AI has serious concerns about the increasing use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in Nigeria.
Recent Amnesty research indicates that police and military personnel routinely use torture and other ill-treatment to extract information and “confessions”, and to punish and exhaust detainees. In contravention of national and international law, information extracted by torture and ill-treatment is routinely accepted as evidence in court.
The Nigerian authorities display an apparent lack of political will to adhere to their international human rights obligations.
The international non-profit organisation said this on Thursday via a statement on its website to mark the 17th International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, 30 years after the United Nations adopted its convention against torture.
“One would have hoped that three decades into the battle against torture, the Amnesty International would have fewer victims to support,” it stated.
It confirmed further that many of the 155 governments who joined the convention against torture had taken “concrete, practical steps” to reduce torture and other ill-treatment considerably.
The statement noted, however, that reports of torture and other ill-treatment continued to stream into its offices daily.
It said, “In a world traumatised by the threat of terrorism, attitudes to torture appear to be increasingly ambivalent.
“Fear of powerful armed groups in countries like Nigeria, Iraq and Libya is softening international resolve when it comes to enforcing the ban on torture. And the need to maintain security forces’ loyalty is stifling investigations of abuse in places such as Ukraine.
“How many Nigerians would sanction torturing a Boko Haram suspect to bring back their schoolgirls – without thinking how often suspects in Nigeria are wrongly accused?”
According to the AI, authorities cannot be relied on to pick and choose, and even if the authorities always get the right suspects, the grim reality of torture is “too barbaric to countenance”.
“The prohibition of torture must be absolute,” it affirmed.
The organisation said it had in May launched its flagship global campaign Stop Torture, and that since then, it discovered that from the 155 states who had vowed to stamp out torture when they signed the Convention, at least 79 of them had carried out torture or other ill-treatment in 2014.
The AI said looking back over a five-year period, it had received reports of torture in at least 141 countries, which was the vast majority of those on which it worked.
The international non-profit organisation said this on Thursday via a statement on its website to mark the 17th International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, 30 years after the United Nations adopted its convention against torture.
“One would have hoped that three decades into the battle against torture, the Amnesty International would have fewer victims to support,” it stated.
It confirmed further that many of the 155 governments who joined the convention against torture had taken “concrete, practical steps” to reduce torture and other ill-treatment considerably.
The statement noted, however, that reports of torture and other ill-treatment continued to stream into its offices daily.
It said, “In a world traumatised by the threat of terrorism, attitudes to torture appear to be increasingly ambivalent.
“Fear of powerful armed groups in countries like Nigeria, Iraq and Libya is softening international resolve when it comes to enforcing the ban on torture. And the need to maintain security forces’ loyalty is stifling investigations of abuse in places such as Ukraine.
“How many Nigerians would sanction torturing a Boko Haram suspect to bring back their schoolgirls – without thinking how often suspects in Nigeria are wrongly accused?”
According to the AI, authorities cannot be relied on to pick and choose, and even if the authorities always get the right suspects, the grim reality of torture is “too barbaric to countenance”.
“The prohibition of torture must be absolute,” it affirmed.
The organisation said it had in May launched its flagship global campaign Stop Torture, and that since then, it discovered that from the 155 states who had vowed to stamp out torture when they signed the Convention, at least 79 of them had carried out torture or other ill-treatment in 2014.
The AI said looking back over a five-year period, it had received reports of torture in at least 141 countries, which was the vast majority of those on which it worked.
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