Everyone knows the term torture. Also you hear again and again of the different torture methods. But what one can hardly imagine concretely are the long-term consequences: mental, physical, psychosocial. And that’s the real problem. Because life goes on – if you could save it despite torture – on, often hardly less painful as during the torture torture. Because the goal of „modern“ torture is not only the enforcement of confessions, but also the destruction of the personality, the destruction of identity. Because it loses any ability to resist.
Therefore, not only a selection of „modern“ torture methods and their physical consequences, but above all the mental injuries: permanent anxiety, flash back phenomena, phobic fears depending on the situation, persistent state of tension, compulsive grief, depression, irritable moodiness, lack of initiative, restlessness, memory and concentration disturbances, power breakdown, indisposition u. a. And the most unknown consequences for meaning of life and self-confidence, mental-physical unity or bodily experience, pain sensation, partnership, occupation, etc.
And why it is so difficult to find understanding as a victim, and not only with the authorities, even with thoroughly sympathetic fellow human beings.
„Those who succumbed to torture can no longer settle down in this world, the shame of annihilation can not be eradicated, and the world’s confidence, which in part collapses with the first blow, but in full, finally, is not regained,“ he wrote well-known philosopher and writer Jean Améry from his own concentration camp experience.
Even at the end of the 20th century, torture is still common practice in many countries. Amnesty International lists more than a hundred states where, despite numerous human rights agreements, the police, military, intelligence services, and the like, a. systematically not only physically, but increasingly tortured psychologically.
Because the goal of torture is not only the enforcement of confessions and statements, but also the destruction of the personality, the destruction of identity. Torturers know that people with no identity and a broken personality lose their capacity for resistance of any kind.
Previously, the term „post-torture syndrome“ (PTS) was used. This is now outdated. Later, people spoke of extreme traumatized, „man-made-disaster“ (when people are tortured by human hands), the existential emotional syndrome, etc. Today, one speaks of the post-traumatic stress disorder (English: posttraumatic stress disorder), where still divided in acute stress disorder (acute stress disorder) and – because the trauma of torture is not yet completed – in complex posttraumatic stress disorder (German: comprehensive post-traumatic stress disorder, also called disorder of extreme stress = disorder by extreme stress) referred.
– technical disasters: chemical accident, nuclear power plants, ship’s sinking, plane crash u. a.
– Natural disasters: earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruption etc.
– the so-called man-made-disaster: torture, rape, robbery, hostage taking o.
To achieve their goal, the torturers start according to plan. The psychological attrition must be gradual. This is a well-calculated process, done in cold blood and according to the individual characteristics of each victim. It would not make much sense to start with the toughest measures right away. The victim must be given enough time to experience the torments and humiliations extensively, identify with them and gradually lose the will to resist:
„At first I thought they were going to kill me, that’s what I was prepared for, and if only they did, but the worst part was the breaks“ (quote).
The tortured person has to lose all inner support and self-confidence completely helplessly, he has to cry and beg for mercy, he has to leave his urine and stool in panic, uncontrolled fear, he has to wish to finally be killed instead of vegetating.
More cruel than pain is often being alone after torture. It almost makes you crazy. One feels like an animal, depending on the grace of his sadistic master. Thus, the victim finds himself even after his release as physically still somehow alive again – but spiritually destroyed. That is the meaning of modern torture.
Amnesty International is concerned for the safety of more than one thousand Palestinians detained by Israeli Defence Forces (IDF)
Publications: