Doctors may assess and treat torture survivors; some may document crucial evidence of torture in medico-legal reports. However, there is a lack of education on torture and related ethical and legal issues at undergraduate and postgraduate level and many doctors are not aware of opportunities to work with organisations for the prevention of torture. This paper defines Torture, describes methods ...

Torture is aimed to create a living dead. Pressing systematic control on individuals who are in opposition to the ruling authorities, persons’ sense of self would be damaged. Such an aversive situation is caused by intentional human action rather than natural causes. Torture occurs in more than 90 countries (Abu Ghraib prison is a prominent example) however, epidemiologic data are limited. The ...

BACKGROUND/AIM Torture for political reasons is an extreme violence in interpersonal relations resulting in not only acute psychiatric disorders but also very often in very severe and far reaching negative consequences for the overall psychosocial functioning of a victim. The aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in types of torture and psychological consequences in subjects w...

one of the inhuman conducts which may be used in order to take confession from the accused or information from others is torture which has been forbidden and criminalized in the islamic and iranian criminal law. in addition, there are certain international and regional instruments which recommend or require the countries to take appropriate measures in their domestic laws to combat torture. rec...

BACKGROUND Torture continues to be a global problem and there is a need for prevention and rehabilitation efforts. There is little available data on torture survivors from studies designed and conducted by health professionals in low income countries. This study is a collaboration between five centres from Gaza, Egypt, Mexico, Honduras and South Africa who provide health, social and legal servi...

Governments sometimes characterize torture as an indispensable interrogation tool for gathering strategic intelligence. In this article, we review the relevant social scientific research on the effectiveness, impact, and causes of torture. First, we summarize research on false confessions and examine the relevance of that research for torture-based interrogations. Next, we review research on th...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this retrospective study is to describe the pattern of bribe taking in exchange for release from torture, during and after the decades-long war in Sri Lanka. METHODS We reviewed the charts of 98 refugee claimants from Sri Lanka referred to the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture for medical assessments prior to their refugee hearings in Toronto between 1989 and 20...

This research examines the thesis that religiosity has conflicting influences on Americans' attitudes about the use of torture on terrorism suspects: an organic influence favoring opposition to torture and a discursively driven influence favoring support of torture. In each of two national samples, religiosity had both a direct effect toward opposition to torture and an indirect effect-via cons...

Psychological research on the efficacy of torture frequently excludes an important question: What causes people to believe that torture is effective? We investigated whether a factor increasing persons’ desire for torture to be effective might lead them to perceive that it was more effective. Across 2 studies, participants evaluated hypothetical crisis scenarios that varied in the degree of per...

We study torture as a mechanism for extracting information from a suspect who may or may not be informed. We show that a standard rationale for torture generates two commitment problems. First, the principal would benefit from a commitment to torture a suspect he knows to be innocent. Secondly, the principal would benefit from a commitment to limit the amount of torture faced by the guilty. We ...