Showing papers on "Torture published in 1983"

The testimony of political repression as a therapeutic instrument

Abstract: The use of testimony--tape-recorded by the therapist and revised jointly by therapist and patient into a written document--as a therapeutic technique with former prisoners and with relatives of prisoners of the Chilean military government is described and evaluated. The testimony, aimed at facilitating integration of the traumatic experience and restoration of self-esteem, was found effective in providing symptomatic relief for certain patients.

World human rights guide

Abstract: Despite the recent significant surge in concern for the cause of human rights, over half the world's population live under regimes which deny the most basic human freedoms. Drawing on the records of official bodies, unofficial monitors, and individuals who have suffered or witnessed abuses, this survey provides comprehensive information on the human rights records of over 120 countries. Assessing the performance of each state according to guidelines set in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the book covers both traditional human rights, such as democratic elections, freedom of speech, learning, association and travel, and a number of broader issues, including censorship, phone tapping, summary execution and torture, and the independence of the courts. This guide is intended for anyone interested in human rights comparisons world-wide.

Human rights and world politics

Abstract: By the 1980s the concept of internationally recognized human rights was being reinforced by a growing body of international law and by the multiplication of agencies concerned with such matters as torture in Paraguay, slavery in Mauritania, the British use of force in Northern Ireland, and starvation and malnutrition in East Africa and Southeast Asia. No matter how much a national leader might find it more convenient to focus on other matters, some world organization or private group could be counted on to keep the issue of universal human rights alive. Because the subject is particularly timely, David P. Forsythe has revised Human Rights and World Politics, first published in 1983. For this second edition, Forsythe has updated all chapters and completely rewritten the one on U.S. foreign policy to include the second Reagan administration. After a brief history of the evolution of human rights in international law and diplomacy, he surveys human rights standards as developed by the United Nations and other official organizations. Moving from the definitive core of law, Forsythe turns to the interpretation and implementation of rights agreements; the role of private or unofficial organizations such as Amnesty International and the Red Cross; the relationship between civil-political and socio-economic rights; the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy, particularly under Carter and Reagan; and lobbying in Washington by human-rights interest groups. In all, Forsythe's exhaustive research and careful analysis bring clarity and concreteness to a subject too often obscured by rhetoric. David P. Forsythe, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska, is the author of Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy: Congress Reconsidered (1988) and other works.

An Uncertain Destiny: Indian Captivities on the Upper Connecticut River

Abstract: The prospect of being taken captive by Indians was one of the greatest terrors for pioneers on the American frontier. From seventeenth-century Massachusetts to twentieth-century Hollywood, Indian captivity has been regarded as a fate worse than death, and western frontiersmen advocated saving the last bullet for oneself to prevent it. Whites inhabiting the trans-Mississippi west in the nineteenth century had in fact every reason to dread falling into Indian hands and a good idea of what was in store for them: among the nomadic tribes of the Great Plains, male captives were tortured (before being put to death), female captives were invariably subjected to sexual and physical abuse and generally condemned to a life of drudgery, while captive children might be killed out of hand or taken into the tribe. In the northeastern woodlands, however, the fate in store for whites captured by Indians was by no means so certain. A study of the experiences and narratives of captives on the upper Connecticut River during the era of Indian raids from Canada suggests that to be captured by Indians in northern New England was a terrifying and traumatic experience, but was certainly no guarantee of death, torture, abuse, or even mistreatment.

Torture: a challenge to medical science.

Abstract: Torture has been gaining impetus in recent years, its refined horror due to perversion of medical and scientific knowledge and techniques. More than 60 national regimes torture their citizen and all these nation deny this fact. Hence, medical evidence of torture is essential in the fight against torture and in the struggle to prevent its use. The development of the concept of Human Rights is described to comprehend fully the evil and horror of torture. The multifaceted medical aspects of torture are reviewed to draw attention to the significant contribution the medical profession has to offer in the fight against torture.

Torture, doctors and the World Medical Association.

Abstract: some surprising gaps in the attendance. There seemed to be no representatives from the scientific communities of the USSR or Eastern Europe. China was represented by an American delegate. The scientific communities of India and South Africa also seemed to be unrepresented. Furthermore, there was an unfortunate tendency to concentrate on the technological, rather than the editorial or the ethical, aspects of publishing. The last session of the conference was entitled \"Scholarly publishing: International aspects\". The panel was truly international, with an Israeli in the chair and an Australian, a Japanese, a Sri Lankan, and an American on the panel. Unfortunately, perhaps not only because it was the final

Torture and the teaching of medical ethics.

Abstract: the underlying causes of the disordered eating phase, may also be indicated. Abraham et al. report that many of their normal subjects have had considerable success at various times in losing weight. Our own experience concurs with this; however, we have noted that many of these apparently successful attemptsto lose weight are followed byepisodes of weight gain. Perhaps the social climate which demands \"abnormal\" thinness is simultaneously ensuring that young women have an important experience of failure as part of their adolescent development. The efforts of the medical profession to promote the notion that obesity and ill-health are related havesometimes been interpreted too simplistically. In the case of patients who are morbidly preoccupied with their weight, this viewpoint has become the rationalization for a complex and very unhealthy behaviour pattern. The medical profession hascontributed significantly to the September 3, 1983 THE MEDICAL JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIA

Terror in Russian Culture and Literary Imagination

Abstract: From the seventeenth through the twentieth century, torture, cruelty, and violence have prospered in the Russian state. Terror has been applied both by the authorities and their opponents and has become a naturalized, domesticated fact of Russian life. In the twentieth century, terrorism has grown into one of the major functions of the state, beginning with the "Red Terror" in 1918 and continuing under Stalin. It has manifested itself in the imprisonment in labor camps of entire classes and nationalities of people and has taken the form of arrests, executions, mass deportations, creations of artificial famines and, ultimately, of random, arbitrary violence. It would not be an exaggeration to state that since 1918 tens of millions of people have died as a direct result of terrorism by the Russian state. The subject of terror in Russian literature can be approached in many ways. I shall leave out of the account some important aspects of the theme1 in order to concentrate, first, on Russian culture's traditional reactions to terror, and, second, on salient literary depictions of terror in the last three hundred years. I conclude by noting that the insights to be gleaned from this cultural/literary tradition may be useful in resolving the problem of terror in Russia. To say this does not mean that one is anti-Russian. Russian culture has supplied us with treasures of literature and music and many other positive contributions to our understanding of man. Our topic is terror, however, not poetry or warmth of human contact, and we must face the facts as we see them.

El tema de la tortura en el teatro hispánico

Abstract: Here are reviewed three plays which have torture as their central theme. They all share an analysis of the social environment of torture, the network of collusion which surrounds it. The torturer is the main actor. He does not stand out under the guise of a monster of sadism, but as a man in flesh and blood, with a home, children, affected by the job [especially in his sexual life], even if he tries to hide behind his function. The torturer cannot be set apart; he cannot shirk his responsabilities. Torture also implies a complicity between the system [patterned upon the military, authoritarian, hierarchical], the society [all those withnesses who pretend not to see] and the executioners [the torturers become tortured]. These three dramas, while stressing different overtones, reveal the less obvious aspects of the repressive system, among other things its human dimension.