5 TORTURE IN INTERNMENT CAMPS
“It was a metal chain with 11 links. The two ends were on my feet with bolts. [It weighed about] 3kg. We could barely step 20cm or more. I could barely walk. It was on 24/7.” Baurzhan, whose feet were shackled together for the first year he was in a camp.
TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW States have a legal obligation to treat people in detention humanely and with dignity.465 In addition, under international law, torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment are absolutely prohibited and cannot be justified under any circumstances whatsoever. The prohibition, enshrined in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 7 of the ICCPR, among others, has become a rule of customary international law, which is binding on states even if they have not ratified the relevant human rights treaties. It is also a peremptory norm, a jus cogens rule, with no reservations or derogations permitted.466 It is not enough to simply prohibit and criminalize torture and, where appropriate, other acts of ill-treatment under national law; states must take a range of measures to protect people from, and prevent, these forms of abuse.467 In certain circumstances, the crime of torture amounts to a crime against humanity (see Chapter 7). The UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), which binds China legally as a state party, is the primary UN treaty focused solely on prohibiting, preventing, and combating torture and other ill-treatment.468 Article 1 of the CAT defines torture as:
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for
465 See Article 10(1) of the ICCPR; UN General Assembly, Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners : resolution / adopted by the General Assembly, 28 March 1991, A/RES/45/111, available at: www.refworld.org/docid/48abd5740.html 466 Amnesty International, Combating torture and other ill-treatment: a manual for action (Index: POL 30/4036/2016), pp. 54-61, www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL3040362016ENGLISH.PDF 467 Amnesty International, Combating torture and other ill-treatment: a manual for action (Index: POL 30/4036/2016), Chapter 3, www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL3040362016ENGLISH.PDF 468 Unlike torture, “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” has not been defined in international treaties. This phrase originated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and was incorporated unchanged into the CAT. In approaching the question of what distinguishes such ill-treatment from torture, Amnesty International is guided by the principle that “[t]he term ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ should be interpreted so as to extend the widest possible protection against abuses”. Amnesty International considers, in line with much of the jurisprudence of international and regional human rights monitoring bodies, that cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment may generally be described negatively in relation to torture; that is, as ill-treatment that “do[es] not amount to torture” because it lacks one or more of the key elements of the torture definition described above. An act or instance of ill-treatment would therefore constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment rather than torture if 1) it lacks the required intention, 2) it lacks the required purpose (or discrimination), or 3) the pain or suffering it causes is not considered “severe”; see Amnesty International, Combating torture and other ill-treatment: a manual for action (Index: POL 30/4036/2016), pp. 74 – 75.
96
“LIKE WE WERE ENEMIES IN A WAR” CHINA’S MASS INTERNMENT, TORTURE AND PERSECUTION OF MUSLIMS IN XINJIANG Amnesty International
