Is it the time to abolish this terrible act?
As I have already mentioned in my article about cloning, the most hilarious weeks of this course were during the contemporary ethical issues. The interesting issues we discussed during week eleven were many but torture and terror appealed to me most. Therefore, in this article I would like to highlight problems faced by many prisoners in the world mainly Muslims and after that I will state why it is a high time for the world leaders to come together and abolish this terrible act.
According to Dictionary.com, torture is the practice or act of deliberately inflicting severe physical pain and possibly injury on a person, though psychological. It has been carried out or sanctioned by individuals, groups and states throughout history from ancient times to modern day, and forms of torture can vary greatly in duration from only a few minutes to several days or even longer. People practise this terrible act for various reasons which include punishment, revenge, political re-education, interrogation or as most commonly used preventing terrorists. Patrons of torture claim that the intention of torture is not to kill or seriously harm the person, but it aims to find the required information to keep peace or protect the future so-called terrorist attacks. Torture takes place in numerous places, but in this article I will only focus on torturing Muslims in the name of terrorism.
No one knows for sure that the person being tortured is the right person (guilty), and unfortunately, many victims of this horrendous act are innocent folks. Torture has gained fame after 9/11 attacks and nowadays it is widely practiced by US soldiers to interrogate Muslim prisoners. There are many US Politicians who did not agree the idea of torturing Muslim prisoners and they believe it will make the situation worse, for instance when an innocent person is being tortured, he becomes hostile and will seek revenge later. In my opinion, I believe there is no right to practise torture and it is a vivid violation of the UN declaration of human rights. If terrorists launched a deadly attack on US, this does not mean all Muslims are terrorists. I watched one great lecture by Shiekh Khalid Yasin during the last lecture of the ethics, and he stated a very crucial statement which I think it applies in this context. He said every religion has got a black sheet, therefore few Muslims who did something wrong cannot present the entire Muslim community. In contrast, US atomic bombs in Japan claimed more lives than 9/11, and in addition to this, all the world wars were caused by non-Muslims but no one blamed those who were responsible. Therefore, I believe that torture is used by certain people with their own interests and torturing many Muslims in the western world especially in US is unfair. Most of those who are tortured are innocent people and America uses the word terror as reason to punish Muslim detainees.
Nevertheless, torture will not bring any benefit to US; rather it will increase tensions between them and the Muslim world. Many US Politicians including John McCain, the republican presidential candidate in 2008, purposed eliminating torture, but surprisingly less than 10% of the parliament voted in favour of his statement. This shows that it is not simple for US to stop this act. Therefore, it is my contention that US wants to make Muslims hostile in order to create a common enemy for the US. This will prevent divisions among its states and hold together the 53 states of the country. By considering the above argument, it might also be true that US was even responsible the 9/11 attacks to get a reason to punish the Muslims and this in return will help them to keep the unity of their country.
Lastly but not certainly the least, practicing torture in the name of terrorism or any other category cannot be tolerated. Not only US, but no country has the authority to violate Human Rights, therefore UN should implement human rights equally or otherwise it should stop claiming that they aim for a better world. The US soldiers who torture and punish the innocent Iraqi people inhumanely, should not go without testing the bitterness of torture. US president Obama, said “justice has been done for the victims of 9/11 attacks” when Osama bin Laden was killed. Nevertheless, it is my stand that we are not even close to fulfilling justice and the world needs to go further. Lastly, it is the right time for the world leaders to unite and ban this inhumane treatment.
Commentaires