Human Violation in Burma

TORTURE

Torture is a particularly heinous form of human rights violation. Amnesty International, which has extensively documented and reported on human rights abuses in Burma, has concluded that "torture follows arrest in Myanmar as night follows day," and that the problem of torture there is pervasive, long-term, and endemic. Burmese security forces routinely torture prisoners throughout the country, in both urban and rural areas. The following text comes from Amnesty International's 1990 report, Myanmar: "In the National Interest": Prisoners of Conscience, Torture, Summary Trials Under Martial Law. Torture and ill-treatment of prisoners has...served to intimidate others. The prevalence of torture is well-known in Myanmar: arrest and torture is seen as an ever-present threat by those contemplating any public criticism of the government. The reported methodology of torture has been relatively consistent in Myanmar over many years, from the isolated army camps in the areas of insurgency to the urban detention centers of the security forces. Torture methods and even the vocabulary of torture have remained the same, according to testimonies obtained by Amnesty International from a wide range of prisoners whose times and places of imprisonment have differed greatly. Some variations do occur--some prisoners, for example, have been made to walk on their knees over sharp gravel rather than broken glass.... Beatings, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness, were a common denominator of the treatment described by former detainees. They include slappings, punches in the face or the body, and kicks with combat boots or blows with the knees in the sides, chest or back. Detainees have also reportedly been struck on the face, the chest or the back with wooden sticks, truncheons or rifle butts.... Former detainees frequently described prolonged kneeling on sharp gravel and "motorcycle riding," entailing squatting for prolonged periods in a position suggesting driving a motorcycle. Electric shocks were reportedly applied to fingertips, toes, ear lobes, penis or testicles. Some detainees described prolonged standing in water, prolonged exposure to sun or to intense cold, burnings with cigarettes, rolling iron or bamboo rods or bottles along the shinbones until the skin scrapes off (the "iron road"), near-drowning through immersion in water and hanging by the hands or feet from a ceiling fixture or a rotating fan (the "helicopter"). Beatings with whips and clubs while suspended have also been reported. Salt, salted water, urine and curry powder have reportedly been applied to open wounds inflicted by whippings or by slitting parts of the body with a knife or the tip of a bayonet. Detainees undergoing interrogation have often been deprived of sleep, food and water, and some have been held for prolonged periods in solitary confinement in dark cells. They have also been intimidated with pistols, threatened with execution and humiliated while stripped naked for interrogation. In other instances, psychological pressures have been used to break the prisoner's will and force confessions. Several former prisoners have alleged they were interrogated continuously for several days by teams of interrogators working in relays. This technique has sometimes been combined with deprivation of sleep, food, water or washing facilities.