The same night an uncle of the police sergeant who took the man away, visited the house and told the mother that her son could be released if a ransom of fifteen thousand rupees was paid. The parents said they did not have the means to pay such a large sum of money. Early in the morning, the next day, the family were informed that the young man had committed suicide by hanging himself in the lavatory._________________________________
by Dr. Nalin Swaris
(February 02, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The central symbol of Christianity is the figure of a tortured man. For Christians, the crucifixion of Jesus is both a historical and sacred event. While Christians mourn the death of Jesus on Good Friday, it is the sacred character and purpose of his death that absorbs their attention and fills them with gratitude: it was a necessary the price that had to be paid to redeem humankind from the clutches of Satan. As a result Christians tend to view this "utterly vile death of the cross" (Origen) with profound equanimity.
The German historian and theologian Martin Hengel has compiled, from ancient sources, the actual horrors which accompanied the practice of torturing people to death through crucifixion, to understand what Paul called the (divine) "folly of the Cross"(Crucifixion in the Ancient and the Folly of the Message of the Cross: Fortress Press Philadelphia 1977)
Roman Catholic Theologian and Professor of Religion at Wichita State University, Stephen Moore, writes that when he tracked down Hengel’s work in his college library, he was surprised that it was not shelved in the religion section as he had expected, but in a corner of the history section devoted to torture alongside Amnesty International reports (Post Structuralism and the New Testament Fortress Press Minneapolis 1994). This brings me to the subject of my reflection.
A gross miscarriage of justice
Whenever Christians recite the Apostles Creed, they repeat more often than not, quite heedlessly, "he suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified and died..". One wonders if they are jolted into shocking realisation that this brief statement sears into Christian memory one of history’s grossest miscarriages of justice. Jesus was arrested in the secrecy of the night, dragged before secular and religious authorities, falsely accused, scourged mercilessly, crowned with thorns and presented by Pilate to a mob howling for his blood, with the words "Behold the man". It is as a man, that is to say, in his humanity, that Jesus was reviled, beaten, and tortured to death. His human rights were violated by the Jewish Church and the Roman State.
Crucifixion is one of the most perverse forms of execution invented by human beings. It was a sadistic method of killing a person by slow and agonizing torture. Flogging invariably preceded execution, the victim often carried the beam to the place of execution. His feet and outstretched hand were nailed to a cross at the wrists and ankles. The cross was then raised and the victim seated on a wooden peg.
The victim would have suffered excruciating pain as he struggled to get a breath of air; this entailed pushing himself up by the feet and pulling himself by the hands. He would have died slowly, too exhausted by the struggle to breathe. Besides this general procedure, the details could be different from execution to execution: "crucifixion was a punishment in which the caprice and sadism of the executioners were given full rein" (Hengel, in Moore p.96)
Underlying the practice of public torture to death was (is) the theory of satisfaction. The theory was held at a time when the distinction between a sin against the gods and a crime against the state hardly existed. A crime or sin was regarded as an atrocity against the sovereignty of God, casu quo, the Church, or the king. The public executions had a theological-juridical function. The sovereign power had been affronted, the majesty of the sovereign tarnished. The accused therefore had to be punished by a horrific exemplary act of vindictive justice. The entire spectacle of torturing to death functioned as a ‘theatre of horror’.
Public executions continued throughout the world right down to modern times. In Europe, as the ideas of the Enlightenment spread and took hold, "Protests against public executions proliferated in the second half of the eighteenth century: among the philosophers and theoreticians of the law; among lawyers and parliamentariens."(Michel Foucault, p 73, Discipline and Punish Penguin 1991) By the end of the nineteenth century the practice of public torture and execution was abolished in European countries. "The need for punishment without torture was first formulated as a cry form the heart or from an outraged nature. In the worst of murderers, there is one thing, at least, to be respected when one punishes: his ‘humanity’.(Foucault p.74) Whatever the claims of divine justice may have been, in human justice, respect for human rights and human dignity prevailed. The theology of atonement has remained the central plank of the Christian theology of salvation, but has become an acute embarrassment for critical twentieth century Biblical scholars. The Protestant German theologian, Rudolf Bultmann, has been the most outspoken in this regard:. In "New Testament and Mythology" he asks with exasperation: "What primitive notions of guilt and righteousness does this imply? And what a primitive idea of God? ... What a primitive mythology it is, that a divine Being should atone for the sins of men through his own blood!".
Already in the sixth century before Christ, the Buddha rejected the theory that physical punishment, whether inflicted on oneself or by another has the power to expiate sin. He told a group of Jain self-torturers that if a Supreme God wills that physical punishment must be suffered to make amends for one’s sins, he must indeed be an evil god (Devadaha Sutra - Majjhima Nikaya II.223). He publicly denounced the ritual sacrifice of humans and animals as a product of misguided religiosity (Kutadanta Sutra Digha Nikaya I. 5)
Today, most countries have abandoned the practice of public torture and execution of convicted criminals. In Western Europe and North America torture of arrestees seem to be exception rather than the rule. In the so-called Third World countries however torture of persons of individuals taken into custody is routinely practiced. The rituals of horror have been shifted from the public arena to the enclosed space of police and army posts. People are no longer exposed to the arbitrary whims of a despotic god or king but are often subjected to the caprice of the agents of the law who take them into custody. The ‘theatre of horror’ has been shifted into secret chambers of torture.
Torture and the Sri Lankan Justice System
Torture of arrestees is endemic to the Sri Lankan ‘justice’ system. Police arrests, especially of the socially weak, are often arbitrary and done at the instigation of those who have political or financial ‘clout’ with the police. While many officers do excellent detective and investigation work, most resort to torture in order to extract a confession from a suspect. Many police stations have become virtual torture chambers. Torturing detainees has become very much a part of the internal culture of the police. Senior police officers cover up the misdemeanours of their subordinates. Times and dates of arrest are falsified, records are fixed to get a delinquent officer off the hook in case a fundamental rights case would be filed.
Torture or the ‘third degree method’ has become a convenient substitute for proper investigation. This has given a sardonic twist to perfunctory news reports that a suspect is "being held in police custody". A few weeks ago, when the police produced doctored documents and false testimony to cover up the torture of an innocent man they had taken into custody, the exasperated magistrate asked with Juvenal " Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will guard the guardians (of the law)?"
The frequency of police torture and official indifference in the face of it is so alarming that a group of concerned persons founded an organisation called the Janasansadaya (Peoples Forum) to expose these crimes against humanity and bring to justice the thugs in police uniform. To create public awareness of these state-sanctioned atrocities, Janasansadaya and the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong, launched a campaign against the practice of torture by the Sri Lankan police on the 4th of February 2002, to coincide with the celebration of 54 years of independence from British Rule. The campaign was organised around the single question:"What does independence mean to the ordinary Sri Lankan, if the Sri Lankan state does not respect its citizens elementary right to life and the security of their lives and limbs?". The Day Against Torture attracted hundred of victims of torture and their families. Some of the participants were the relative of victims who had died of torture in prison stations. They were given the opportunity to speak out their grief and to lament the cruel indifference of the justice system to their pleas for justice.
Three examples from the scores of public testimonies made by victims of police torture may hopefully shock readers and impel them to demand that the authorities take firm action against to stop the atrocities routinely committed by the police. Sri Lanka has not only signed the UN Convention Against Torture, but has incorporated it into Sri Lankan law, Section 4, Act Nr. 22 of 1994.
1. The first is the case of a frail twelve year old boy arrested on a charge of theft. He is supposed to have climbed down from the roof of a cooperative stores and stolen some goods. The boy was severely beaten and tortured to extract a confession. The heartrending fact is that this boy is mentally retarded. He was incapable of understanding the charges brought against him or why he was so mercilessly beaten.
Despite pleadings by the father to have the boy released to his care the magistrate ordered that the boy be remanded in a juvenile house of probation, as he was a minor. Kindly officials of this house had the boy examined by a leading Colombo psychiatrist, who confirmed that the boy is mentally retarded and that he would not have been able to climb a roof and let himself down to commit the robbery. This certificate was produced in court, but it does not seem to have impressed the judge. The charges have not been dropped. The boy was handed over to his father’s care and he has to be produced in court every time the case is recalled. The trumped up charges it now appears was politically instigated.
2. Police raided the house of an extremely poor couple on a tip off that illicit liquor was stored there. No one was at home. The policemen broke in, found nothing and in frustration smashed up the few meagre possessions of the occupants and waited. When the thirty three year old woman of the house came home, the police pounced on her and demanded to know where her husband was. She said she could not say where he was, as he was a casual labourer, who had no fixed place of work. Infuriated, the policeman called the woman a a whoring liar and beat her ruthlessly. She fell on her knees and begged the police not to beat her as she was three months pregnant. A policeman kicked her in the stomach and replied: "We do not care whether you have one or two little devils inside you, say where your husband is".
In striking contrast to the treatment now being given to VIP murder suspects, she was dragged away to the police station and held as a hostage, till the husband gave himself up. When the mother of the young woman rushed to the police station she found her daughter bleeding profusely. She begged the police to allow her daughter to be taken to the hospital. The young woman was hospitalized for several days. The doctors managed to save her life but she suffered a miscarriage.
3. The police raided a house after midnight and dragged away a young man who was fast asleep on his mat. He was arrested on an allegation that he had committed a robbery. The family were threatened when they tried to follow the police to the station. When they visited the police station the next morning the youth told them that he had been mercilessly beaten throughout the night and that he feared that he would not survive another night of torture. He begged them to get him released. The police said he had to be produced before the magistrate the next day and could then be released on bail.
The same night an uncle of the police sergeant who took the man away, visited the house and told the mother that her son could be released if a ransom of fifteen thousand rupees was paid. The parents said they did not have the means to pay such a large sum of money. Early in the morning, the next day, the family were informed that the young man had committed suicide by hanging himself in the lavatory.
A medical doctor had certified that the cause of death was strangulation by hanging. The family challenged this verdict and the magistrate ordered that the body be sent to Colombo for an autopsy. The body was covered with deadly wounds. The judicial medical officer was shocked to discover that the body had been tampered with. He found two hearts and two lungs inside the body. It is now known that the corpse of a man who had actually hung himself had been brought to the hospital the night the arrestee was killed. His lungs and heart had been stuffed into the young man’s body to confuse the Colombo judicial medical officer.
The crucified Jesus and torture
When it comes to the crime of torture, the religion of an officer does not seem function as a deterrent. One of the most notorious and obsessive torturers, a senior police officer, against whom a fundamental rights case has been filed, belongs to a so-called outstanding Anglican family. The secretary of Jansansadaya, a Buddhist, had approached the director of a Roman Catholic institution in the area to inquire whether they could rent the hall of this institute for the planned exhibition on torture. The director, a priest, had responded that he was not in favour of the campaign. His considered opinion was that without giving people a good thrashing one cannot stop crime. The request was denied. When the Buddhist gentleman expressed his utter bewilderment at the priest’s attitude, a friend told him. "Obviously the good man has forgotten that the founder of his religion was the victim of a gross injustice and of the terrible crime of torture. He too was given ‘ a good thrashing’". One might have imagined that Christians, especially Christian ministers, more than adherents of any other faith, would be deeply sensitized against the crime of torture and feel outraged by its continuance.
The contemporaries of Mark would have understood the horrible implications of his laconic statement: "they crucified him". (15:24)
Illegal arrests, illegal detention and torture continue without any effective measures being taken to eradicate these gross violations of human rights. In international law, the prohibition of torture has been defined as a ‘jus cogens’ which compels states to take judicial action against torturers. The commemoration of the death and crucifixion of Jesus is a fitting occasion for Christian to feel outraged at gross miscarriages of justice, which continue two thousand years after their founder was hounded as a criminal and killed by torturing him to death. Christian ministers and laity can show no better devotion to their Lord than by joining the campaign against torture.
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