Most horrific tools of torture:
Metallica
Sesame Street
Barney
Torture was then so rooted in the practice of justice that the beneficial instructions ordaining its abolition remained a long time of none effect. It was thought that the confession of the accused was indispensable to condemnation, an idea not merely unreasonable, but contrary to the dictates of the simplest good sense in legal matters, for, if the denial of the accused be not accepted as proof of his innocence, the extorted confession should still less serve as proof of his guilt. Yet even now I still hear old judges sometimes regret the abolition of this barbarous custom.Alexander Pushkin, The Captain's Daughter
There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators". But they went on with the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven", and had to obey God rather than man. They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.
The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.
[...] the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning [...] I am meeting young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust.
PRIESTS WHO PROTESTED TORTURE POLICY RELEASED FROM PRISON
Franciscan Fr. Louis Vitale and Jesuit Fr. Stephen Kelly were
released today from California jails, after serving five month
sentences as federal prisoners.
The two were sentenced last October in Tucson, following their
November, 2006 arrests at Ft. Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, Arizona,
during a nonviolent protest of military involvement in U.S. torture
policy. After Magistrate Judge Hector Estrada forbid them to use
international law in their defense, the two pled no contest to
charges of trespass and failure to obey an officer on October 17 and
were taken into custody.
Both men plan to return briefly to Arizona, where supporters are
invited to join them in a peaceful vigil against torture from 2-3
p.m. Sunday, March 16, outside the main gate of Ft. Huachuca, at Fry
Boulevard and Buffalo Soldier Trail, Sierra Vista, Arizona.
For more information, including complete background on the case and
legal briefs about torture and international law, visit
tortureontrial.org
Psychological torture (henceforth PT) is a set of practices that are used worldwide to inflict pain or suffering without resorting to direct physical violence. PT includes the use of sleep deprivation, sensory disorientation, forced self-induced pain, solitary confinement, mock execution, severe humiliation, mind-altering drugs and threats of violence—as well as the exploitation of personal or cultural phobias. The psychiatric sequelae of PT are severe. They include delirium, psychosis, regression, self-mutilation, cognitive impairment, and anxiety disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Neuroscience research on these and related mental disorders continues to establish their neurobiological underpinnings, thus challenging the popular view that PT is not physical, not serious, and perhaps not even torture at all. READ MORE
The controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding and used by the United States qualifies as torture, the U.N. human rights chief said on Friday.
"I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, told a news conference in Mexico City.
Violators of the U.N. Convention against Torture should be prosecuted under the principle of ’universal jurisdiction’ which allows countries to try accused war criminals from other nations, Arbour said.
"There are several precedents worldwide of states exercising their universal jurisdiction ... to enforce the torture convention and we can only hope that we will see more and more of these avenues of redress," Arbour said. SOURCE
Ultimately it will be up to the people to show up at the airport prior to the arrival of this or that criminal and arrest them because no government on Earth has clean enough hands to preach justice.
Jesuits murdered 18 years ago:
Fr Ignacio Ellacuría Beascoechea (1930-1989)
Fr Amando López Quintana (1936-1989)
Fr Joaquín López y López (1918-1989)
Fr Ignacio Martín Baró (1942-1989)
Fr Segundo Montes Mozo (1933-1989)
Fr Juan Ramón Moreno Pardo (1933-1989)
"We are a fact-gathering organization only. We don't clear anybody. We don't condemn anybody. Just the minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo."
