In 2000, human rights group Amnesty International and African social sciences organization CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa) published a handbook for watchdog groups monitoring prisons with suspected torture. The guide offers insight into just what qualifies as cruel, inhuman and degrading (CID) treatment.
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The book also discusses the worst torture methods, among them beatings, electric shocks, hanging a person by the limbs, mock executions and forms of sexual assault, especially rape. In this article, we focus on the unfortunate realities of these practices around the modern world, not torture-devices.htm">medieval torture devices like the brazen bull or breaking wheel.
In addition to Amnesty International's list, we'll also look at what Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights cites as five common forms of torture, including burns, penetrating injuries, asphyxiation, forced human experimentation and traumatic removal of tissue and appendages.
Before proceeding, readers, please be aware that this article contains graphic descriptions of violence that may not be suitable for everyone.
According to Amnesty International, torture is "when somebody in an official capacity inflicts severe mental or physical pain or suffering on somebody else for a specific purpose. Sometimes authorities torture a person to extract a confession for a crime or to get information from them. Sometimes torture is simply used as a punishment that spreads fear in society."
Torturers inflict immense pain on others through various methods, including the use of torture devices, getting into a victim's head or having a person stripped naked or hung upside down.
Most of these endured horrors are physical, or black torture. Mock executions are white torture (psychological) [source: Cesereanu]. There's little distinction between black-and-white forms of torture; both are equally insidious.