At the detention centre on the Cyprus coast, it was well past midnight when a military vehicle stopped abruptly outside. It had driven across the island from Nicosia through the night. Two men went straight inside. One was the colonial Governor, the other his military commander.

“We walked . . . straight into the room where the interrogation was taking place/’ wrote the governor years afterward. “We could see no sign of ill-treatment. Nor could we see any indications of force having been used on the villagers who had been interrogated earlier. But our visit that night was known throughout the island by the next morning. Our night visit did more than all the circulars to prevent the use of torture in the Cyprus emergency.”

It was a demonstration of political will. The scene was Cyprus during the closing months of the Greek Cypriot insurgency in the late 1950s. The security situation was perilous. Soldiers and civilians had been killed. Intelligence information from captured insurgents was considered essential if their campaign of violence was not to disrupt movement toward a political settlement of the long-standing Cyprus dispute involving Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Allegations of torture had been brought to the Governor that night. He was not especially surprised. Previously, in 1956, Greece had brought a complaint against the United Kingdom before the European Commission on Human Rights of the Council of Europe concerning whipping and collective punishments in Cyprus. There had also been allegations of brutality during interrogation. Fact-finding by the commission continued, including an on-site visit to the island. The then-Governor, Sir Hugh Caradon, has since described the “salutary influence” of knowing that he and other British officials in Cyprus were subject to an international inquiry by an inter-governmental body with powers to investigate individual complaints about abuses of human rights. On hearing these new allegations concerning torture in a village on the opposite side of Cyprus from his headquarters in Nicosia, he and the armed forces’ commander set out for their ride through the night.

Clearly, in the 1980s, finding the political will to investigate and prevent torture is in most cases far more complex than the prerogative of a single late colonial commander. Indeed, the reports of torture and ill-treatment from 98 countries set out in this book demonstrate the presence of a conscious decision to torture by some governments and the lack of any will to stop it by many others. While governments universally and collectively condemn torture, more than a third of the world’s governments have used or tolerated torture or ill-treatment of prisoners in the 1980s.

Abolishing torture will require a long-term commitment. The launching of a major Campaign for the Abolition of Torture in 1972 by Amnesty International and the publication of its first Report on Torture in 1973 marked the beginning of a concerted push to end the use of torture as a tool of state policy In the decade since some achievements have been made. More than a million people signed a petition to the United Nations (UN) catling for an anti¬torture resolution, a step that helped stimulate the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Declaration against Torture, in 1975. The UN, other inter-governmental organ¬izations (IGOs) and several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have worked along parallel lines to develop international standards against torture and machinery to combat its continuing use. independently, a growing number of domestic human rights groups are working courageously in their own countries to document and publicize torture used by their governments. The news media carry many more items about torture and other human rights abuses than they did a decade ago, not necessarily because there are more such abuses in the 1980s than earlier, but because more independent organizations are investigating these abuses and because editors and journalists are more concerned to conduct their own research into torture allegations and to report on their findings.

Today, due to these national and international efforts, detainees and their families, lawyers and associates are more aware than ever before that international support is available. One such means of direct assistance is the Urgent Action network established by Amnesty International in 1974 to allow a speedy response by cables and express letters from individual participants around the world on behalf of a person known by name who is at risk of being tortured. In 1983 some 30,000 people from 47 countries participate in this network. Between mid-1974 and 1979 Amnesty International interceded on behalf of 1,143 individuals in danger of torture {excluding mass arrests) in 32 countries; between January 1980 and mid-1983. Amnesty International made similar urgent appeals on behalf of 2,687 individuals in 45 countries. This type of action, to be effective, depends on receiving reliable information quickly from those close to a detainee, for torture usually occurs in the first days or weeks in detention. Information leads to exposure, a key to stopping an individual’s suffering and to pressing a government to abandon the practice. The increased flow of such information in the last few years indicates not only that torture remains a major international problem in the 1980s, but more positively, that those who live in fear of torture know more and more how to reach abroad quickly for help.
But more — much more — remains to be done. Before the UN is a draft Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Such a convention could be a truly effective weapon against torture. Amnesty International believes the following points are essential. First, governments should not be allowed the loophole of “lawful sanctions” that might exclude from prohibition some types of punishment that they might legislate (see Chapter 2, page 14). Second, the convention should provide for universal jurisdiction in respect of alleged torturers, who should be subjected to due process of law in any country where they happen to be, regardless of the nationality of the victims or the alleged offender or the country of the alleged torture. There should be no safe haven for torturers. Third, key articles of the convention should apply equally to torture and to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. For example, redress and compensation should be available to victims of all these categories of ill-treatment, and all statements obtained by any such ill-treatment should be excluded from evidence in any trial. Fourth, there must be effective implementation mechanisms (such as a body to receive and investigate torture allegations and the international on-site inspection of detention centres), so as to encourage compliance with the convention. This machinery should not be merely optional.

Revulsion at the extermination camps of the Second World War led to a convention outlawing genocide for all time as a crime against humanity. Today’s torture chambers demand a similar international response—a convention to enforce the prohibition of torture and of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, and perhaps more importantly, a renewed and forceful commitment by individuals, journalists, professional organizations, trade unions, human rights groups and, above all, by governments to expose and denounce torture whenever and wherever it occurs, in 1984 Amnesty International and other NGOs are intensifying the continuing Campaign for the Abolition of Torture, Ordinary citizens by the tens of thousands will be writing to governments to press them to stop torture and to adopt measures to prevent it. A program of specific domestic measures to abolish torture is included in this report. It is addressed to governments individually and collectively as well as to the entire international community.

Torture can be stopped. The international legal framework for its abolition exists, as do the investigative methods to verify and expose it. What is lacking is the political will of governments to stop torturing people. It is as simple and as difficult as that. Amnesty International hopes that this new report about torture as well as its continuing campaign against torture will contribute to creating this political will so that our generation can banish torture from the earth.