The torture of prisoners was one of the early concerns of human rights defenders such as the use of medical examinations during police interrogations. But torture does not only apply to those who are prisoners of war but also to all persons who are kept imprisoned, including those in mental health institutions, and rehabilitation treatment centers where disabled, children and elderly persons are detained, isolated from the outside world and dependent on their captors.
In an Annex IV to the UN Declaration of Human Rights of the Disabled, Theresia Degenerstated "It is no secret that the most vulnerable members of society are most likely to be affected by torture and ill treatment. While the average non-disabled white man is only vulnerable when deprived of his freedom and weapons, most persons with disabilities are vulnerable everywhere and at all times."
Ill treatment of disabled persons has routinely occurred due to the prevailing medical model of disability. Because within the context of the medical model of disability human rights violations can be disguised by medical treatment, torture and ill treatment are legitimized or ignored by seeing the disabled person as a problem not as a right holder. The standard belief held by many in the medical community is that the disabled person is the "problem" thus sees medical intervention as the solution which is imposed from outside on the disabled individual and often times without patient informed consent. The current prevailing medical model sees the "problem" of disability within the person and sees the solution as medical intervention (often forced). Instead the human rights model is willing to locate the "problem" outside the individual and recognizes the possibility of torture and ill-treatment of disabled persons must be guarded against. It will take a considerable change in attitudes to embrace this paradigm shift from the medical model to the human rights model of disability.
Nonconsensual psychiatric and medical interventions have been contemplated as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in treaty negotiations and by U.N. Special Rapporteurs. United Nations Consultant, Theresia Degener, states in her Recommendations to the Special Rapporteur in Annex IV to state that "Today we have heard about the atrocities which happen worldwide to persons with disabilities in- and outside of institutions. We have heard that torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment may result in impairments, may aggravate existing impairments and that torture and similar forms of treatment may take different forms when it comes to the treatment of disabled persons."
Torture is never acceptable. The physical scars of torture are not as damaging in the long run as the psychological scars which last a life time. It is a highly effective means of controlling populations: torture destroys leaders, disintegrates opposition and terrorizes communities. Torture is not an effective means of interrogation and does not yield useful or truthful information in prison interrogations or in psychiatric evaluations. The goal of torture is actually to cause the integrity of a person's personality to disintegrate and to make the person submissive to the persons in power. Discrimination against the victim of torture contributes to dehumanizing the victim, and can make victims less credible or not fully entitled to equal protection in the eyes of police or other authorities to whom they might complain for redress. Thus psychological torture can be used to silence those who are whistleblowers and raising legitimate concerns about social and governmental problems.
Personal accounts attest to long term life altering effects of both physical and mental pain and suffering caused by nonconsensual administration of neuroleptic drugs, electroshock, and other psychiatric interventions, when it occurred and for a long time afterwards. The Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture goes the farthest of any human rights instruments in directly prohibiting the use of these techniques aimed at the disintegration of the personality or reduction of physical or mental capacities, which would include psychotropic drugs and brain-damaging procedures like electroshock and psychosurgery. [iv]
In the Recommendations in Annex IV Theresia Degener states "Thus, we may conclude that there are two typical categories of torture and ill treatment with respect to persons with disabilities. The first could be called torture through medicalization of inhuman and degrading treatment, the second could be called torture through neglect."
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