Torture Against Human Rights Essay

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Torture Against Human Rights
Iain Banks once stated on the topic of torture, “torture is such a slippery slope; as soon you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons” (Goodreads). When used in the appropriate way, torture can be very effective; however, it is often taken advantage of and is never acceptable. It has shown in the past that once a country has been accused of using torture, all credibility is lost and they are understandably looked down on. Torture is an extreme violation of human rights.
Torture was started by early Romans dating back to 530 A.D. It was usually mainly used on criminals and slaves. Although they were hesitant to use torture, it does not at all mean that they took it lightly. Very violent forms of torture were used on criminals (Pennington). They matched the method of torture to the crime that was committed. If the crime was bad enough, the criminal being tortured was never released just tortured until the point of death. There were two very common forms of torture used for serious punishment. One of them was the Coffin Torture. This was a good example of torture that depended on the crime. The victim was placed in the device called The Coffin and tied up so they couldn’t move any part of their body at all. The crime they committed determined the amount of time they spent in there. For serious crimes, such as blasphemy, the victim was left there until death. The cause of death was usually heat exhaustion, but they were also tormented by hunger, and animals chewing on their flesh.. For obvious reasons, this was a feared form of torture, unfortunately also a favorite among torturers. The other common ...

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...n). Only after being put through abuse that no person should have to endure. This is definitely torture. When this was going on in Germany, several countries thought that no one deserved to be treated that way, so they joined the war against Germany to stop Hitler. Why then, is it not okay for Germany to do it, but all the countries that joined together to stop it think it’s okay for them to do it? It doesn’t matter who does it, it’s not excusable.
Torture is a tool used to gain information, for punishment, or for revenge. People think it’s okay to use torture as long as it’s for a good reason, but what excuse is there to justify torture? Violating a person’s rights and treating them like less than a human is never acceptable. Although torture is sometimes successful in getting valuable information, it’s not worth stripping someone of their rights as a person.

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