The Anti-torture group, IRCT, strongly urges the British Channel 4 to stop the TV-programme “The Guantanamo Guidebook”.
According to Channel 4, a group of volunteers have been locked up in cages and sexually humiliated in order to explore the torture techniques used in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
The purpose of the programme is to raise questions about whether torture is justified. The programme is to be broadcasted late February, IRCT states in a press release Wednesday.
Secretary-General of the Copenhagen-based International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, Brita Sydhoff, says:
– There is an absolute prohibition against torture. Torture can never be justified. It is irresponsible and it cannot be justified that a TV Channel now starts a debate on the justification on such serious violations of human rights. Torture amounts to a serious crime under international conventional and customary law.
Article 2 in the United Nations Convention against Torture prohibits the use of torture with complete clarity: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” This means no torture. It means torture can never be justified.
– Suspicion of torture incidents should be promptly investigated and those responsible, not only the torturers but also those who ordered and condoned torture should be brought to justice. Your programme may have undesirable effects of acclimatising the audience to the use of torture. The real issue is: how do we make an end to impunity for torturers, Brita Sydhoff says.
The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) is an independent, international health professional umbrella organisation for about 200 rehabilitation centres for torture victims worldwide. The IRCT works for the rehabilitation of torture victims and for the prevention of torture.
For further information, please contact media co-ordinator Poul Struve Nielsen, 33 76 06 49 (directly) or 23 34 55 09 (mobile). International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), www.irct.org, Borgergade 13, P.O. Box 9049, 1022 Copenhagen K
