Torture report: Many European countries guilty

LONDON, England -- Most governments, even those in supposedly developed regions such as Europe, turn a "blind eye" to torture and human rights abuses, claims Amnesty International.

Launching a global campaign against torture, the group said it had evidence of ill treatment amounting to torture in 153 countries.

A report, compiled over three years by Amnesty, says: "More shocking than the statistics on torture, is the fact that torture can be stopped but is allowed to persist.

"Governments continue to allow torture and ill-treatment to go on, often turning a blind eye or using it to hold on to power."

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Of the nations Amnesty cites as being guilty of allowing torture and ill treatment to take place, many are in Europe.

Pierre Sane, Amnesty International's secretary-general, said: "Torture occurs very much in democracies on a daily basis, on a routine basis.

"It is a global phenomenon that will only disappear if we have both national and global solutions."

The report -- Stamp Out Torture -- says: "Torture and ill-treatment persists across the European region -- from the United Kingdom to Azerbaijan.

"Torture and ill-treatment has been documented by Amnesty International in at least 25 (European) countries, 20 of them member states of the Council of Europe, including Belgium, Russia and Spain."

The report says atrocities are prevalent where armed conflict is taking place.

Both Russian soldiers and Chechen fighters have committed human rights violations against each other, with Russian soldiers allegedly torturing, raping and killing non-combatants, and detainees in "filtration camps" suffered horrific and routine abuse, while Chechen fighters allegedly used civilians as "human-shields."

Amnesty says the scale of abuses against the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo peaked during last year's NATO air strikes, and included unlawful killings, "disappearances," arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment.

"With the withdrawal of Serbian and Yugoslav forces from the province, Serbs, Roma and other ethnic minorities suffered human rights abuses in their turn," it says.

"Despite the presence of a large peace-keeping force and a UN-led administration these abuses continued, partly due to insufficient resources and a failure to establish the rule of law."

But where armed conflict did not exist in Europe, there were still complaints of torture and human rights abuses, says the organisation.

In the U.K., it says, the overall impact of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act and the 1999 Immigration Bill "proved detrimental to refugees," while, "cruel and dangerous methods of restraint, including the deliberate blocking of breathing passages," were the subject of inquiries in Switzerland and Belgium following deaths by asphyxiation during forcible deportation.

The U.K. also received strong criticism from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture for its system of dealing with ill treatment by the police.

Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty International, said: "Although we are not saying that torture is widespread in the UK at all, there are instances."

The Amnesty reports cities evidence of police abuse -- frequently racially motivated -- from other European countries.

In Hungary, asylum-seekers, including children, were held and sometimes ill-treated in detention centres, despite government denials.

Police in Bulgaria frequently used intimidation and excessive force, while in July the European Court of Human Rights found France guilty of violating international standards on torture and fair trial.

The Romany community in Eastern Europe, particularly those in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Romania, Kosovo and Slovakia, "fell prey to prejudice yet again with reports ranging from verbal abuse and threats, to indiscriminate beatings and death," said Amnesty.

It added: "The number of reports of torture in Turkey exceeded those of the previous two years and several people reportedly died as a result of torture."

Elsewhere, prison conditions in Italy, Russia and Portugal are below the international minimum standards, often amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and accompanied by acts of violence from prison staff and inmates.

"Torture is prevalent throughout Europe. Governments have it in their power to change this and to rid the region of this gross act of inhumanity," Amnesty said.

"European countries should work harder to uphold standards and end the blight of impunity which exists for police and security forces.

"Respect for human rights includes bringing to justice those who violate them."

Amnesty says the latest incidents of torture in Europe include the death in custody of a member of the Romany community in Portugal, the alleged ill treatment of Afghan asylum-seekers at a detention centre in Hungary and the racist abuse of a teenage Angolan student in Switzerland.

Amnesty names and shames torturers
October 18, 2000

Amnesty International

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