Torture Convention part of UK law

 

The Torture Convention is now part of UK law, and should be used to arrest those that torture in other countries. As in East Timor, militias are used in the Indian Union countries to kill minorities / political opposition with the tacit support of Politicians / Civil Service / Police / Army, etc. As in East Timor, Militias wear black uniforms “Kale Kache” and have been involved in the killing of 250,000 Sikh supporters of the Punjabi independence movement.

 

The Torture Convention allows any Political leader, police officer, army officer, etc to be arrested and tried abroad, as soon as they go abroad on holiday, meeting, medical treatment, etc. Names of such Indian Union officials have now been published and put onto Internet, so that they become widely known throughout the world; these Officials have been named by Indian High Court and Supreme Court Judges who took part in the Peoples Commission.

 

Persons who have tortured and killed Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, low caste Hindus (Dalits / Untouchables) in the Indian Union, and elsewhere in the World, will be charged and arrested when they go abroad, e.g. USA, Canada, UK, France, etc. as in the case of General Pinochet, Officials from Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, East Timor, etc.

 

 

Torture Convention

Trial abroad for Torturers

 

 

What does it cover?

 

The Torture Convention covers Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading Treatment or Punishment wherever committed in the world. This Convention provided what was previously missing: a worldwide universal jurisdiction.

 

The Torture Convention was agreed not in order to create an international crime which had not previously existed but to provide an international system under which the international criminal, the torturer, could find no safe haven.

 

 

Who can be held responsible for torture?

 

Torture within the meaning of the Convention can only be committed by “a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”, and these words include a Head of State. A single act of official torture was “torture” within the Convention. General Pinochet, former Head of State in Chile, now faces such charges.

 

An essential feature of the international crime of torture is that it has to be committed “by or with the acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”. This means that any official who knows what is going on or may reasonably be expected to know, and takes no action to stop it, is also liable; such officials can be advised by a registered letter of what was happening, followed by a few reminder letters, so that a later denial will not help them.

 

Superior orders provide no defence. This means that orders given by Government Ministers, Police Commanders, Military Commanders, Civil Service Chiefs, etc. will provide no defence to lower level officials implementing torture; they will all be liable. German officials who followed orders to kill Jews, were not allowed such a defence, and were executed themselves by the courts. Serbs from Bosnia have been arrested and face charges in similar circumstances for killing Muslims.

 

The courts have said that if the states with the most obvious jurisdiction did not seek to extradite, the state where the alleged torturer was found had to prosecute or, extradite to another country, that is, there was universal jurisdiction. For example, a torturer discovered in France, could be arrested and charged in France, or be extradited to face charges in the UK or USA or elsewhere in the world.

 

 

How is it implemented?

 

The obligations placed on the United Kingdom by the Torture Convention were incorporated into the law of the United Kingdom by section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

 

That Act came into force on 29 September 1988, and section 134 created a new crime under UK law, the crime of torture. As required by the Convention all torture, wherever committed worldwide, was made criminal under UK law and triable in the UK.

 

 

 

How can victims provide the evidence?

 

Thousands upon thousands of low caste Hindus (Dalits/Untouchables), Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, opposition political movements, and other minorities are systematically killed every year by organised security organisations with the tacit support of their political masters; the estimates of deaths are gruesome, e.g. USA Congress records show the killing of 250,000 Sikhs, 200,000 Christians, 80,000 Muslims, and thousands of low caste Hindus. Because of the organised nature of the killings, with involvement of state bodies and officials themselves, there is usually no redress for the victims through the courts.

 

What can the victims and witnesses do under such circumstances? They can take the following steps :-

 

Send details abroad through letter, fax, or email giving as many details as possible about the torture, such that the details will be sufficient for a conviction in an overseas court; the torturer can be any official, whether political, civil servant, police, army, etc. In such matters the following are useful :-

 

date, time, place where the torture took place;

details of torture, e.g. knees broken, legs pulled apart, electric shock, suspended from ropes, bones broken, photographs, etc;

witness reports;

medical / doctor/ hospital / post-mortem reports;

press cuttings;

copies of letters sent to officials asking them to stop the torture;

names, photographs, addresses of persons committing torture or failing to stop it.

The British Foreign Office has now produced a booklet advising on the evidence needed to convict torturers in the UK.

 

 

Such details can be sent to :-

 

Khalsa Human Rights, 9 Holy Bones, Leicester, LE1 4LJ

fax : +44-116-262-4264

email : KhalsaHR@dial.pipex.com

 

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,

United Nations Office in Geneva, 1211 Geneva 10

Switzerland

Fax: +41-22-917-9006 or 9003

Email: lgariup.hchr@unog.ch

Website: www.unhchr@unog.ch

 

Civil Rights Committee,

European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium

 

Amnesty International,

International Secretariat, 1 Easton St, London  WC1X 0DW, United Kingdom

 

If possible, please advise these overseas organisations in advance if a torturer is likely to be visiting any country abroad, and ask the organisations to bring charges for their arrest. The torturers can then be charged, arrested and imprisoned whenever they go abroad for a meeting / marriage/ holiday/ medical  treatment/ funeral, etc. The criminal conviction can then also be used to recover financial compensation for the victims.

 

 

Some of the legal proceedings against General Pinochet, former President of Chile in South America, can be read in the House of Lords judgement reported in The Times on 25 March 1999 (in the UK).

 

 

 

British Sikh Federation Welcomes Treaty to establish International Criminal Court

 

 

The British Sikh Federation welcomes the agreement on Friday, 17th July 1998, in Rome, Italy, to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC); the treaty was signed by 30 government ministers on Saturday, 18th July 1998.

 

Millions of people have been tortured, killed and made to “disappear”. About 20 million were killed by Stalin in the Soviet Union, 20 million by Chairman Mao in China, 1 million in Uganda by Idi Amin, a quarter of the population were killed or starved to death  in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, a million killed or injured in Afghanistan by the Russians, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, ¼ million Sikhs killed in the Indian Union by Congress party Governments of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi, 1 million were killed in the Punjab by British Colonial forces, and 3 million were starved to death in Bengal by British Colonial forces, etc.

 

The court will try crimes of genocide and aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity; some of the original clauses were watered down following objections and wrecking tactics by some countries such as the USA.

 

The final vote on the treaty was 120 votes for and just 7 against. Not even the Indian delegation, which had fought the text tooth and nail,  could bring itself to cast a “No” vote.

 

The British Sikh Federation had urged the British Foreign Secretary in December 1997, to support the creation of the International Criminal Court, in order to prevent and reduce the slaughter of ordinary people in the future. The court will only have jurisdiction to try prospective offences, not past offences, otherwise governments would not have allowed the creation of the court (since a lot of countries had indulged in such crimes in the past). Government leaders, despots, intelligence officers, military chiefs, etc. will know that they can be tried and sentenced by an international court, and not be protected by their political friends / governments; the court will be able to provide protection for witnesses and evidence abroad.

 

Some evidence of the British Sikh Federation’s involvement with MPs and the Foreign Office, regarding the setting up of the International Criminal Court, has been given to British Punjabi newspapers. It was decided right at the beginning that there would be very little stated in public before the Court had been set up, since others abroad may have put up obstacles to prevent the court being established.

 

The International Criminal Court is a major step forward in the history of the human race, probably even greater than the setting up of the United Nations. The treaty terms can be strengthened later in the future, when some governments have either changed or have become wiser. The present compromise on jurisdiction forced by the USA will have to be strengthened; at the moment prosecutions not referred by the UN Security Council will require approval from either the state of nationality of the accused or country in which the alleged crime was committed. The original intention was that the ICC would be free-standing, and not be restricted in this manner.

 

The ICC will come into existence when 60 countries have ratified the treaty; this will probably take 2 to 5 years.

 

The British Sikh Federation attended a seminar at Imperial College, London, on Saturday, 30th May 1998, together with other organisations such as Amnesty International, Charter 88, Oxfam, to review and discuss the problems identified at that time regarding the setting up of the International Criminal Court, and a Human Rights Commission for Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

 

A Human Rights Commission is needed in the UK to carryout new work and to replace many different existing organisations such as the Commission for Racial Equality, Equal Opportunity Commission, Disabilities Commission, etc. People who currently work for such organisations need not worry about losing their jobs, since they will be able to pool their expertise together and work for the Human Rights Commission instead.