Torture is when someone in official power inflicts severe mental or physical pain or suffering on someone else for a specific purpose. Authorities sometimes torture a person to bring a confession of a crime, or to obtain information from them. Torture by definition is knowledge and intentional act; Activities that cause suffering or pain unknowingly or carelessly that are not generally considered torture without a specific purpose to do so. Although the effectiveness of torture has been preserved by many throughout history, especially Aristotle and Sir Francis Bacon, it has been attacked since Roman times to encourage its victims to lie.
Torture has been perpetrated or sanctioned by individuals, groups, and states throughout history, from ancient times to modern times, and the types of torture can vary greatly from a few minutes to a few days or more. Later, in early Europe in the Middle Ages, torture was used as a self-trial in the ordeal, where the response to suspicion of extreme physical pain served as the basis for establishing guilt or innocence. They have been illegal internationally for decades. To take a few examples, for example, 172 countries have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and 165 have ratified the UN Convention against Torture, which Amnesty International has strongly advocated. Reasons for torture may include punishment, retaliation, extortion, persuasion, political re-education, resistance, coercion of the victim or third party, interrogation for information retrieval or lying, or merely their tragic satisfaction of being tortured or monitored. In the Middle Ages, torture was again used to protect confessions in serious crimes (the confession was known as the “Queen of Evidence”) although it was subject to nominal strict conditions. Although widely illegal and reprehensible, there is an ongoing debate about not being legally defined as torture. This is a grave violation of human rights and is declared unacceptable (but not illegal) in Article 5 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The signatories to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols of June 8, 1977, formally agreed not to torture detainees in international or internal, armed conflict. The trend reflected many influences on the idea of enlightenment, especially the criminologist and philosopher Caesar Bakari. Most other countries under colonial domination and the legal system imposed by their colonial authorities rejected torture as a legitimate means of investigation, trial or punishment long before the 20th century.
National and international legal prohibitions on torture agree that torture and similar abuse are unethical, as well as unscientific and that information obtained through torture is far less reliable than information obtained through other techniques. It is often poor and marginalized people who are beaten, assaulted, or raped by the police or other officials when there is no one to protect them or hear their cries for help. Amnesty International estimates that at least 61 world governments are currently practicing torture, some of which are public.
