1. Kai Hondo
2010/04/28
Torture Must be Stopped
Prevention of torture is a one of rights that covered by Human Right and
nobody must not violate this right. Since Human Right was established by United
Nation on December 10, 1948, the right covers more than 30 basic rights and freedoms
and all human can reserve these rights without any discrimination. However, by the
report of International Committee of the Red Cross and Amnesty International, it is
revealed that one of the Human Right, prevention of torture is violated by U.S. army (1).
In Guantanamo bay detention camp, U.S. army commonly tortures suspect of terrorists
to investigate location of terrorist’s safe house and their target. Someone may say
torture is needed to get information but, through the human’s history, it is clear that
torture does not give correct information. However, this human right is still violated
especially during war, and we need to accuse the violation to save innocent people.
The history of torture is very long. Before century, technique of torturing was
already established and it was used as investigating suspects. Before nineteen century,
torture is very common way for investigation of suspect and people thought information
from torture is important. Although after nineteen century, many laws about fair
investigation were made, torture is still continued underground and mainly during war
in Viet Nam and Afghanistan (2) (3), prisoners of war got hard torture. Actually, the
information from torture is not meaningful because sometimes people make lie to
prevent suffer. In 1757, Robert-François Damiens, criminal of attempting to
assassination of Louis XV of France, got torture to find his accomplice. However, he did
not have any accomplice so he made lie to finish the torture and then an innocent man
was also tortured hardly. By the example of Robert-François Damiens’s story, it is clear
that torture does not give correct information and information from torture is not
meaningful.
Amnesty International found that Prevention of Torture is commonly violated
in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (4). In the Base, many suspects of terrorist arrested
from Afghanistan war in 2001 and most of them did not get trial and both U.S. laws and
Cuba laws do not reaches in the base. Also, in the base soldiers torture those suspects to
get information about their terrorist group and their target. However, this illegal

2. investigation makes a lot of mistakes. In 2004, three Pakistani British men were
released from the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, even they were completely innocent
and there was no evidence to show that they are terrorists but they were treated as
member of terrorist and they torture for 2 years (5). To prevent these tragedies,
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base must stop torture and give suspects Human Right.
(Picture 2&3): Suspect of terrorist commonly gets tortured.
To stop the illegal acts in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Amnesty International
reveals actual conditions of the base and many people get shocked. Also, despite the
Bush Administration, the Obama Administration states that the Guantanamo Bay
Naval Base will be closed. Now, procedure of closing the base is making slow progress
but the problem of torture will be reduced.
(Picture 1): Amnesty International protests the detentions using a mock cell and prison
outfits

3. I think torture is not an effective way to get information because people make
lie to prevent suffer and reliability of the information is quite low. Also, in Guantanamo
Bay Naval Base, suspects are not treated as human and everyone live there with fear
and suffer and I do not see any Human Right there. I realized importance of Human
Right through the study of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and I realized that many
people watch whole world to protect our Human Right.
(1) Amnesty International, Torture in Guantanamo
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR2005052501838.
html
(2) U.S. military, Torture in Iraq War
http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqtortures.html
(3) U.S. military, Torture in Viet Nam War
http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/resources/torture/luce.html
(4) U.S. admit torture
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4239480/
US-admits-Guantanamo-torture.html
(5) Three innocent men
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/aug/04/afghanistan.usa
(Picture 1):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Amnesty-gitmo-cell-miami-3.jpg
(Picture 2): http://www.puppetgov.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/guantanamo.jpg
(Picture 3): http://images.watoday.com.au/2009/01/10/344700/torture-two-420×0.jpg