'Torture routine in Mauritania'
2008-12-03 08:11
Dakar - Mauritanian security forces
routinely torture detainees, using electric shocks, burns and
sexual violence, and this has increased since a military coup in
August, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
The human rights watchdog issued a report entitled "Torture
At The Heart Of The State" which accused Mauritanian authorities
of employing torture as their only method of investigation.
There was no immediate comment from the government.
The Saharan Islamic state has been a Western ally in the
fight against al Qaeda.
It also won praise for holding
democratic elections in 2007 until a coup in August this year by
military chiefs deposed its elected president and brought
international condemnation and the threat of sanctions.
"Torture is used to extract confessions while detainees are
being held in custody but also to humiliate and punish
prisoners," the report, which cited detailed testimony mostly
from the period before the coup, said.
"The security apparatus has adopted torture as a system of
investigation and repression. It is deeply anchored in the
culture of the security forces, which act with complete
impunity," it said.
General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz
Such widespread use of torture was the result of several
decades of authoritarian rule, Amnesty said.
Mauritania's first democratically elected leader, President
Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, served only 18 months in
office before he was ousted in the August 6 coup led by former
presidential guard head General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.
Since Aziz took control, torture had become even more
common, Amnesty said.
"The recent coup in August 2008 and the strengthening of the
fight against 'terrorism' ... has led to the increased use of
torture against those suspected of such acts," it said.
The US, France and the World Bank suspended some
non-humanitarian aid to Mauritania after the coup, but
Washington has signalled it would be willing to help against a
specific terrorism threat, should this situation occur.
Amnesty said members of the security forces used torture in
the knowledge they would be backed by judicial authorities.
"Judges almost invariably regard as admissible evidence
statements extracted under torture and use these 'confessions'
to convict defendants, often in the absence of any other
material proof," it said.
Beatings, burns
In one case, an alleged Islamist arrested in January this
year said his torturers sang menacing songs while another group
beat him.
Methods used included cigarette burns, electric shocks and
sexual violence, the report said.
"They (Mauritanian security forces) tied my hands and feet
behind my back, blindfolded me and gave me electric shocks,"
Amnesty cited a detainee as saying. "I had a nosebleed and then
I lost consciousness."
Some detainees who spoke to Amnesty said Moroccan security
forces also participated in torture sessions.
"Some Moroccans came to interrogate me," one man who was
sentenced in 2006 to three years in prison for attacking an army
garrison told the rights group.
"The Moroccans began to torture
me just as the Mauritanian police had," he said.
Moroccan officials could not immediately be reached for
comment.
Amnesty called for an independent investigation, for
suspected torturers to be suspended and prosecuted if possible,
and for judges to declare confessions or other "evidence"
obtained through torture as inadmissable.
"Every individual detained for political reasons or under
ordinary law runs the risk of being tortured," it said.