Torture is the intentional infliction of physical or mental pain. Governments and organizations have used torture to obtain information, to punish criminals or enemies, or to control the members of a group. Traditional forms of torture have included stretching, burning, cutting, and beating the body and suffocating a person with water. Newer methods involve electric shocks, pain-causing drugs, and various psychological techniques. Human-rights organizations and most democratic governments strongly oppose the use of torture.
Torture began as a legal procedure for obtaining confessions from suspected criminals. Early Greek and Roman law permitted the torture of slaves, foreigners, and people who were considered dishonorable. During the A.D. 200’s and 300’s, torture in the Roman Empire spread to other classes of people and became more routine. Its use declined after the empire split apart in the late 400’s. But in the 1100’s, certain Roman legal procedures, including torture, were revived in many parts of Europe. Civil and religious courts legally used torture to obtain confessions until about 1800. At that time, many countries abolished torture, and the practice was widely criticized on moral and legal grounds.
Torture slowly reappeared during the 1800’s and 1900’s. Military forces, police forces, and other groups began to use torture illegally to punish and control people and to gain information. During the 1900’s, torture was especially common during periods of political revolution or instability, when leaders placed political beliefs above human rights.
Today, most nations support international agreements that forbid torture. However, torture remains in use, especially under military dictatorships and other authoritarian regimes. In addition, some democratic countries, including the United States, have been accused of allowing or tolerating torture against individuals suspected of terrorist activity. In 2014, a U.S. Senate committee released a critical report detailing the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) use of harsh interrogation tactics on terrorist suspects in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. The report said the torture methods, conducted at secret CIA sites throughout the world, failed to produce any useful intelligence in preventing “imminent” terrorist attacks or locating terrorists, including Osama Bin Laden.
