Torturing terrorist by the goverment Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Torturing terrorist by the goverment - Article Example Suspects of terrorism are expected to provide the government with intelligence information on the whereabouts of their gangs, sympathizers and financiers. However, to extract this information from them always become the problem. This is because most of these suspects are under oath to protect the activities of their groups. For example, most of them opt to commit suicide rather than having to be interrogated by the authorities. Concealing this information, therefore, renders a big blow to governments counter-terrorism activities. Proposals have for this reason been forwarded encouraging governments to use more force on the suspects and this involves the application of torture to the suspects. This, however, has human rights implications besides the expected outcomes. This means that in the face of the society, the human rights organizations and the international community, torturing terrorism suspects have pros and cons. Applying torture to terrorism suspects have advantages. First, torture to terrorism suspects has not been covered in the Geneva Convention report on the treatment of prisoners of war. Further, the convention only prohibits torture in the culprits own soil. When happening in another country, torture is thus legally acceptable. Secondly, treating terrorism with diplomacy only makes the situation worse. When the dignity of the suspects is respected as proposed by humanitarian organizations the terrorists are even more encouraged to make attacks. In addition, new members have no reproach joining the terror groups. This is as opposed to a torture situation in which case even those who have the intentions of joining such groups become discouraged. This slowly weakens the group and makes it unable to conduct attacks in future. Thirdly, the fight against terrorism often requires the people to make a choice between two evils. To use torture to compel disclosure of intelligent information,