. One is still known of today. The
pillory was a frame in the shape of a T, usually placed in the center of
the town. The accused would place his/her hands in the cross bar of
the T with his/her head sticking out of a hole at the top. The accused
then had to stay in the pillory for an extremely long time and would be
harassed by everyone that crossed his/her path.
Another form of the pillory that isn't as widely known was for the feet. This
device had holes through which the toes were forced; then the toes were
crushed with a hammer and wedge. This form of pillory had much less
emotional pain, but the excruciating physical pain was much more enduring.
The harsher the crime committed, the more horrendous the punishment
during this time. A person accused of manslaughter, rape, or robbery, might
find himself trapped in cages hung up in public places where others could
observe his slow death. Right before being pronounced dead, he was taken
down and quartered until the pain finally killed him.
Nowadays these torture devices seem cruel and heartless, but in the
sixteenth century cruel punishment was a normal everyday thing. Under the
Tudors, torture flourished throughout England. The result was a country
living in fear of being the next victims.
The Medieval period of the Middle Ages was violent and blood thirsty. In
barbarous times the cruel and pitiless feeling which induced legislators to
increase the horrors of tortures, also contributed to the aggravation of the
fate of prisoners. Torture chambers were included in many castles. Law or
custom did not prescribe any fixed rules for the treatment of hapless
prisoners who faced torture. Different types of torture were used depending
on the victim's crime and social status. Torture was seen as a totally
legitimate means for justice to extract confessions, or obtain the names of
Definition of Torture :
The definition of torture is the the deliberate, systematic, cruel and wanton infliction
of physical or mental suffering by one or more torturers in an attempt to force
another person to yield information or to make a confession or for any other reason.
Devices or tools were used to inflict unbearable agony on a victim.
Objectives of Torture :
There were many methods of torture which were practised during the
Medieval era of the Middle Ages:
A skilled torturer would use methods, devices and instruments to prolong life
as long as possible whilst inflicting agonising pain. However, the customs of
the Medieval period dictated that many prisoners were tortured before they
were executed in order to obtain additional information about their crime or
their accomplices. There were many forms of torture and execution. The
execution method itself was part of the torture endured by prisoners. These
final methods of torture and execution included the following methods:
• Torture and execution by Fire
• The Sword or the Axe
• Mechanical force
• Quartering
• The Wheel
• The Fork
• The Gibbet
• Spiking
• Dismembering
The torture chambers were located in the lower parts of castles. The
entrances to many torture chambers were accessed through winding
passages which served to muffle the agonising cries of torture victims
from the normal inhabitants of the castle. internal government of
prisons. Torture chambers and dungeons were often very small some
measured only eleven feet long by seven feet wide in which from ten
to twenty prisoners were often incarcerated at the same time.
‘The basic tools of the torture are his fists and boots’ , ‘Nothing else I
really needed to inflict suffering’. And it is true to say that in a
thousand army barracks and police stations the world over, much
agonizing pain and many hideous injuries have been inflicted by
bullying roughs armed with nothing more elaborate than those.
Alternatively, perpetrators may equip themselves simply with
whatever comes to hand – a knife, a belt, a bottle or a burning
cigarette.
Torture has always been theatrical to some extent, with the scope of
dramatise the most diabolical fantasies of the torture as well as his
The truth is that taking away a prisoner’s freedom has never seemed
sufficiently harsh a punishment in itself, either to the medieval king or
the modern dictator, or, for that matter, to any number of law-abiding
citizens convinced that prison is ‘a holiday camp’. Accordingly, a long
series of measures have been introduced over time to make physical
hardship and discomfort active components of the prison regime.
a) Still Surrender:
Evidence from around the world confirms that shackles and leg-locks
are still very much in use, but the massive clanking chains of popular
imagination have to a large extent been consigned to the past.
‘Bilboes’ were hinged iron rings attached by chains of varying
c) Mob Rule
“With the right care, attention and education, might not these
lost souls realize their inmate capacity for good?”.
e) Ritual Shaming :
“A three fold cangue yokes three convicted criminals together in
this photograph taken In the 1890s.”
Prison is not only the arena in which punishment can take the
form of torture . In the past, a range of different punishments
made public examples of miscreants without actually locking them
up. The stock of medieval Europe, a form of outdoor
imprisonment, had been used centuries beforehand.
“The stocks and pillory saw service in the colonies long after they
had been deemed unacceptable in Britain.”.
f) Brank :
These devices had two main features: They exposed the victims to
ridicule by forcing them to wear a ridiculous likeness, and, at the
same time, they inflicted mortification and physical torture by
occluding the victims' mouth or nose and covering their eyes. As we
can see in the picture number 3, the victim's mouth was stopped up
with a ball to prevent her from screaming and moaning.
a) The rack :
In God’s Name :
The pulley or garrucha was, after the rack, the favoured torture
of the inquisition. The pulley offered a sliding scale of pain for
the experienced tormentor, involving both simple squassation
and its excruciating refinement, strappado. For squassation, the
victim’s ankles were bound together to prohibit movement, while
the wrist were tied tightly behind his back, and another longer
rope fastened by one end to this bond and passed over a hook in
the ceiling. His tormentors could then pull on the rope to hoist
him high into the air where he hung in agony, suspended by his
wrist, his shoulders straining at their sockets.
APPLYING PRESSURE
“In the Chinese variant of the Indian kittee, from around
1900, the downward pressure of the rod behind the legs is
rendered still more damaging by the victim’s being forced to
kneel upon a jagged coil”.
a) Scavenger’s Daughter :
The ideal instrument for the prisoner who had some how
succeeded in withstanding the pains of the rack, the
scavenger’s daughter appealed to tortures on account of its
portability. Far too cumbersome ever to be moved, the rack
might take pride of place in a centre of torture such as tower,
but it could not be taken on hunt for heresy and treason out
in the province.
b) Inquisitional Chairs :
This instrument of torture comes in different versions. We are
first going to examine their common features and, then, their
differences. All of them have common features, in that they
are covered with spikes on the back, on the arm-rests, on the
seat, on the leg-rests and on the foot-rests. The chair
exhibited at the museum of San Gimignano has 1300 spikes,
a real "carpet" of spikes . One version has a bar screwed on
the lower portion of the chair, by the victim's feet, which by a
screw mechanism forced the back of the legs against the
spikes, thus penetrating the flesh of the victim. Another
version had two bars immobilising the victim's wrists forcing
his forearms against the arm-rests resulting in the flesh being
penetrated by the spikes.
The forks did not penetrate any vital points, and thus
suffering was prolonged and death avoided. Obviously the
victims' hands were tied behind their back.
TRIAL BY FIRE
a) Trial By Ordeal :
b) Trial by Water :
a) Drinking By Force :
b) Sink Or
Swim :
C) Cold Showers :
FORCES OF NATURE
“Civilized man has always set himself apart from nature:
the idea that be might form just another level on the
food chain seems degrading to him, hence the
humiliation of these Persian thieves hung out to be
eaten by vultures”.
c) Buried Alive :
BEATING
Types Of Beating :
a) Bastinado :
a) Lingering Death :
SHOCK TACTICS
MENTAL CRUELTY
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Types Of capital Punishment :
c) The Garrotte :
This
hanging.