"No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Article 3, European Convention on Human Rights.
 
The European Convention on Human Rights gives member states the flexibility to allow for emergency situations, but no room for compromise on the question of torture.
 
The Convention's authors had survived the 2nd World War, seen people liberated from concentration camps and witnessed the worst acts of barbarity. They could not contemplate a situation where torture or inhuman or degrading treatment could be justified. Neither can we.
 
Yet our Goverment is attempting to sidestep, ignore and undermine our legal and moral obligations to prevent torture.
 
Liberty believes that by involving ourselves in torture – even if we are not actually torturing people ourselves – we make a mockery of our status as a civilised country and we lose any ability to press other countries to respect human rights.