crime and torture

The answer to the question is obvious – torture is wholly unjustified.

Criminals and terrorists too deserve to be treated in a humane manner – torturing them is utterly impermissible. The moral strength of a nation is deteriorated if such acts of torture were allowed to take place. Amnesty International, a global human rights group, is strictly against torture as it is morally not right. China, infamous for its human rights violations, has come under harsh criticism by other countries and the United Nations to stop its barbarous acts. Human rights, as explained by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is the ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family and is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. Briefly, torturing an individual is wrong as it shows no regard for his dignity. Any country that condones torture, in fact is degrading the value of human dignity and this goes against moral values.

Moving on, torture does not always guarantee results. Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ( the September 11 planner ) are names of US detainees who were tortured savagely but whose interrogations yielded only little and insignificant information. Sometimes, there are other methods of obtaining information. Certain criminals or terrorists are often victims themselves, trying to protect their families by not releasing information. Take for instance that an al – Qaeda detainee in Guantanamo prison cooperated when the FBI performed a mission for his son. Evidently, torture is not always the solution.

Some might say that torture is justified on the grounds that the information must be extracted immediately. Consider the following case: a psychopathic murderer buries a girl alive and refuses to disclose her location even when he is questioned by police. Some hold the view that the murderer must be tortured to get her location in order to save her life. However, torture is not always the only thing that can be done. There are other methods of information extraction such as forming a close captor – detainee relationship or performing favors for the detainee in exchange for information. Torture, as said earlier, is unthinkable and should not even be an option for law enforcement officers.