Torture

Iran's judiciary chief Wednesday ordered a ban on the use of torture for obtaining confessions -- a move widely seen as the first public acknowledgment of the practice in the country. "Any kind of torture of the accused to obtain confessions is banned, and confessions extracted through torture will not be religiously or legally legitimate," Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi said in a statement addressed to interrogators and other judicial officials.

A member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family was found not guilty Sunday of the torture and rape of an Afghan in a case that has embarrassed the Gulf emirate and raised questions over human rights. The judge reading the verdict at a court in the United Arab Emirates did not give a reason why Sheik Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan was exonerated of responsibility for abuse shown in a video first made public by ABC television last year. ABC identified one of the abuse participants as Issa.

Re "Mukasey's confession," Opinion, Feb. 2 I enjoyed Tim Rutten's "keep it simple, stupid" logic that disrobes Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey's attempt to dress his words in some sort of distorted rationale and acceptable response to the simple question of whether or not waterboarding is torture. Mukasey is only a cut above former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, as he doesn't try to use the excuse that he cannot remember or recall whether waterboarding is torture. At least Mukasey is willing to admit that if he were a victim of waterboarding, it would be torture and therefore illegal.

Re "CIA Can Still Get Tough on Detainees," Sept. 8 In life, very few things are truly black and white. Torture happens to be one. President Bush and his administration have shamed this country with their policies of torture, secret prisons and proposed "tribunals" that fall far short of anything any American would recognize as justice. Congress should rectify these aberrations and put us back on the path that follows the rule of law and reflect the values on which this country was founded.

Re "Unraveling the culture of torture," Opinion, April 26 Three of the hundreds of Guantanamo detainees were waterboarded. Foremost among them was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who admitted helping murder 3,000 innocent Americans. Mohammed was deprived of sleep and had water shoved up his nose. This pressured him to disclose crucial information about other planned terror attacks and the names of other Al Qaeda operatives. Doyle McManus, as well as many in the Obama administration, are up in arms over this.

A former British ambassador has published government documents he says prove that Britain knowingly received intelligence extracted under torture from prisoners in Uzbekistan. Craig Murray, who was removed as ambassador to Uzbekistan after he went public about his concerns, defied a Foreign Office prohibition on publishing the internal memos Friday on his website, www.craigmurray.co.uk.

"Ex-Soldier Recalls Beating He Received in Guantanamo Drill" (June 16) details the beating Kentucky National Guard trooper Sean Baker received at the hands of the prison guards at the Guantanamo prison. Treated like an Afghan prisoner for 10 minutes, Baker is disabled with traumatic brain injury. It makes one wonder what it's like to be treated like an Afghan for a year or two. "Torture" is surely not a strong enough word. Bill Kidd Portland, Ore. Baker was quoted: "What happened to me is something that should never have happened to any American soldier.

Reports of torture in the Philippines have increased since the Manila government stepped up its counter-insurgency campaign against Communist rebels, Amnesty International said today. This "pattern of torture" has re-emerged despite constitutional and legal measures by President Corazon Aquino's government to outlaw brutality, Amnesty International said in a report.

Something deeply frightening and soul killing is happening to this country when a Times staff writer ("The Truth About Truth Serum," Nov. 5) can mention in an offhand way that unnamed U.S. government officials are considering extraditing four men detained for possible links to the Sept. 11 attacks "to a country without legal restrictions on torture." Torture is not a civilized option; it is a crime against humanity. A government that sends men to be tortured is no better than those who do the torturing.

A major state and FBI investigation of an Elephant Butte, N.M., couple who allegedly kept two women captive for torture expanded with the search of a newly found storage shed and the use of dogs trained to sniff for bodies. But on the 10th day of the intensive investigation by more than 100 officers, officials were silent about whether the accused pair had taken other victims or what had been found in their trailer home.