Manfred Nowak: Slams Torture

For example in the Nigerian city of Lagos, where the United Nations special rapporteur on torture and his team carried out a surprise inspection of a police station that had given itself the rather lofty title of a detention center. "I've never seen anything like it," Nowak says. "Between 100 and 120 severely tortured people crowded closely together. Three women among them, and children too -- the oldest aged 14. Men with untreated gunshot wounds and limbs that were literally rotting -- a common torture method in Nigeria." No one was expecting him when he showed up at the police headquarters in Amman on the last day of his visit to Jordan. He ordered a secret cell to be opened. Behind the door lay a prisoner "in a terrible condition." He had been suspended above the ground by his wrists, which had been tied behind his back -- a classic torture method dating back to the Middle Ages. "He could no longer stand, walk or anything," Nowak says. "In these types of cases, emotional distance is impossible. You're fully involved." You just have to try to forget such experiences as far as that is possible, he continues, making sure none of it affects to you too much -- even if that is "sometimes just not possible." And you have to try to constantly motivate yourself with the "small successes," he adds. But the Viennese professor for constitutional law and human rights will not have too many positive experiences to recount when he presents his final report to the UN General Assembly in New York this week. His mandate expires in about five months, and the time has come to take stock. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,514104,00.html

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