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scripttorture · 4 years

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I have a question about torture and organizations. Can a political movement (rebellion in this case) with a history of using torture succeed in eliminating its use of torture? In my story a member of the rebellion learns that some others (on the leader's orders?) have been torturing people. Appalled, this person decides to split off and form a rival faction, bringing with them other rebels who disapprove of torture... (organizations ask 1/3)

Is it likely that this faction would be able to succeed (replace the original faction and continue not torturing people)? How likely is this? What factors would impact the likelihood? Mostly I'm focusing on the contrast between one organization torturing and the other not torturing, e.g., I can see how locals might be skeptical of the second organization because they're on the same "side" as the torturers. (organizations ask 2/3 -- I think I might've accidentally numbered the first one 2/3, aah) The organization uses torture for mainly punishment (which might include trying to get people to make false confessions) and intimidation (as well as in some cases in attempts to force compliance, like making people supply them with food and materials or making people give them information; this last is the rarest... oops, I just realized that's all of the purposes in the UN definition). (I have read a lot of your posts and I know torture doesn't work.) Thank you!! :) (organizations ask 3/3)

Anon you are delightful.

Rejali spends an awful lot of time discussing the various arguments on whether torture can be eradicated and how that could be practically done. There aren’t a lot of definite answers but I can give a summary of the kinds of factors that we think are important and describe things your characters could practically do.

I think it’s worth stressing from the start that no country has completely eradicated torture. As a result we don’t know for certain what… works. Or at least not what works completely and permanently.

I don’t think this means getting rid of torture is impossible. Neither does Rejali. Rejali argues (convincingly in my opinion) that torture has changed so drastically in the modern era because of concerted efforts to wipe it out. Part of that change has been an almost complete eradication of some torture techniques. As a general rule people are no longer broken on the wheel, hanged drawn and quartered or have their flesh torn off with red hot pincers. We have already completely transformed both torture and public attitudes to it.

And that implies that we can get it rid of it.

It’s likely that torture is less common now then it was historically but this is hard to prove. Most historical records don’t provide a clear indication of every single person who was questioned, arrested or tried, let alone who was tortured or how.

It’s also hard to prove exactly how much a particular factor reduces torture. The fact torture is illegal and that victims may not report what happened to them make it difficult to measure how often it occurs. We rely on estimates based on the reporting we have, which is likely to give a lower figure then the real number of cases. (Because we know from more thorough studies on other crimes that there is always a proportion that goes unreported and it is likely this proportion will be higher when the victim could face repercussions for reporting the crime. As is often the case with torture.)

So what seems to help? I’ll start by talking about the factors we’re aware of that can reduce torture and then I’ll try to talk about how you might be able to apply them to the revolutionary organisation in your story.

It might sound obvious but making torture illegal is usually a necessary first step.

A change in the law in and of itself does not really do much. Especially not overnight. It’s about beginning to build a framework where reporting can happen and where people are actively looking for evidence of torture.

The next steps are well building up that framework. Independent oversight is one of the biggest things.

Here are a couple of things that can mean:

Anonymous reporting

Independent inspections

Regular unscheduled inspections

Independent medical reports and autopsies

Treating reports of torture seriously

Thorough investigation of all reports

Prosecution of torturers where there is sufficient evidence

Sentencing that fits the gravity of the crime*

Suspension of individuals accused of torture

I tend to think of those factors as things that are sort of outside the organisation. Because ideally they’re coming from outside the organisation.

Note that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re outside the system entirely. Using a comparison if you’re trying to stop police torture then the people handling reports, investigations etc could still be government employees but they should not be police. When the people in charge of torture investigations rely on the people they’re investigating for their jobs and wages… you get problems.

There are also important factors within the organisation. Which are about building an organisation where torture is less likely to occur (whereas the factors outside the organisation are about rooting it out when it’s found.)

A lot of these things basically boil down to building a positive working environment:

High quality training for all personnel

Regular refresher training with updates to training as appropriate

Appropriate staffing levels (ie there should always be enough people to easily run the organisation)

No one is forced to work overtime

Generous holiday allowance and sick pay

Consistent effort to structure and manage things to reduce stress in the workplace

Reasonable, achievable goals for staff

Appropriate, well supplied facilities

Thorough record keeping for staff and anyone they are responsible for

Avoidance of shifts that disrupt sleep as much as possible

Torture is much, much less likely when staff are correctly trained, supported and given the resources necessary to do their jobs.

There are also a handful of things that would probably help and fall into neither category such as limiting (or eliminating) access to devices commonly used to torture. For instance Tasers, pepper spray, particular forms of restraints but also (depending on where in the world we are) chilli powder, hose pipes and cleaning supplies.

This might seem like quite a lot but it’s funny how much of it applies to the industry I actually work in: drugs testing.

The place I work is regularly inspected by outside organisations (and usually without notice). Every single person on site has to go through extensive training programs which are refreshed at least once a year. Each and every one of us has to record and account for all our actions and any material and equipment we use. We can report things anonymously. Any allegations of malpractice are dealt with swiftly and prompt massive investigations.

So I guess I’m saying that I think more of the organisations responsible for people should have the same level of accountability pharmaceutical testing does.

Depending on the structure of your rebel organisation and what’s available too them a lot of this might not be possible. At least not at first.

A small, poorly supplied organisation could struggle to combat torture effectively. But where there’s a will there’s a way.

Size of the group seems to be a big thing here. With really small groups the members can often say pretty confidently whether torture is happening or not. Because they’re all working together so closely that they know more or less everything their colleagues are doing. But the bigger a group becomes the easier it is to lose track of people and for abuse to be hidden.

My instinct is that genuinely independent oversight probably becomes easier after organisations reach a certain size. Because for a smaller (but not tiny) group anyone who might be investigating accusations could still be reliant on the people they’re investigating. They’re likely to work together, be close to each other and as a result they’re bringing a bias into any investigation.

I think a smaller, newly founded organisation would really struggle to set up the kind of structured, independent inspection bodies that do most of the grunt work of finding and reporting on torture. Especially early on when they’ve just split off from the older, more established group.

That’s partly because of numbers and partly because it takes time and expertise to set up these systems. Or at least to do it well. Going back to the comparison with my work, the organisations that inspect and audit my workplace have all been around for decades. Most of the ‘younger’ organisations are mergers or rebrands of much older organisations. The process is updated at least once a year and there is a labyrinth of laws around every single aspect of… well all of it.

It takes a lot of time, energy and error to build that up in a robust way.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing they can do.

They might not be able to detect or investigate torture easily in the early stages but they could structure their organisation in ways that make it less likely for torture to happen in the first place.

Proper training is probably the biggest one that would make a difference. Things like conducting a proper investigation or interrogation, de-escalation tactics, building rapport/people skills and negotiation.

They could also limit the number of prisoners they hold and the length of time prisoners are held for. This is trickier to do ethically in a combat situation. If part of the point is that this group is more ethical they shouldn’t be maiming or summarily executing surrendering troops from the opposing side. They also shouldn’t be releasing prisoners in places they’re likely to die.

One potential way around this is to focus on destroying equipment and facilities rather then ending lives. Taking weapons, destroying barracks, supply lines and the like.

Captured enemy troops can potentially give out valuable information (you can read about effective interrogation here) but the majority of useful information doesn’t come from interrogating suspects/enemy troops in these scenarios. It comes from people volunteering information, whether they’re civilians or defectors.

It might sound really obvious but a very easy way to avoid torture as an issue to not have anyone to torture. A policy of no prisoners, not in the sense of killing everyone but in the sense of immediate release after the goal has been achieved, reduces the amount of people held and hence the chance of torture.

This sort of strategy in the beginning could give the organisation time to come up with the facilities, training program and inspection regime needed to keep prisoners in… as safe and ethical a way as possible. It would mean adopting a strategy of ambush style attacks on the facilities and supply lines of he opposing side/s.

It would also help avoid overcrowding of any prison facilities which is a factor that leads to more violence in prisons.

I think that just leaves the question of long term success which you’ve defined in terms of avoiding torture and eventually replacing the rebel group that tortures.

That isn’t a question I can give a definitive ‘yes or no’ answer to. It depends on a lot of factors, as you can probably see from the lists above.

My instinct is that it is possible. However it would take time. A lot of time. And it would mean keeping up that dedication, the rejection of torture, throughout.

Supplanting an existing organisation would take years. Easily 5-10 years, and I think I might actually be under estimating things. It also depends on things like how well known both rebel groups are, how well they manage to build up public trust, the supply of recruits, the amount of territory they occupy.

Part of what I’m driving at here is that doing things well, building systems and organisations that last and keep ethics at their core; it takes time. It takes hard work. And a lot of it feels thankless.

In the early days your rebels will probably be bending over backwards, making life so much ‘harder’ for themselves in order to avoid torture. Only to have civilians turn around and mistake them for the group that tortures.

The sad fact is that a lot of people feel destruction is more satisfying. It feels like ‘doing something’, whereas the hard work of building a better system over years/decades… it often feels like you’re getting nowhere. I think that, along with the cultural message that violence ‘works’, is why a lot of these abuses continue to happen.

Once again I think that what you want from this story is possible. But it isn’t simple, it isn’t easy. It’s playing the long game. And there will be times when that grinds the characters down.

A lot of stories say that ‘doing the right thing isn’t easy’ and then proceed to show the characters doing some big, impressive act that instantly solves everything. This is a fallacy. Sometimes it’s a fallacy that leads to some great stories! But it’s still a fictional motif that romanticises acts of violence over the hard work of building something better.

And I think that if you want to show that hard work in your story you can’t gloss over the fact that it’s hard. It’s exhausting, it can be isolating. It can all be wiped away at any moment because of one hot-headed idiot.

But the hard work and dedication would eventually pay off.

These rebels would end up with better intelligence networks, better ties to the local communities and a better reputation. Which would probably lead to them becoming the go-to group for defectors, both from the other rebels and the group they’re trying to fight. They’d also probably get more volunteers in the long term.

Wrapping up I think I’ll end with a note from Kurlansky’s Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea: Long term victory generally goes to the group that is the most organised. Focus on that. Really think about inventive ways to set up the systems and organisations these rebels are trying to build.

Follow those points through logically.

Your group might not end up looking like any rebel group you’ve seen in media before. But it’ll probably look closer to a lot of real organisations and give you a lot of fodder for stories.

I hope that helps :)

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Available on Wordpress.

*Obviously there will always be debate about what this means but I personally do not think most places treat torture as a grave crime. As an illustration of what I mean American torturer Jon Burge is thought to have tortured at least 200 people during his time as a police officer. Several of the people Burge tortured ended up on death row. Thirty years after the initial reports he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. He served three and a half.

#writing advice #tw torture #effects of torture on organisations #writing organisations #preventing torture #factors that encourage torture #factors that reduce torture #Rejali #independent oversight #accountability #prisons #intelligence gathering #public support #effects of torture on public trust #this one was really interesting and required a fair bit of thought

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unwelcome-ozian · 3 years

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Accordingly, the development of the interrogation techniques known as clean torture, no-touch torture, stealth torture, white torture or psychological torture are closely tied to the development of the democratic state. “Historically, clean torture and democracy go hand in hand” as a comprehensive study by Rejali (2007, p. 44) shows. The face of torture has changed in the course of these developments: “Every effort is made to leave no marks.” (Amnesty International, 1973, p. 29).

#document dump #torture

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fuckyeahisawthat · 5 years

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The more you look at the details of how Heaven and Hell interact with Aziraphale and Crowley, the more clear it is that the two sides use the exact same tactics. I’ve seen the take that Heaven is psychologically abusive and Hell is physically abusive, but it’s clear that Heaven is perfectly fine with physical violence (from punching Aziraphale in the gut to, y’know, waging an apocalyptic war that will end all life on Earth). And Hell deals out plenty of psychological abuse too. (The demotivational posters are just a small example.)

It’s true that Hell leans a little more on physical pain and bodily harm as a reminder of its power. Signing the contract for the Antichrist burns; receiving instructions on what to do with him nearly discorporates Crowley via lorry impact; Satan’s angry arrival at the airbase causes Crowley intense pain. Interacting with Hell hurts.

Meanwhile I think Heaven relies more on fear. Gabriel popping up rightnextto Aziraphale like a horror-movie jumpscare in a way that’s clearly intended to intimidate. Sandalphon blocking the exit while we have a friendly little chat about Armageddon. Three against one outside the bookshop, cornering Aziraphale like they’re trying to steal his lunch money.

But when you boil it down, both sides are doing the same thing. Casual boundary violations designed to remind their respective agents: we own you. We can do anything to you. We can come for you at any time. We can show up in your home, in the places you feel safe, and you can’t stop us. We can find you anywhere: eating dinner; at the movies; buying ice cream in the park. We may not be watching you all the time, but we could be watching you at any time, so you’d better be doing what you’re supposed to.

I think a more useful distinction is that Hell is dirty with its violence and Heaven is clean. (Full disclosure, I am borrowing this framework from Darius Rejali, who uses it to talk about state violence and specifically about torture, which is maybe getting a little poli-sci on main, but it’s an analysis I have found very useful.) The fact that Heaven and Hell are visually pristine and grubby, respectively, only strengthens this distinction.

Hell’s violence is performative and public. It has a demonstrative component--watch out, this could be you. If you step out of line, or for no reason at all, just because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and we think violence is fun. Crowley’s execution was meant to be public, witnessed by as many demons as possible. It is literally set up like a play, staged in a picture window. Hell leaves scars and bruises and blood on the walls. Bloody, visible violence, both punitive and random, is part of its self-image.

Heaven’s violence happens behind closed doors, sealed away in a room no one knows about, guarded by someone with a smile on their face. It is really telling to me that Heaven intended Aziraphale to be sentenced and executed by a secret tribunal (Gabriel, Uriel and Sandalphon). They could have made him into a public example of what happens to a disobedient angel, but they didn’t. They simply disappeared him, and if the real Aziraphale had perished in the hellfire, the only beings who would have witnessed his last moments would have been three archangels who did not give one single shit about him as a person. Heaven is the sort of place that does horrible things that don’t leave any marks, so will anyone believe you that they happened at all?

The point is not that one side is worse than the other to those under their control, although what you personally find more chilling depends a lot on your own personal fears. The point, once again, is that the sides are more alike than they are different. It’s the same coercion, the same abuse, just slightly different flavors.

#good omens #heaven #hell #aziraphale #crowley #violence #state violence #of the metaphysical kind #i could write more about how clean violence is the violence of so-called democracies but you get the point

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biopolitique · 5 years

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On the training of torturers. Here is an example in America. From Torture and Democracy, by Darius Rejali (Princeton University Press 2007).

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drrejalinmd · 2 years

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chamerionwrites · 6 years

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@androxibot replied to your post:

I wonder how limited we are in our apprehension of torture as a phenomenon by the way(s) in which the legal system names and processes it. The French legal system does not recognize “torture”; what *is* recognized is “actes de torture et de barbarie” (“acts of torture and cruelty”, with no legal definition), because “torture” is conceptualized as something essentially political. “Torture” is a war crime, it’s prosecuted in front of a UN tribunal.

(In other words it doesn’t really exist as other forms of violence exist). It’s never treated as something that was done *to someone*. The victim(s)/survivor(s) of torture are completely erased in favour of an almost immediate historicization of what happened.

So when I, in French, say “torture”, I conjure up Résistance fighters, political prisoners of the Algerian war, etc. - people who are not treated as people but as symbols. Within that framework torture also becomes more symbolic than real.

That’s a really, REALLY good point.

Torture is a political crime - at the purely physical level there isn’t a whole lot of difference between a mugger beating someone and stealing his wallet, and a guard beating a political prisoner for (at least ostensibly) information. The latter is torture not because of some fundamental difference between the two acts of striking a human being with fists but because the violence is committed by the state, often with some sort of (flimsy) ideological justification. Darius Rejali points this out in Torture and Democracy:

When citizens detain and assault me, they use only the forces at their disposal. When a state official detains and assaults me for public purposes (to stop crime, to ensure good government), he does so using the authority and instruments with which the public entrusted him. It is not surprising, in this respect, that torture, as it is defined from Ulpian to the United Nations, includes this use or abuse of public trust, something that is absent when a private citizen assaults me. When it comes to the crimes of torture, war, mass rape, or genocide, these are activities for which states and their agents are and should be responsible.

Elaine Scarry’s thesis in The Body In Pain (which has some limitations - she’s a literary critic and not a researcher, and it’s a meditative sort of essay and not a study - but is very thought-provoking if you have a critical eye and access to research-based sources like Rejali’s) is that torture is essentially political theatre, the conversion of pain into power and power into a fiction of political legitimacy:

The physical pain is so incontestably real that it seems to confer its quality of “incontestable reality” on that power that has brought it into being. It is, of course, precisely because the reality of that power is so highly contestable, the regime so unstable, that torture is being used.

Which is also more or less what Naomi Klein says in The Shock Doctrine:

Despite the mystique that surrounds it, and the understandable impulse to treat it as aberrant behavior beyond politics, torture is not particularly complicated or mysterious. A tool of the crudest kind of coercion, it crops up with great predictability whenever a local despot or a foreign occupier lacks the consent needed to rule: Marcos in the Philippines, the shah in Iran, Saddam in Iraq, the French in Algeria, the Israelis in the occupied territories, the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. The list could stretch on and on. The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system—whether political, religious or economic—that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain ‘indicator species’ of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections.

Bluntly speaking, it’s the political equivalent of man who punches his opponent in the face because he cannot win a debate on the strength of his argument.

All of which is to say that I’m not sure you can define torture without reference to politics; almost by definition it involves the abuse of state power, and acts that would “merely” be abuse in another context BECOME torture when they’re committed by the state. But you make an incredibly good point about the way that individual humanity and individual pain get subsumed by symbolism, and the abstracting effect this has on the way people conceptualize torture.

Which, I would say, is one more reason writers have a profound responsibility to treat the subject with the care and respect it deserves - to make individual humanity and pain real and relatable for their audience.

Finally, as a side note, it’s illuminating to consider that the exception - the only time you typically hear acts described as “torture” outside a political context - is in reference to behavior that clearly has no motive apart from cruelty (eg really sadistic animal abuse, or a serial killer who torments his victims before he kills them). It’s...odd, to say the least, that torture in the private sphere is by definition motiveless - suffering as an end in and of itself - and torture in the public sphere is nearly always framed as the precise opposite: suffering as the means to an end. If you contemplate that disparity for any amount of time I think it gives the lie to the notion that torture is ultimately “for” anything (information, false confession, societal control, etc) aside from dehumanization and domination, regardless of what torturers or torture apologists may insist to the public or to themselves (and of course the research already agrees that torture does not produce good intelligence).

#cw torture #writing #media representation #legal things #ask box #my posts #in which chamerion has a lot of angry and wordy feelings about this subject

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cedar-woods · 3 years

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[Update] My bf said he doesn't love me because I can’t orgasm

Original Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/sexover30/comments/s33d16/my_bf_said_he_doesnt_love_me_because_i_cant_orgasm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Hi, first of all, I would like to thank everyone who gave me advice. I met my boyfriend over the weekend, and I decided to end the relationship. I brought the vibrator that he bought me during the first months of dating, in order to give the last shot with him, then he withheld to have sex with me at night and the next morning by saying that he has to work. So I realized that he just doesn’t want to try more, and I felt so rejected. To be honest, I feel anxious to masturbate these days even, so I don’t think orgasm would have happened anyways.

It really hurts but I think it was the right decision.. Before we had the final talk, he had never apologized but then he said he is sorry that he cannot get over it when I left his place. To be honest, I was disappointed to hear that, because it was not the problem that orgasm is important to him, but I was getting hurt how he dealt with the issue and how he behaved around me. He was talking about babies with me a month ago, so I am shocked and can’t accept that it’s over now.. I will start sex therapy but if someone who had similar experience and overcame sexual trauma like this, I would like to hear your story and tips.

Thank you very much once again.

submitted by /u/rejaly [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/sexover30/comments/s69mg6/update_my_bf_said_he_doesnt_love_me_because_i/

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rejalilawfirm1 · 2 years

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alphst · 2 years

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Cineplex Inc. (CGX) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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scripttorture · 5 years

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Do you have anything on interrelation/torture during the McCarthy era? Were Russian immigrants at risk?

My knowledge of American history can be more accurately summarised as ‘African American history’.

I can tell you about the tortures commonly used by American police officers at the time, but I have no idea how serious the risk to ethnic Russians was. What I can do is discuss who is at risk of torture generally and let you make up your mind about how that fits into your story.

Torture practices can change within decades and I don’t have anything specific to America in the 1950s. So what I’m doing here is making a guess based what was common in the 1920s and what was common in the 1970s (when there are fairly good studies on American jails and prisons). The majority of this is via Rejali.

The Wickersham Commission identified these as common tortures in American jails during the 20s and 30s:

Sleep deprivation- conducted by relay interrogation

Sleep deprivation- using constant strong light

Clean beating- usually with objects

Electrical torture

Exhaustion exercises

Standing stress positions

Dry choking- bags over heads or tightening neck ties

The Wickersham Commission found other tortures in use as well. I’ve tried to list the most common ones.

It’s important to note that electrical torture in this period wasn’t done using Tasers, stun guns or electrical prods. Tasers didn’t become common in American policing until relatively late, Rejali puts it as the 1980s.

There was a lot of electrical torture in America prior to this. But it wasn’t consistent. By the 1950s it would probably have been clean (ie non-scarring), though the equipment used and the way it was done would have varied between states and even between police stations.

US military torture in recent decades has mostly consisted of a combination of starvation, sleep deprivation, clean beatings, standing stress positions, electrical torture (with Tasers and stun guns) and waterboarding. Some of which seems to occur in jails, but not all.

My impression of what’s common now in US jails and prisons is a combination of starvation, sleep deprivation, unsuitable cell conditions, clean beatings, electrical torture (Tasers and stun guns again) and solitary confinement.

Sexual assault and rape by prison staff is- understudied and more common then people seem to think. Just Detention quotes a 2012 study that found about 10% of inmates were sexually assaulted in custody and half those assaults were carried out by staff. Their source is here, the figure of ‘10%’ is a combination of the prison population, the jail population and the juvenile detention population (as far as I can tell). Rates of victimisation are higher in women’s facilities and are higher against LGBTQ people generally.

I will leave Just Detention’s explanation of why this is legally torture here.

The closest thing I have to a report on American prisons and jails in the 1950s is- actually an American report on Soviet torture. It was put together to study the ‘mysterious brainwashing techniques’ the Soviets were using to force confessions. And more or less concluded that it was same tortures American police had been caught using in the 1920s. (This is also covered in Rejali).

Taking all of this together and applying a bit of educated guesswork this is what I think is likely in an American jail or prison in the 1950s:

Sleep deprivation- using relay interrogation

Starvation

Clean beatings

Solitary confinement

Standing stress positions

Dry choking

Sexual assault

I’ve not included electrical torture or exhaustion exercises. At some point between the 20s and more recent decades most American prisons and jails seem to have stopped using it, and I can’t tell when that was. Electrical torture was probably used during the 50s, but since I can’t give you any solid information on how it would have been carried out I’d suggest skipping it, unless you can find a survivor account from the time to base your scenes on.

I included dry choking on the assumption that it continued to be widespread for longer then exhaustion exercises. I couldn’t find definite dates but this is the impression I got from the sources I have. I included sexual assault even though it isn’t discussed in early reports on American torture. I’ve chosen to assume this was because of low reporting rates rather than assume assaults in American prisons/jails began in recent decades.

Which brings us to the question of who is at risk.

The short answer is- everyone. When torture is common place in an organisation everyone is at risk and there is no ‘safe’ demographic.

The slightly longer answer is that in stratified societies those that are judged to be closer to the bottom are more at risk. The poor. Racial and ethnic minorities. Dalits. Religious minorities. The disabled. Sexual and gender minorities.

When these minorities are portrayed as enemies of the state, especially when there’s a ‘state of emergency’- then the risk increases significantly.

I’ve got a more detailed discussion here. It’s part of Rejali’s Three Systems which describes the patterns and systems in democracies that can support torture. I’m referring to the Civic Discipline model and the National Security model.

From what I can tell both were very much in force during the 1950s in America.

I can’t predict how much that put any individual person at risk though. Torture is under reported, it’s difficult to measure, it’s difficult to prove.

As an example, there’s a significant death rate associated with Taser use by police. Most victims die from heart attacks. But Tasers don’t typically leave marks and they don’t typically record how many times they’ve been used. Which means it’s almost impossible to distinguish the body of someone who was shocked once and had a weak heart from that of someone who was shocked twenty times in succession.

There’s an assumption people tend to make: that there is a reason torturers target the people they do. That- someone arrested by the secret police must have been up to something however low down the scale and harmless.

And this isn’t true. The assumption is- a defence mechanism in a way. If we convince ourselves there was a reason behind the brutality then we can make choices that allow us to avoid being victimised.

If you’ve read about victim blaming in other contexts you’ll be familiar with the idea. We seem to find it- easier to deal with awful things happening if we convince ourselves they’re not random. This gives us a semblance of control.

But it is random. Torturers don’t specifically target the guilty. They target anyone they can reach.

So- if you want your character to be targetted and tortured, being the ‘wrong’ ethnicity is enough. Being in the wrong place is enough.

Torturers don’t distinguish and they are a risk to everybody in the community.

I hope that helps. :)

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#Anonymous #tw torture #tw rape #tw police brutality #prisons #McCarthy era #clean torture #Rejali #Rejali's three systems #American National Style #writing victims

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