Torture exists
This is an article I piblished on in September 2014, together with my colleagues in Argituz, Sabino Ormazábal and Nagore Perez, in order to start creating the right climate for the presentation of the report titled Incommunicado Detention and Torture: Assessments using the Istambul Protocol.
In this article we maintain that “The rights of victims of human rights violations and abuse are recognized by the international standards and norms that constitute International Law and that are materialized in treaties that are binding, such as the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights or the Convention against Torture”. We also say that reference to torture, “International Law now has a solution. And it is not a matter of reinventing the wheel. The solution is the Istambul Protocol. adopted by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the year 2000. Its purpose is none other than to be an international guide for the evaluation of people who have been tortured, in order to investigate possible torture cases and report the findings to justice or law enforcement agencies. It contains internationally-recognized standards and procedures on how to analyze and document torture symptoms, so that such documentation can be used as proof before a court of law. That is to say, it is useful, among other things, to establish the veracity of reports. Therefore, the tool that can clarify this matter exists. Before so much denial and lack of will to adequately face this problem, we shall have to use this tool in order to make a real process of truth, justice, reparation and -don’t forget- non discrimination possible for this kind of victims”.
I shall be translating the whole of this article in due course. In the meantime you can read it in the link below in its original version in Spanish.
This article was published, among others, by
