| by Stewart Sloan
( September 24, 2012, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka Guardian) The
third issue of volume one of Torture: Asian and Global Perspectives is now
available and is being distributed at the time of writing.
Published jointly by the AHRC and the Rehabilitation and
Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT Denmark) Torture: Asian and Global
Perspectives is a great contribution to the anti torture campaign in the Asian
region in that it brings together reports, interviews, speeches and
commentaries under one cover and in doing so manages to highlight the situations
in most Asian countries. Indeed, it does not just highlight the issues but
identifies causes and puts forward attainable goals for torture prevention.
This issue's Cover Story article, Silence Implies Support by
Jack Clancey, Chairman of the AHRC and Asian Legal Resource Centre, is a
reproduction of the speech given by Mr. Clancey to the meeting of Asian
parliamentarians at the Asian Alliance against Torture and Ill-Treatment. In
his speech Mr. Clancy covers a wide range of topics, all of which explain the
ongoing causes of torture in the region. These include the need for adequate
budgetary allocations, the commonly held belief among police officers that
policing without torture is impossible and the impunity given to perpetrators
by those in power and the lack of laws to criminalise torture. Mr. Clancey goes
on to remind us that in the fight to eliminate torture,
.....it is civil society organisations that play the most
vital role: to human rights defenders that the victims go in order to get help.
Thus, there is a need to protect the freedom of human rights defenders to offer
their services to victims, as well as society.
He closes by making "two provocative statements".
Silence implies support. To remain silent in the face of
such widespread torture implies that people do not think torture is wrong......
And,
Without laws making it illegal torture is considered legal.
We should demand that laws are passed making torture illegal and should insist
that those laws be strictly implemented.
The magazine is readable and well presented and this
probably explains why, when asked to do an interview for the publication Dr.
Paul Craig Roberts, the current chairman of the Institute for Political Economy
was glad to do so. In his interview Dr. Roberts speaks knowledgeably about the
attitudes and programmes of past US presidents. When asked directly about his
analysis of torture with regard to the United States he says,
In the US torture is prohibited the US Constitution and by
US statutory law........I do not know why the George W. Bush regime violated US
and international law and tortured "detainees".......
This, as he explains has had a knock on effect in that,
.....if the executive branch could violate, with impunity,
both constitutional and legal prohibitions against torture, the precedent could
be expanded to habeas corpus, due
process, and to free speech.......
Once law and the Constitution could be side-lined, the
regime could escape war criminal accountability for its wars of naked
aggression.
In his closing comments Dr. Roberts echoes the thoughts of
many Asians when he says,
....there is no prospect for a moral and torture free world
until the west is held accountable for its crimes.
Western governments have become the antithesis of morality.
For further information on the current issue please go to:
torturemag@ahrc.asia
About the Author: Stewart Sloan is the author of five novels and a collection
of anecdotes about the Royal Hong Kong Police force whom he served as a
Confidential Assistant for 11 years. He currently writes articles and satire on
various human rights issues in several Asian countries. More of his work may be
found at: http://sloanbooks.blogspot.com and
https://www.amazon.com/author/stewartsloan
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