|
End
Torture
War
is organized murder and torture against our brothers.
-- Alfred Adler
|
Torture
-- the intentional infliction of severe mental or
physical pain or suffering -- is a violation of the
most basic of all human rights.
-- Robert
Alan Silverstein
|
 |
|
|
*
"This
is a day on which we pay our respects to those who
have endured the unimaginable. This is an occasion
for the world to speak up against the unspeakable.
It is long overdue that a day be dedicated to remembering
and supporting the many victims and survivors of torture
around the world."
Kofi Annan
|
The
sad truth is that most evil is done by people who
never make up their minds to be either good or evil.
-- Hannah
Arendt
|
|
 |
The
point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new
floor, beneath which we can no longer sink. A platform
which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation,
poison gas, A and H bombs, the works. Give man a decent
place to stand.
--Joan
Baez
|
|
|
The
civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly
and deliberately, and do not intend to change the
status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and
enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children
whenever and wherever they decide that their 'vital
interests' are menaced, and think nothing of torturing
a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously
when they speak of the 'sanctity' of human life, or
the 'conscience' of the civilized world.
-- James
Baldwin
|
 |
*
"Torture is banned but in two-thirds of the world's
countries it is still being committed in secret. Too
many governments still allow wrongful imprisonment,
murder or "disappearance" to be carried out by their
officials with impunity."
-- Peter
Benenson
|
"Those
who today still feel a sense of impotence can do something:
they can support Amnesty International. They can help it
to stand up for freedom and justice."
-- Peter
Benenson
"It's
the publicity function of Amnesty that I think has made
its name so widely known, not only to readers in the world,
but to governments - and that's what matters."
-- Peter
Benenson
"Open
your newspaper - any day of the week - and you will find
a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned,
tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are
unacceptable to his government."
-- Peter
Benenson
"The
candle burns not for us, but for all those whom we failed
to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison,
who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who "disappeared".
That's what the candle is for."
-- Peter
Benenson
"Once
the concentration camps and the hell-holes of the world
were in darkness. Now they are lit by the light of the Amnesty
candle; the candle in barbed wire. When I first lit the
Amnesty candle, I had in mind the old Chinese proverb: 'Better
light a candle than curse the darkness.'"
-- Peter
Benenson
|
|
"The
line that connects the bombing of civilian populations
to the mountain removed by strip mining ... to the
tortured prisoner seems to run pretty straight. We're
living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare
-- warfare against human beings, other creatures and
the Earth itself."
~ Wendell
Berry
|
 |
"The
most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is
the mind of the oppressed."
-- Stephen
Biko
|
They
are torturing people. They are torturing people on Guantanamo
Bay. They are engaging in acts which amount to torture in
the medieval sense of the phrase. They are engaging in good
old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it
in the Dark Ages.
-- Richard Bourke
*
“We
are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the
female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured,
mutilated, and murdered in the name of commercial
entertainment and free speech”
-- Susan
Brownmiller
|
|
"Perhaps
we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which
children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured
children."
-- Albert Camus
If nations
are allowed to commit genocide with impunity, to hide their
guilt in a camouflage of lies and denials, there is a real
danger that other brutal regimes will be encouraged to attempt
genocides.
--Caroline, Baroness Cox, House of Lords
|
|
In
considering how human rights might serve as a 'guiding
value' in American foreign policy, one should not
dismiss the historical record, which is ample. There
is indeed a close relationship between human rights
and American foreign policy. There is substantial
evidence that American aid and diplomatic support
increase as human rights violations increase, at least
in the Third World. Extensive violations of human
rights (torture, forced reduction of living standards
for much of the population, police-sponsored death
squads, destruction of representative institutions
or of independent unions, etc.) are directly correlated
with US government support. The linkage is not accidental;
rather it is systematic. The reason is obvious enough.
Client fascism often improves the business climate
for American corporations, quite generally the guiding
factor in foreign policy. It would be naïve indeed
to think that this will change materially, given the
realities of American social structure and the grip
of the state ideological system.
-- Noam
Chomsky
|
|
*
"All human beings, whatever their cultural or historical
background, suffer when they are intimidated, imprisoned
or tortured . . . We must, therefore, insist on a
global consensus, not only on the need to respect
human rights worldwide, but also on the definition
of these rights . . . for it is the inherent nature
of all human beings to yearn for freedom, equality
and dignity, and they have an equal right to achieve
that."
--
14th
Dalai Lama
|
 |
[torture]
presupposes, it requires, it craves the abrogation of our
capacity to imagine others' suffering, dehumanizing them
so much that their pain is not our pain. It demands this
of the torturer, placing the victim outside and beyond any
form of compassion or empathy, but also demands of everyone
else the same distancing, the same numbness...
-- Ariel Dorfman
The
degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering
its prisons.
- - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|
*
"The
UN Declaration of Human Rights laid down what any
person might reasonably expect, yet there are remarkably
few people who enjoy these rights. With cameras in
the hands of activists and meaningful distribution
of those images, we will witness what really goes
on in this world and hopefully want to change it."
-- Peter
Gabriel
|
|
|
|
Sometimes
I have been very dispirited. But if we disappear,
we leave the door open to all kinds of abuse. So
I say to my colleagues, “Don’t be too ambitious.
If you look at all the problems in Cambodia at once,
you cannot work. Like you build a house, you build
it brick by brick. If one day you save only one
victim, be happy for a day. The next day, save two.”
Some days we save 10, 20, 100 or 200.” So I say,
“Don’t look for quantity, look for quality. It will
take a long time to advance human rights, but keep
moving.” When I save a child or a woman, I’m happy,
because I remember the little girl of seven I was.
It’s a reward for me to see the new generation of
advocates. They are our future. I am very proud
of them.
-- Kek
Galabru
|
|
|
You
can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy
this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
-- Mohandas
Gandhi
|
|
*
"The aim of torture is to destroy a person as a human
being, to destroy their identity and soul. It is more
evil than murder... Today we know that survivors of
torture can be helped to regain their health and strength,
and in helping them we take the weapon from their
torturers. They sought the destruction of other human
beings. We have proved that they have not succeeded."
-- Inge
Genefke
|
|
The
healthy man does not torture others - generally it is
the tortured who turn into torturers”
-- Carl Gustav Jung
Shamefully
we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under
new management, U.S. management.
-- Edward Kennedy
|
|
All
mankind... being all equal and independent, no one
ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty
or possessions.
-- John
Locke
|
|
The
right of an individual to refuse to kill, to torture,
or to participate in the preparation for the nuclear
destruction of humanity seems to me to be fundamental.
-- Sean
MacBride
|
|
|
|
The
cost in human lives and suffering is so high that
we all have to work to end violence and oppression
once and for all. We have to proclaim that every human
being is equal, in dignity, in freedom —and, as the
first article of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights states,
we have to live “in a spirit of brotherhood.”
-- Federico
Mayor |
 |
If
you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated,
killed or tortured then you shouldn't condone such
behavior towards anyone, be they human or not.
-- Moby |
An
injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
-- Montesquieu
If
cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is
applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental
relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole
notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes
that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state
or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be
free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just
in America -- even those designated as 'unlawful enemy
combatants.' If you make this exception the whole Constitution
crumbles.
- - Alberto J. Mora, former Navy General Counsel
Whoever
fights monsters should see to it that in the process he
does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss,
the abyss also looks into you.
-- Friedrich Nietzche
...
the United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel
but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and
human rights: one of U.S. benevolence, generally held by
the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality
sponsored by counterinsurgency specialists. Normally the
specialists carry out their actions in remote locations
with little notice in the national press. That allows the
public to sustain its faith in a just America, while hard-nosed
security and economic interests are still protected in secret.
-- Robert Parry
|
*
Together we can prevent genocide from happening again.
Together we can make a better future for our children.
-- Dith
Pran
|
 |
|
|
Land
mines, torture equipment, cluster bombs, chemical
weapons are weapons designed to inflict pain and death
on human beings. Most victims are civilians, women
and children. How can arms manufacturers, weapons
designers, plant managers, politicians, who have families
of their own whom they love, be so insensitive when
it comes to the suffering of other human beings?
-- José
Ramos-Horta
|
Torture has been privatized now, so you have obviously
the whole scandal in America about the abuse of prisoners
and the fact that, army people might be made to pay
a price, but who are the privatized torturers accountable
to?
-- Arundhati
Roy |
 |
 |
The coward wretch whose hand and heart
Can bear to torture aught below,
Is ever first to quail and start
From the slightest pain or equal foe.
-- Bertrand
Russell
“What
the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of
scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the
torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted
by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness
of the believer”
-- Bertrand
Russell
|
"torture
is senseless violence, born in fear... torture costs human
lives but does not save them. We would almost be too lucky
if these crimes were the work of savages: the truth is that
torture makes torturers."
-- Jean Paul Sartre
 |
"Strange
how blind people are! They are horrified by the torture
chambers of the Middle Ages, but their arsenals fill
them with pride!"
-- Bertha
Von Suttner |
It's
only when we imagine for ourselves what it would be
like to run from state terror, torture, rape, the
destruction of our homes and families that we can
understand how vital it would be to find a place that
welcomed us and tried to heal our wounds.
-- Emma
Thompson |
 |
"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."
--United Nations Convention Against Torture
"I
swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure
suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
-- Elie
Wiesel |
 |
|
|
“Human
rights is the only ideology that deserves to survive”
--
Simon
Wiesenthal
"When
history looks back, I want people to know the Nazis
weren't able to kill millions of people and get
away with it.”
-- Simon
Wiesenthal
|
|
*
"Chinese
and Tibetan dissidents are either locked up in prison,
forced into hiding, or silenced by fear of police
retaliation against their families. All the happiness
about China's economic growth has made many Americans
forget that police clubs and guns and the Laogai
system keep the Communist Party in power. Moreover,
it is still little recognized how American resources
help to sustain that power through trade, investments,
and the transfer of technology... It is only when
the Laogai is abolished in China that real change
will come about."
-- Harry
Wu
|
 |
|
|
"...we
should not give up and say that the situation is
hopeless. There is still our conscience, there is
still the memory of the victims of this war, there
is still our duty to try and prevent further bloodshed.
We have to prosecute all the perpetrators of war
crimes and crimes against humanity."
-- Lida
Yusupova
"...civil
society has not lost the possibility to influence
the government and force them to change their policy.
That is why we believe in your voice and your help."
-- Lida
Yusupova
|
|
I
love life and want to hold onto it. But my passion
for justice for my tormented people, for their dignity
and freedom, must be greater still. For of what
value is a life of slavery, of humiliation and
contempt for that which you hold most dear: Your
identity! I will therefore not give in to the Turkish
Inquisition.
-- Leyla
Zana
|
 |
END
TORTURE
HERO PIX
Kofi
Annan | Peter Benenson
| Susan Brownmiller
|
Dalai Lama |
Inge Genefke
End
Torture Day
- June 26
See
also HUMAN RIGHTS Quotes
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Read
The BETTER
WORLD BOOK
... join
the betterworld
movement...
FREE
online
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
