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| TORTURE "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Article 3, European Convention on Human Rights. Article 3 of the Convention 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 Second 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 Government has attempted 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.
Press ReleasesToday, two months after the Court of Appeal’s explosive judgment concerning knowledge by the UK authorities of Binyam Mohamed’s torture in US custody, the Court has once again rejected a Government attempt to subvert open justice. 04.05.2010
Liberty has joined forces with Amnesty International UK, Human Rights Watch, Reprieve and the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition to call for an independent inquiry into the UK’s involvement in torture. 22.03.2010
| Liberty’s evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on UK legislation relating to genocide, torture and related offences, March 2009 (PDF) Read this Joint Committee on Human Rights report calling for a public inquiry into allegations of UK involvement in torture. August, 2009 (PDF) UK complicity in torture is considered in the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Human Rights 2008/09 Annual Report, August 2009 (PDF)
Read the pledge against torture we have made with Reprieve. Watch Shami Chakrabarti and Geoff Hoon MP discuss the UK's involvement in torture, March 2009. Liberty Director discusses torture allegations on Radio 4, August 2009.
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