Torture

About: Torture is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 8173 publications have been published within this topic receiving 109895 citations.

Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of "Ethnic Cleansing"

Abstract: Few events in history have received as much real-time exposure as the atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Few dilemmas have perplexed peacekeepers and negotiators as has the victimization of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. With the memories of the Jewish holocaust so freshly etched in people's memories, could such genocide have happened again? What catalysts vault nationalism across the threshold into inhumanity? In this compelling and thorough study, Norman Cigar sets out to prove that genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina is not simply the unintentional result of civil war nor the unfortunate by-product of rabid nationalism. Genocide is, he contends, the planned and direct consequence of conscious policy decisions taken by the Serbian establishment in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its policies were carried out in a deliberate and systematic manner as part of a broader strategy intended to achieve a defined political objective--the creation of an expanded, ethnically pure Greater Serbia. Using testimony from congressional hearings, policy statements, interviews, and reports from the western and local media, the author describes a sinister policy of victimization that escalated from vilification to threats, then expulsion, torture, and killing. Cigar also takes the international community to task for its reluctance to act decisively and effectively. "The longer the world did nothing concrete about Bosnia-Herzegovina, the more unlikely it became that the situation would be reversed, as the country was torn apart or its population scattered or killed." "Genocide in Bosnia" provides a detailed account of the historical events, actions, and practices that led to and legitimated genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It focuses attention not only on the horror of "ethnic cleansing" and the calculated strategy that allowed it to happen but also offers some interesting solutions to the problem. Cigar's book is important reading for anyone interested in the inherent violence of overzealous nationalism--from Rwanda to Afghanistan and anywhere else.

Why Ordinary People Torture Enemy Prisoners

Abstract: Accounts of prisoner abuse and other institutional violence often blame a few isolated individuals, but social psychology emphasizes social contexts, which can make almost anyone oppress, conform, and obey in abetting destructive social behavior. In this [Policy Forum][1], meta-analyses demonstrate the quantitative reliability and import of social contexts. Moreover, recent data show that initial reactions to low-status, oppositional outgroups may involve disgust and contempt, consistent with abuse. Together, social pressures and social prejudices help explain the recent abuse scandals. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5701/1482

Does Terror Threaten Human Rights? Evidence from Panel Data

Abstract: The paper presents a political economy model linking terror and governments' respect for human rights. Using panel data for 111 countries over the period 1973-2002, we then empirically analyze whether and to what extent terror affects human rights - measured by three indices covering a wide variety of human rights aspects. According to our results, terror substantially diminishes governments' respect for basic human rights such as absence of extrajudicial killings, political imprisonment, and torture. To some extent, civil rights are also restricted as a consequence of terrorism, while we find no effect of terrorism on empowerment rights.

Mass Hate: The Global Rise Of Genocide And Terror

Abstract: The Hater's Mind Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia Muslim Extremists in New York. RwandaThe Legacy of Inequality Why People Followed Hitler The Power of the Situation The Personality of the Perpetrator Can Anything Be Done?

Embodiment of Terror: Gendered Violence in Peacetime and Wartime in Croatia and Bosnia‐Herzegovina

Abstract: Gendered violence is not a special type of torture used only in war. Its roots are well established in peacetime. This article discusses parallels between the patterns of everyday domination and aggression during times of peace and war. Further, it discusses how metaphors and acts of rape in peacetime are transformed into symbols and acts of rape for wartime purposes. During peacetime the individual body, especially its essence--sexuality and reproduction--becomes the symbol of everyday domination and aggression. Wartime transforms individual bodies into social bodies as seen, for example, in genocidal rapes or ethnic cleansing, which are thought to purify the bloodlines. Then, institutions--that is, medical, religious, and government establishments--further reinforce the wartime process by manipulating the individual/social body into the body politic by controlling and defining "human life" and using political rapes to entice military action by the West. The final transformation (at the war's conclusion) is the reformation of the social body back into the individual body, making the individual body once again the focus of dominance and aggression as the acceptable social "order."