Torture Survivors Scheduled to Speak Out in March

Most people find it difficult to watch torture in detail as in scenes from the award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. To listen to survivors give personal accounts would be particularly troublesome, but that's what's scheduled for a conference in March.

On March 21 the combined agencies of The Children and Family Justice Center, Center for International Human Rights and the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law will present a film and panel discussion under the topic heading, “Breaking the Silence: Torture Survivors Speak Out.” This will be held at Northwestern School of Law and will include a film of torture survivors from African, the Philippines, South America and the Middle East. It is likely to create considerable discussion considering the painful accounts likely to occur and the fact that political issues as well as current US legislation concerning the use of torture are to be part of the presentation. Newspaper accounts provide an overview of torture in bites, so this scheduled conference hopes to give more than those tastes. A consortium of University programs involved in the study of human rights and abuses provide programs such as the one scheduled for March. Having victims of torture specifically relate their experiences before a live audience is unusual enough to be of consequence in the study of torture. Last year human rights groups related how scores of black men were tortured into giving confessions to Chicago police 20 years ago. This occurred under Commander Jon Burge between 1972 and 1992 and have led to 10 of the victims to be either pardoned or given new trials. 100 other cases are being studied in Illinois to determine how many confessions were made under torture and thus illegally obtained. Accounts of torture have been frequently in the news. There have been numerous accounts of torture involved at Guantanamo. Last October a military judge ruled that a detainee's confession that was obtained through torture would be excluded from trial. a military judge ruled yesterday that a Guantánamo detainee's confession was extracted through torture, and excluded it from the trial of a young Afghan detainee at the war court. In this case it was said that Afghan police had threatened the family of of teenager Mohammed Jawad while he was undergoing interrogation at a Kabul police station. Both Afghan forces and American interrogators watched. In addition to this U.N. Officials declare they have reliable accounts concerning torture at Guantanamo. The Times of South Africa related the painful issues surrounding Zimbabwe. Bothwell Pasipamire, who was an opposition activist from Zimbabwe, was forcefully taken from his home in Kadoma Harare, driven two hours to a prison camp where he was locked up for three days and subjected to such horrendous torture that he was left suicidal and depressed. Some of his captors relented and helped him escape. The newspaper gave a specific accounting of the man's travail, which they related as shocking. The upcoming conference forum with victims accounts should be revealing concerning the distress and outcomes, indicating the ongoing abuse of human rights throughout much of the world.