A Togolese woman fleeing torture in her country waits for news of her asylum application in a US country jail, 1998. Many of the worlds 15 million refugees are torture victims. Article 5, Universal Declaration of Human Rights Similar prohibitions are contained in global treaties, such as the UN Convention against Torture and the regional human rights treaties of Africa, the Americas and Europe.
Torture persists daily, all over the world, even though it flouts international law.
With these words Adrien Wayi began his harrowing testimony of 12 days of torture at the hands of militia in the Republic of the Congo in 1997. Adrien Wayi was beaten, burned, cut and subjected to other physical and mental torments. His body and his mind continue to suffer the effects. In the short period that has elapsed since Adrien Wayi was so brutally attacked, AI received further reports of torture and ill-treatment from over 150 countries around the world, from democracies as well as from the harshest dictatorships. In more than half of these countries the use of torture was widespread or persistent, not aberrant.