How to stop torture Karen Tse

in 1994 I walked into a prison in

Cambodia and I met a 12 year old boy who

had been tortured and was to died access

to counsel and as I looked into his eyes

I realized that for the hundreds of

letters I had written for political

prisoners that I would never have

written a letter for him because he was

not a 12 year old boy who had done

something important for anybody he was

not a political prisoner he was a 12

year old boy who had stolen a bicycle

what I also realized at that point was

that it was not only Cambodia but of the

113 developing countries that torture 93

of these countries have all passed laws

that say you have a right to a lawyer

and you’re right not to be tortured and

what I recognized was that there was an

incredible window of opportunity for us

as a world community to come together

and end torture as an investigative tool

we often think of torture as being

political torture or reserved for just

the worst but in fact ninety-five

percent of torture today is not for

political prisoners it is for people who

are in broken-down legal systems and

unfortunately because torture is the

cheapest form of investigation is

cheaper than having a legal system

cheaper than having a lawyer in early

access to counsel it is what happens

most of the time I believe today that it

is possible for us as a world community

if we make a decision to come together

and end torture as an investigative tool

in our lifetime but it will require

three things first is a training

empowerment in connection of defenders

worldwide the second is ensuring that

there is systematic early access to

counsel and the third is commitment so

in the year 2000

I began to wonder what if we came

together could we do something for these

93 countries and i founded international

versions of justice which has a specific

mission of ending tortures and

investigative tool and implementing due

process rights in the 93 countries by

placing trained lawyers at an early

stage in police stations and in

courtrooms my first experiences though

did come from Cambodia and at the time I

remember first coming to Cambodia and

there were in 1994 still less than 10

attorneys in the country because the

Khmer Rouge had killed them all and even

20 years later there was only ten

lawyers in the country so consequently

you’d walk into a prison and not only

would you be 12 year old boys you’d beat

women and you’d say why are you here

what would say well I was I’ve been here

for 10 years because my husband

committed a crime but they can’t find

him so it was just a place where there

was no rule of law the first group of

defenders came together and I still

remember as I was training I said okay

what do you do for an investigation and

there was silence in the class and

finally one woman stood at piano key and

she said necro which means teacher she

said I have defended more than a hundred

people and I have never had to do any

investigation because they all come with

confessions and we talked about as a

class the fact that number one the

confessions might not be reliable but

number two we did not want to encourage

the police to keep doing this especially

as it was now against the law and it

took a lot of courage for these

defenders to decide that they would

begin to stand up and support each other

in implementing these laws and I still

remember the first cases where they came

all 25 together she would stand up and

they were in the back and they would

support her and the judges kept saying

no no no no we’re gonna do things the

exact same way we’ve been doing them but

one day the perfect case came and it was

a woman who was a vegetable seller she

was sitting outside of a house she says

she actually saw the person run out who

she thinks stole whatever the jewelry

was but the police came they got her

there was

nothing on her she was pregnant at the

time she had cigarette burns on her she

miscarried and when they brought her

case to the judge for the first time he

stood up he said yes there’s no evidence

except for your tortured confession and

you will be released and the defenders

began to take cases over and over again

and you will see they have step-by-step

began to change the course of history in

Cambodia but Cambodia is not alone I

used to think well is it Cambodia or is

it other countries but it is in so many

countries in Burundi I walked into a

prison and it wasn’t a wasn’t a 12 year

old boy was an eight-year-old boy for

stealing a mobile phone or a woman I

picked up her baby really cute big and

ask your baby so cute wasn’t a baby she

was three and she said yeah but she’s

why I’m here because she was accused of

stealing two diapers and an iron for her

baby and still had been in prison and

when I walked up to the prison director

I said you gotta let her out a judge

would let her out and he said okay we

can talk about it but look at my prison

eighty percent of the two thousand

people here are without a lawyer what

can we do so lawyers began to

courageously stand up together to

organize a system where they can take

cases but we realized that it’s not only

the training of the lawyers but the

connection of the lawyers that makes a

difference for example in Cambodia it

was that Kim will keep did not go alone

but she had 24 lawyers with her who

stood up together and in the same way

China they always tell me it’s like a

fresh wind in the desert when we can

come together or in Zimbabwe where I

remember innocent after coming out of a

prison where everybody stood up and said

I’ve been here for one year eight year

12 years without a lawyer he came and we

had a training together and he said I

have heard it said because he had heard

people mumbling and grumbling I have

heard it said that we cannot help to

create justice because we do not have

the resources and then he said but

I want you to know that the lack of

resources is never an excuse for

injustice and with that he successfully

organized 68 lawyers who’ve been

systematically taking the cases the key

that we see though is training and then

early access I was recently in Egypt and

was inspired to meet with another group

of lawyers and what they told me is they

said hey look we don’t have police on

the streets now but please are one of

the main reasons why we had the

revolution they were torturing everybody

all the time I said that there’s been

tens of millions of dollars that has got

that of God that has recently got in to

the development of the legal system here

what’s going on I met with one of the

development agencies and they were

training prosecutors and judges which is

the normal bias as opposed to defenders

and they showed me a manga which

actually was an excellent man you I said

I’m going to copy this it had everything

in it lawyers can come at the police

station it was perfect prosecutors were

perfectly changed but I said to them I

just have one question which is by the

time that everybody got to the

prosecutor’s office what had happened to

them and after a pause they said they

had been tortured so the pieces are not

only the training of lawyers but us

finding a way to systematically

implement early access to counsel

because they are the safeguard in the

system for people who are being tortured

and as I tell you this I’m also aware of

the fact that it sounds like it sounds

like we could do it but can we really do

it cuz it sounds big and there are many

reasons why I believe it’s possible the

first reason is the people on the ground

who find ways of creating miracles

because of their commitment it’s not

only innocent who I told you about in

Zimbabwe but defender’s all over the

world who are looking for these pieces

we have a program called justice bakers

and we realize there are people that are

courageous and want to do things but how

can we support them so it’s an online

contest where it’s only five thousand

dollars if you come up with an

innovative way of implementing justice

and there are 30 justice makers

out the world from Sri Lanka to

Swaziland to the DRC who with $5,000 do

amazing things through SMS programs

through parallel