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