Human Rights Day: Eliminate scourge of torture
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Message
Fifty-seven years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
prohibited all forms of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, torture remains unacceptably common. Recent
times have witnessed an especially disturbing trend of countries
claiming exceptions to the prohibition on torture based on their own
national security perceptions.
Let us be clear: torture can never be an instrument to fight terror,
for torture is an instrument of terror.
The prohibition on torture is well established under international
law. It is also unambiguous and absolute. It is binding on all States in
all territories under their jurisdiction or effective control.
It applies in all circumstances, in times of war as in times of
peace. Nor is torture permissible when it is called something else:
cruel and inhuman treatment is unacceptable and illegal, irrespective of
the name we give it.
States must honour this prohibition and vigorously combat the
impunity of perpetrators of torture.
Those who conceive of or authorize any form of torture and other
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and those who commit such acts,
should not go unpunished. Nor may any State condone torture by a third
party. This means that individuals must never be rendered to another
State if there is any danger that doing so may subject them to torture.
The international community must speak forcefully, and with one
voice, against torture in all its forms. Today, I call on all States who
have not done so to ratify the Convention against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as the
Optional Protocol to the Torture Convention.
And I urge all States to allow the United Nations' Special Rapporteur
on Torture independent access to detainees within their control.
Unimpeded access is an essential protection for these individuals,
whose isolation makes them especially vulnerable to abuse. Together, we
must give voice, and redress, to abused detainees as well as to all
victims and survivors of torture.
Humanity faces grave challenges today. The threat of terror is real
and immediate. Yet fear of terrorists can never justify adopting their
methods.
Nor can we be complacent about the broader prevalence of cruel and
inhuman punishment, which in so many of our societies disproportionately
affects the most vulnerable people: the imprisoned, the politically
powerless and the economically deprived. Instead, we must respond to
this evil wherever we find it by reaffirming humanity's most basic
values.
Today, on Human Rights Day, let us recommit ourselves to the
principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and let us
rededicate ourselves to wiping the scourge of torture from the face of
the earth. |