Staff Reporter
THE motion that “Torture is only acceptable under legal supervision” was rejected by a majority of the participants at the final Doha Debate of the current series yesterday.
While 58.4% of the audience voted against the motion, it was supported by 41.6% of the participants.
Khawar Qureshi, QC, a British barrister who specialises in commercial law and international arbitration, and Colonel Bob Stewart, the first British Commander under United Nations command in Bosnia, argued in favour of the motion. Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, and Freshta Raper, a victim of torture in Iraq in the mid-1980s, debated against the topic.
Raper said that she believed that in 99.9% of the cases, people tortured during interrogations were innocent.
Answering a question by the moderator Tim Sebastian, she said she would not agree for torture of a suspect even if that could save the life of her own child.
Narrating her personal experience, Raper, an Iraqi Kurd from Halabja now living in London, said: “Torture is a crime in any form and one guilty person could torture a hundred innocent people. Torture has never been a solution. Instead it has resulted in instability in the region.”
At the end of the debate, she told Gulf Times that during her interrogation, she was raped many times by the security people.
Irene Khan said that torture was not the only way to get information from suspects. “Also there is no guarantee that it will save innocent lives.”
Referring to the “false intelligence” collected on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Khan said “information gathered through torture should not be necessarily correct. Information collected through torture need not be reliable too because people would say anything to escape further misery.”
She said a judge might not be in a position to decide the extent of torture that a person shall be subjected to. “If allowed, violation is inevitable.
“In most of the cases, people were tortured based on wrong information.”
Both Qureshi and Stewart said they were basically against torture but it should be regulated to avoid excesses and mainly to save lives.
Stewart, based on his personal experience in the UK, said that it was a hard choice but “we have to opt for it as a last resort to prevent terrorist activities.”
He said that on many occasions, information gathered through torture had proved correct and contributed to prevention of terrorist attacks. “I am not for torture but for coercive interrogative techniques under the supervision of judicial authority. We have to be realistic.”
According to Qureshi, the world we lived in was imperfect and therefore, torture should be allowed under the supervision of a judge.
“Terrorists should not be allowed to exploit legal safeguards to perpetrate terrorist acts,” he opined.
Amnesty International is the world’s largest human rights organisation and campaigns to end rights abuses worldwide. Irene is the first woman, first Asian and first Muslim in charge of Amnesty International.
After serving in Bosnia, Stewart became Chief of Policy at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe for two years and has since retired from the army but is a frequent commentator and consultant on military and terrorist related issues.
Qureshi has advised and opposed governments on a range of matters including torture, terrorism, and the extradition of alleged Al Qaeda members. |
