<<previous | index
Amnesty
International’s 12-Point Programme
for the Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment by Agents of the State
Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (other
ill-treatment) are violations of human rights, condemned by the international
community as an offence to human dignity and prohibited in all circumstances
under international law. Yet they happen daily and across the globe. Immediate
steps are needed to confront these abuses wherever they occur and to eradicate
them. Amnesty International calls on all governments to implement the following
12-point programme and invites concerned individuals and organizations to
ensure that they do so. Amnesty International believes that the implementation
of these measures is a positive indication of a government’s commitment to end
torture and other ill-treatment and to work for their eradication worldwide.
1. Condemn torture and other ill-treatment
The highest authorities of every country should demonstrate their total
opposition to torture and other ill-treatment. They should condemn these
practices unreservedly whenever they occur. They should make clear to all
members of the police, military and other security forces that torture and
other ill-treatment will never be tolerated.
2. Ensure access to prisoners
Torture and other ill-treatment often take place while prisoners are held
incommunicado – unable to contact people outside who could help them or find
out what is happening to them. The practice of incommunicado detention should
be ended. Governments should ensure that all prisoners are brought before an
independent judicial authority without delay after being taken into custody.
Prisoners should have access to relatives, lawyers and doctors without delay
and regularly thereafter.
3. No secret detention
In some countries torture and other ill-treatment take place in secret
locations, often after the victims are made to "disappear".
Governments should ensure that prisoners are held only in officially recognized
places of detention and that accurate information about their arrest and
whereabouts is made available immediately to relatives, lawyers, the courts,
and others with a legitimate interest, such as the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC). Effective judicial remedies should be available at all
times to enable relatives and lawyers to find out immediately where a prisoner
is held and under what authority, and to ensure the prisoner’s safety.
4. Provide safeguards during detention and interrogation All prisoners
should be immediately informed of their rights. These include the right to
lodge complaints about their treatment and to have a judge rule without delay
on the lawfulness of their detention. Judges should investigate any evidence of
torture or other ill-treatment and order release if the detention is unlawful.
A lawyer should be present during interrogations. Governments should ensure
that conditions of detention conform to international standards for the
treatment of prisoners and take into account the needs of members of
particularly vulnerable groups. The authorities responsible for detention
should be separate from those in charge of interrogation. There should be
regular, independent, unannounced and unrestricted visits of inspection to all
places of detention.
5. Prohibit torture and other ill-treatment in law
Governments should adopt laws for the prohibition and prevention of torture and
other ill-treatment incorporating the main elements of the UN Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(Convention against Torture) and other relevant international standards. All
judicial and administrative corporal punishments should be abolished. The
prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment and the essential safeguards for
their prevention must not be suspended under any circumstances, including
states of war or other public emergency.
6. Investigate
All complaints and reports of torture or other ill-treatment should be
promptly, impartially and effectively investigated by a body independent of the
alleged perpetrators. The scope, methods and findings of such investigations
should be made public. Officials suspected of committing torture or other
ill-treatment should be suspended from active duty during the investigation.
Complainants, witnesses and others at risk should be protected from
intimidation and reprisals.
7. Prosecute
Those responsible for torture or other ill-treatment should be brought to
justice. This principle applies wherever those suspected of these crimes happen
to be, whatever their nationality or position, regardless of where the crime
was committed and the nationality of the victims, and no matter how much time
has elapsed since the commission of the crime. Governments should exercise
universal jurisdiction over those suspected of these crimes, extradite them, or
surrender them to an international criminal court, and cooperate in such
criminal proceedings. Trials should be fair. An order from a superior officer
should never be accepted as a justification for torture or ill-treatment.
8. No use of statements extracted under torture or other ill-treatment
Governments should ensure that statements and other evidence obtained through
torture or other ill-treatment may not be invoked in any proceedings, except
against a person accused of torture or other ill-treatment.
9. Provide effective training
It should be made clear during the training of all officials involved in the
custody, interrogation or medical care of prisoners that torture and other
ill-treatment are criminal acts. Officials should be instructed that they have
the right and duty to refuse to obey any order to torture or carry out other
ill-treatment.
10. Provide reparation
Victims of torture or other ill-treatment and their dependants should be
entitled to obtain prompt reparation from the state including restitution, fair
and adequate financial compensation and appropriate medical care and
rehabilitation.
11. Ratify international treaties
All governments should ratify without reservations international treaties
containing safeguards against torture and other ill-treatment, including the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its first Optional
Protocol; and the UN Convention against Torture, with declarations providing
for individual and inter-state complaints, and its Optional Protocol.
Governments should comply with the recommendations of international bodies and
experts on the prevention of torture and other ill-treatment.
12. Exercise international responsibility
Governments should use all available channels to intercede with the governments
of countries where torture or other ill-treatment are reported. They should
ensure that transfers of training and equipment for military, security or
police use do not facilitate torture or other ill-treatment. Governments must
not forcibly return or transfer a person to a country where he or she would be
at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.
This
12-point programme sets out measures to prevent the torture and other
ill-treatment of people who are in governmental custody or otherwise in the
hands of agents of the state. It was first adopted by Amnesty International in
1984, revised in October 2000 and again in April 2005. Amnesty International
holds governments to their international obligations to prevent and punish
torture and other ill-treatment, whether committed by agents of the state or by
other individuals. Amnesty International also opposes torture and other
ill-treatment by armed political groups.
