page_title: Use of torture since 1948
section_title: Inter-state collaboration
hierarchical_section_title: Use of torture since 1948 / Inter-state collaboration
caption_attribution_description: Thuong Duc, Vietnam....A Viet Cong prisoner is interrogated at the A-109 Special Forces Detachment in Thuong Duc, 25 km west of Da Nang.
context_page_description: Torture, the infliction of severe physical or psychological pain upon an individual to extract information or a confession, or as an illicit extrajudicial punishment, is prohibited by international law and is illegal in most countries. However, it is still used by many governments. The subject of this article is the use of torture since the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which prohibited it.
context_section_description: Substantial cooperation between states in the methods and coordination of torture has been documented. Through the Phoenix Program, the United States helped South Vietnam co-ordinate a system of detention, torture and assassination of suspected members of the National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong. During the 1980s wars in Central America, the U.S. government provided manuals and training on interrogation that extended to the use of torture (see U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals). The manuals were also distributed by Special Forces Mobile Training teams to military personnel and intelligence schools in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru. The manuals have a chapter devoted to "coercive techniques".
  The southern cone governments of South America – Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil – involved in Operation Condor co-ordinated the disappearance, torture and execution of dissidents in the 1970s. Hundreds were killed in coordinated operations, and the bodies of those recovered were often mutilated and showed signs of torture. This system operated with the knowledge and support of the United States government through the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Department.
  The United States government has, at least since the Bush administration, used the tactic of legal rendition in which suspected terrorists were extradited to countries where they were to be prosecuted for crimes allegedly committed. In the "war on terror" this has evolved into extraordinary rendition, the delivery of prisoners or others recently captured, including terrorism suspects, to foreign governments known to practice torture are Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Afghanistan. Human rights activists have alleged that the practice amounts to kidnapping for the purpose of torture, or torture by proxy. A related practice is the operation of facilities for imprisonment, and it is widely believed torture, in foreign countries. In November 2005, the Washington Post reported —-  citing administration sources —- that such facilities are operated by the CIA in Thailand (until 2004), Afghanistan, and several unnamed Eastern European countries. Human Rights Watch reports that planes associated with rendition have landed repeatedly in Poland and Romania.
caption: A Viet Cong prisoner captured in 1967 by the U.S. Army awaits interrogation. He has been placed in a stress position by tying a board between his arms.
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