Is Torture Justified Essay

5/5/2014 Claudia Beresford IAR

Is Torture Ever Justified?

‘You can chain them, you can torture them, you can even destroy their body, but you can never imprison their mind’ Mahatma Gandhi once said. The problem with the issue of torture being acceptable during interrogation is that it produces unreliable information. Not many people agree that torture is acceptable when interrogating someone. The practice of torturing individuals cannot be morally justified and is ineffective in procuring accurate statements.

Torture has historically been used and it is known to give security groups access to forced information. Civilisations such as the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans all used torture. Even the Church thought it to be acceptable. Torture was in fact used as part of various legal systems in the West until early on in the nineteenth century. However in the present day, terrorists are often trained not to crack under this pressure and may give out false information, which is a waste of time and resources. This means our security personnel could be torturing individuals or groups of people to try and extract information which could be unreliable. Using torture provides 'the enemy' with something they can exploit for propaganda. For example; according to Amnesty International, statistics show that American torture is Al Qaeda’s recruiting tool.

While torture remains illegal, information extracted through torture cannot be used as evidence in a court of law. Surprisingly, it makes it harder to bring people to justice for any crime they have committed as confessions secured by torture are inadmissible. You could have someone who is guilty of terrorism or has committed a war crime that canno...

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...enefits to many outweigh the cost to one man, some may argue that torture in this scenario is justified. But ultimately this is going against the values of the sanctity of life and therefore even in these circumstances it is difficult to justify torture.

In conclusion I believe that the practice of torturing individuals can never be morally justified. It is ineffective and unreliable in procuring accurate statements, as well as being barbaric and inhumane. Torture can undermine governments, and it can be used as a propaganda tool by extremists as a way of justifying their actions.

Urge people to educate themselves on this issue and where relevant lobby their governments against the use of torture.

The most important thing to take away from this essay is to recognise and uphold the sanctity of life and to remember the values that human rights hold in the world.