11 September 1976 The international Catholic weekly 25p
TABLET The Marxist mayor of Rome: Giancarlo Zizola An Anglican sage: Ronald Jenkinson “ Dear Thomas” again: Bede Griffiths Reviews: Animal liberation: David Roderick Jung and the churches: Kathleen Raine
Learning from the torture report In this so-called civilisation of ours there is a new common denominator for a number of countries with which, incidentally, we maintain normal relations; they are called torture states. They extend from the Communist regimes of eastern Europe to Africa and Latin America. The label properly applies to those totalitarian states of left and right which accept it as normal to subject to torture those of their inhabitants who are suspected of disaffection, conspiracy or violence against the existing regime. The publication last week of the report of the European Commission of Human Rights on the use of torture in Northern Ireland would seem to some to put Britain into this bestial category. The attempt appears to us to be quite unwarranted and it seems important for the peace of these islands to get the matter into proportion. There is a danger that just when London and Dublin seem to be coming together in their determination to stamp out i r a terrorism, when communication and mutual trust is all important, this grievance, grave as it is, should so be resuscitated as to put a distance between the two countries.
all times, to raise a voice against any suspected torture. Had the Christian conscience of western man been better instructed, guided and inspired it would have done so on countless occasions in the last few decades against all excesses, for instance of Russian Communism and Nazism. The bitter truth is that we have been fed with platitudes from on high and have connived at evil through apathy or deliberate ignorance of it at every other level.
True, the timing of the publication of the report and the new anti-terrorist legislation is coincidental. The report would have been available some time back if Westminster had been more cooperative with the Commission, but the coincidence has certainly been a bonus for the Irish government. Its new legislation must be highly unpopular with the substantial and silent minority in Ireland which, despite all atrocities, still has some sympathy for the i r a cause. Many of these people will be reconciled to the new stern laws when they see the Irish government at the same time lambasting Britain, quite oblivious of the fact that Britain was criticising herself many years before the Commission took cognisance of Ireland’s complaints.
If it was right at the time, five years ago, it is right at
It has pleased the Irish—and greatly displeased the British—to bring a number of specific charges about the interrogation methods in Ulster used by the security forces in 1971. The 600 page report, after most meticulous investigation, exonerates Britain of breaking all but one of the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights: “That no one shall be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The Commission held, with justification, that interrogating techniques in August 1971 offended against this article. The offences were committed after a sweep which pulled in some 350 suspects for interrogation, as a prelude to possible internment. Some men'who had suffered the treatment later proved to be innocent; others under duress produced information which according to the Privy Council report “directly and indirectly was responsible for saving the lives of innocent citizens.” Though be it noted immediately that Mr Heath and his government did not accept this as any sort of exoneration.
This brings us to the point of saying that there is nothing really new in the findings of the Commission. Its findings confirm those of the man whom Britain sent in to investigate complaints, when they were first made in 1971. Sir Edmund Compton’s report would have been as full as that of the Commission and all that much earlier if the same testimony had been available to him, but many com-
