Bangkok (AsiaNews) - Torture is an "expanding scourge in Asia" that is used on a regular and systematic basis. Holding those responsible for abuses and bringing them to justice are also increasingly difficult in particular where it is "state-sanctioned," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Torture takes three forms: inflicting pain by using physical force, breaking people's will, and trying to annihilate their personality.
Under international law, torture is a "crime" and 26 June marked the 15th United Nations Day for the Victims of Torture. However, in spite of awareness campaigns and Pope Francis' recent appeal and stern condemnation, it continues to be practiced in many parts of the world.
For the Human Rights Watch activist, some governments use torture systematically as a means to stifle even the slightest dissent. And throughout Asia, human rights organisations accuse several nations of using torture.
Among the countries listed are not only authoritarian or single-party states such as North Korea or China, but also India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Japan.
In many of these countries, there is apparently broad immunity for government officials who use torture. Police, Robertson said, use torture regularly in Southeast and South Asia, as well as East Asia, to extract confessions. For example, in Malaysia HRW found that systematic torture of persons in police custody, often resulting in custodial deaths, have been a central fact for years.
Torture regularly occurs in drug detention "treatment" centres in China, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, so even when people are supposed to receive help they suffer.
The use of foot and fists to beat a person into submission is very common, Phil Robertson explained, as are electric shocks, hanging persons in various positions, burning with cigarettes and other sources of flame, sexual abuse and rape of both men and women, use of stress positions, and beatings with various rods.
Punishing those responsible is increasingly difficult, because abuses take place within prisons that are opaque in their operations and hard to access.
So far, only a few people have ever been prosecuted for torture because prosecuting them "threatens to unravel systems of police investigation that regularly use torture," the activist said.
In fact, "torture is an expanding scourge in Asia," Robertson lamented, "so we have to re-double our efforts to fight to end torture absolutely and prosecute in a court of law any and all who employ it.