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Execution By Pressing

Execution by pressing

:This article is about the method of execution. See crusher for a description of the manufacturing process and mechanisms for it. Death by crushing or pressing, as a method of execution, has a long and bloody history, and the techniques to achieve this end varied greatly from place to place. This form of execution is, however, no longer sanctioned by any governing body. The most common method of death by crushing was through the use of elephants. This practice was ubiquitous throughout South and South-East Asia for over 4,000 years of recorded history, and perhaps before that. The Romans and Carthaginians also used this method on occasion. See crushing by elephant.

Pein forte et dure

Peine forte et dure (Law French for "strong and hard punishment") was a method of torture formerly used in the common law legal system, where a defendant who refused to plead ("stood mute") would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or as the weight of the stones on the chest became too great for the victim to breathe, suffocation would occur. The common law courts originally took a very limited view of their own jurisdiction. They considered themselves to lack jurisdiction over a defendant until he had voluntarily submitted to it by entering a plea seeking judgment from the court. Obviously, a criminal justice system that only punished those who volunteered for punishment was unworkable; this was the means chosen to coerce them. Many defendants charged with capital offences nonetheless refused to plead, since thereby they would escape forfeiture of property, and their heirs would still inherit their estate; but if the defendant pled guilty and was executed, their heirs would inherit nothing, their property escheating to the Crown. Pleading innocent was also not an option, since the torture would merely be redoubled until they pled guilty. Peine forte et dure was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1772, although the last known actual use of the practice was in 1741. [http://www.fsu.edu/~crimdo/forfeiture.html] Today, in all common law jurisdictions, standing mute is treated by the courts as equivalent to a plea of Not Guilty. United Kingdom The most famous victim in the United Kingdom was the Catholic martyr Saint Margaret Clitherow, who was pressed to death on March 25, 1586, after refusing to plead to the charge of having harboured priests in her house (in order to avoid a trial in which her own children would be obliged to give evidence). The most famous victim of peine forte et dure in American history was Giles Corey, who was pressed to death on September 19, 1692, during the Salem witch trials, after he refused to enter a plea in the judicial proceeding. According to legend, his last words as he was being crushed were "More weight," and he died as the weight was applied.

References

- Summerson, Henry (1983). "The Early Development of Peine Forte et Dure." Law, Litigants, and the Legal Profession: Papers Presented to the Fourth British Legal History Conference at the University of Birmingham 10-13 July 1979 ed E. W. Ives & A. H. Manchester, 116-125. Royal Historical Society Studies in History Series 36. London: Humanities Press. Category:Death penalty Category:Common law Category:Torture

Crusher

: For "Crushers" used as a synonym for devices that reduce the size of material, see compactor. A crusher is a machine designed to reduce large solid chunks of raw material into smaller chunks.

Description

Crushers are commonly classified by the degree to which they fragment the starting material, with coarse crushers not reducing it by much, intermediate crushers fragmenting it much more significantly, and grinders reducing it to a fine powder.

Types of crushers

The two best known types of coarse crusher are the jaw crusher and gyratory crusher.

Jaw crusher

A jaw crusher consists of a set of vertical jaws, one jaw being fixed and the other being moved back and forth relative to it by a cam and pitman mechanism. The jaws are farther apart at the top than at the bottom, forming a tapered chute so that the material is crushed progressively smaller and smaller as it travels downward until it is small enough to escape from the bottom opening. The movement of the jaw can be quite small, since complete crushing is not performed in one stroke.

Gyratory crusher

A gyratory crusher (or cone crusher) is similar in basic concept to a jaw crusher, consisting of inner and outer vertical crushing cones; the outer cone is oriented with its wide end upward, and the inner cone is inverted relative to the outer with its apex upward. The inner cone has a slight circular movement, but does not rotate; the movement is generated by a cam arrangement. As with the jaw crusher, material travels downward between the two cones being progressively crushed until it is small enough to fall out through the gap between the two cones at the bottom.

Impact crusher

Hammer mills involve the use of impact rather than pressure to crush material. They utilize heavy metal bars attached to the edges of horizontal rotating disks by hinges, which repeatedly strike the material to be crushed. The material is contained within a cage, with openings on the bottom of the desired size to allow pulverized material to escape. This type of crusher is usually used with soft material such as coal.

Roller crushers

One type of intermediate crusher consists of a pair of horizontal cylindrical rollers through which material is passed. The two rollers rotate in opposite directions, "nipping" and crushing material between them. A similar type of intermediate crusher is the edge runner, which consists of a circular pan with two or more heavy wheels known as mullers rotating within it; material to be crushed is shoved underneath the wheels using attached plow blades. Category:Tools Category:Mining

Asia

Asia is the central and eastern part of Eurasia, and the world's largest continent. Defined by subtracting Europe from Eurasia, Asia is either regarded as a landmass of its own, or as part of Eurasia. The demarcation between Asia and Africa is the isthmus of Suez (although the Sinai Peninsula, being a part of Egypt east of the canal, is often geopolitically considered a part of Africa). The boundary between Asia and Europe runs via the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, to the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, the Ural River to its source, and the Ural Mountains to the Kara Sea at Kara, Russia. About 60 percent of the world's human population lives in Asia. Asia as a political division consists of the eastern part of Eurasia and nearby islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, often excluding Russia. Pacific Ocean

Etymology

The word Asia entered English, via Latin, from Ancient Greek Ασία (Asia; see also List of traditional Greek place names). This name is first attested in Herodotus (c. 440 BC), where it refers to Asia Minor; or, for the purposes of describing the Persian Wars, to the Persian Empire, as opposed to Greece and Egypt. Even before Herodotus, Homer knew of a Trojan ally named Asios, son of Hyrtacus, a ruler over several towns, and elsewhere he describes a marsh as ασιος (Iliad 2, 461). The Greek term may be derived from from Assuwa, a 14th century BC confederation of states in Western Anatolia. Hittite assu- "good" is probably an element in that name. Alternatively, the ultimate etymology of the term may be from the Akkadian word (w)aṣû(m), cognate of Hebrew יצא, which means "to go out", referring to the direction of the sun at sunset in the Middle East. This may be compared to a similar etymology proposed for Europe, as being from Semitic erēbu "to enter" or "set" (of the sun). These etymologies presuppose an originally Mesopotamian or Middle Eastern perspective, which would explain how the term "Asia" first came to be associated with Anatolia as lying west of the Semitic speaking area.

Geographical Regions

See also Geography of Asia. As already mentioned, Asia is a subregion of Eurasia. For further subdivisions based on that term, see North Eurasia and Central Eurasia. Some Asian countries stretch beyond Asia. See Bicontinental country for details about the borderline cases between Asia and Europe, Asia and Africa and Asia and Oceania. Asia itself is often divided in the following subregions:
- North Asia
- Central Asia
- East Asia (or Far East)
- Southeast Asia
- South Asia (or Indian Subcontinent)
- Southwest Asia (or West Asia)

North Asia

This term is rarely used by geographers, but usually it refers to the bigger Asian part of Russia, also known as Siberia. Sometimes the northern parts of other Asian nations, such as Kazakhstan are also included in Northern Asia.

Central Asia

There is no absolute consensus in the usage of this term. Usually, Central Asia includes:
- the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan (excluding its small European territory), Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.
- Afghanistan, Mongolia, and the western regions of China are also sometimes included.
- Former Soviet states in the Caucasus region. Central Asia is currently geopolitically important because international disputes and conflicts over oil pipelines, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Chechnya, as well as the presence of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan.

East Asia (or Far East)

This area includes:
- The Pacific Ocean islands of Taiwan and Japan.
- North and South Korea on the Korean Peninsula.
- China, but sometimes only the eastern regions Sometimes the nations of Mongolia and Vietnam are also included in East Asia. More informally, Southeast Asia is included in East Asia on some occasions.

Southeast Asia

This region contains the Malay Peninsula, Indochina and islands in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The countries it contains are:
- In mainland Southeast Asia, the countries Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
- In Maritime Southeast Asia, the countries of Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia (some of the Indonesian islands also lie in the Melanesia region of Oceania). East Timor (also Melanesian) is sometimes included too. The country of Malaysia is divided in two by the South China Sea, and thus has both a mainland and island part.

South Asia (or Indian Subcontinent)

South Asia is also referred to as the Indian Subcontinent. It includes:
- the Himalayan States of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
- the Indian Ocean nations of Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Southwest Asia (or West Asia)

This can also be called by the Western term Middle East, which is commonly used by Europeans and Americans. Middle East (to some interpretations) is often used to also refer to some countries in North Africa. Southwest Asia can be further divided into:
- Anatolia (i.e. Asia Minor), constituting the Asian part of Turkey.
- The island nation of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.
- The Levant or Near East, which includes Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and the Asian portion of Egypt.
- The Arabian peninsula, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen and occasionally Kuwait.
- The Caucasus region, including Armenia, a tiny portion of Russia and almost the whole of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
- The Iranian Plateau, containing Iran and parts of other nations. Also see Gulf States, for a different grouping involving several of the above countries.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Asia In terms of gross domestic product (PPP), Asia's largest economy wholly within Asia is that of the PRC (People's Republic of China), however the economy of the E.U. (European Union), one state of which (Cyprus) lies within Asia, is the largest in the world. The E.U.'s status as a supranational union, rather than a sovereign state, makes the claim questionable, especially since, when considered alone, the economy of Cyprus is one of the smallest in both the E.U. and Asia, and not many times larger than that of East Timor, the Asian state with the smallest economy (although as of 2005 there is no reliable data for either Iraq or North Korea). Over the last decade, China's and India's economies have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate over 6%. PRC is the world's third largest economy after the E.U. and U.S.A., followed by Japan and India as the world's fourth and fifth largest economies respectively (then followed by the European nations: Germany, U.K., France and Italy). In terms of exchange rates however, Japan has the largest economy in Asia and the third largest in the world. Trade blocs:
- Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
- Association of Southeast Asian Nations
- Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement
- Commonwealth of Independent States
- South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
- South Asia Free Trade Agreement (proposed)

Natural resources

Asia is by a considerable margin the largest continent in the world, and is rich in natural resources, such as Petroleum and iron. High productivity in agriculture, especially of rice, allows high population density of countries in the warm and humid area. Other main agricultural products include wheat and chicken. Forestry is extensive throughout Asia except Southwest and Central Asia. Fishing is a major source of food in Asia, particularly in Japan.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in PRC, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. The industry varies from manufacturing cheap goods such as toys to high-tech goods such as computers and cars. Many companies from Europe, North America, and Japan have significant operations in the developing Asia to take avantage of its abundant supply of cheap labor. One of the major employers in manufacturing in Asia is the textile industry. Much of the world's supply of clothing and footwear now originates in Southeast Asia.

Financial and other services

Asia has three main financial centers. They are in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. Call centers are becoming major employers in India, due to the availablity of many well-educated English speakers. The rise of the business process outsourcing industry has seen the rise of India and China as the other financial centers.

Early history

Main article: History of Asia The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions, East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe. The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, with each of the three regions developing early civilizations around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze shared many similarities and likely exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other notions such as that of writing likely developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands. The steppe region had long been inhabited by mounted nomads, and from the central steppes they could reach all areas of Asia. The earliest known such central expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into the Middle East, India, and in the Tocharians to the borders of China. The northern part of Asia, covering much of Siberia, was inaccessible to the steppe nomads, due to the dense forests and the tundra. These areas were very sparsely populated. The centre and periphery were kept separate by mountains and deserts. The Caucasus, Himalaya, Karakum Desert and Gobi Desert formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could only cross with difficulty. While technologically and culturally, the urban city dwellers were more advanced, they could do little militarily to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large horsebound force. Thus the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East were soon forced to adapt to the local societies.

Population density

The following table lists countries and dependencies by population density in inhabitants and km². Unlike the figures in the country articles, the figures in this table are based on areas including inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers) and may therefore be lower here. The whole of Egypt, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey are referred to in the table, although they are only partly in Asia.

Religion

A large majority of the people in the world who practice a religious faith practice one which was founded in Asia. Religions founded in Asia and with a majority of their contemporary adherents in Asia include:
- Bahá'í Faith (slightly more than half of all adherents are in Asia)
- Buddhism (Japan,Sri Lanka, Korea, Singapore, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, India)
- Hinduism (India, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, Bali)
- Islam (Central, South, and Southwest Asia, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia)
- Jainism (India)
- Shinto (Japan)
- Sikhism(India, Malaysia, Hong kong)
- Taoism (China, Vietnam, Singapore, and Taiwan)
- Zoroastrianism (Iran, India, Pakistan) Religions founded in Asia that have the majority of their contemporary adherents in other regions include:
- Christianity (South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, India and the Philippines)
- Judaism (slightly fewer than half of its adherents reside in Asia)

References

External links

- http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/asia.html
- http://www.freeworldmaps.net/asia/index.html
- [http://www.alloexpat.com AlloExpat - Asia Information & Forums]
- [http://www.asiaexpat.info Asia Expat Forum - Discuss this region with expatriates] Category:Continents zh-min-nan:A-chiu ko:아시아 ms:Asia ja:アジア simple:Asia th:ทวีปเอเชีย

Carthage

:This article is about the ancient city-state of Carthage in North Africa. For other uses of the word, see Carthage (disambiguation). Carthage (disambiguation)). The map also shows Italy and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica.]] Carthage (from the Phoenician Qart-Hadasht "New City" (written without vowels as QRT HDŠT קרת חדשת), was an ancient city in North Africa located on the eastern side of Lake Tunis, across from the center of modern Tunis in Tunisia. It remains a popular tourist attraction.

Founding of Carthage

In approximately 814 BC, Carthage was founded by Phoenician settlers from the city of Tyre, bringing with them the city-god Melqart. Traditionally, the city was founded by Dido, and a number of foundation myths have survived through Greek and Roman literature. (See Byrsa for one example.) Carthage's early years were defined by a long rivalry between the landholding and maritime families. In general, due to the city's dependence on maritime trade, the maritime faction controlled the government, and during the 6th century BC, Carthage began to acquire dominance over the Western Mediterranean. Merchants and explorers established a vast network of trade, bringing wealth and power to the city-state. In the early 6th century BC, Hanno the Navigator is supposed to have sailed down the African coast as far as Nigeria. Meanwhile, under a leader named Malchus, the city began a systematic conquest of both the African interior and the coastal lands. In 509 BC a treaty was signed between Carthage and Rome indicating a division of influence and commercial activities. It is the first known source that indicated Carthage had gained control over Sicily and Sardinia. By the beginning of the 5th century BC, Carthage was the commercial center of the region, a position it would retain until overthrown by the Roman Republic. The city had conquered the territory of the old Phoenician colonies, such as Hadrumetum, Utica and Kerkouane, and the Libyan tribes, spreading its control along the North African coast from modern Morocco to the borders of Egypt. Its influence had also spread into the Mediterranean, with control over Sardinia, Malta, the Balearic Islands and the western half of Sicily. Colonies had also been established in Iberia. Iberia

Life in Carthage

Carthaginian Commerce

The early trading empire of Carthage depended heavily on its trade with Tartessos and other cities of the Iberian peninsula, from which it obtained vast quantities of silver and, even more importantly, tin ore, which was essential to the manufacture of bronze objects by the civilizations of antiquity. Carthage followed trade routes already established by her parent city, Tyre. When Tartessos fell, the Carthaginian ships went directly to the primary sources of tin in the northwestern section of the Iberian peninsula and further north, in Cornwall in the British Isles. Other Carthaginian ships went down the Atlantic coast of Africa and brought back gold from Senegal. One account has a Carthaginian trading vessel exploring Nigeria, including identification of distinguishing geographic features, such as a coastal volcano and an encounter with gorillas. (See Hanno the Navigator.) Non-permanent trade relations were established as far west as Madeira and the Canary Islands, and as far south as southern Africa. If the epic poetry of Greece and the contemporary historians of imperial Rome record the military opposition of Carthage to the forces of the Greek city states, and later to Rome, then it is very much to the Greek theatre and Greek comedies that we are indebted for depictions of the generic Carthaginian merchant, hawking cloth, pots and jewellery. He was usually portrayed as an amusing scoundrel, a relatively peaceful and colourful trader intent on making a profit and cheating noble but innocent Greeks of every spare penny they might have. Diggings show evidence of all kinds of exchanges, from the vast quantities of tin needed for a bronze-based metals civilization to all manner of textiles, ceramics and fine metalwork. Before and in between the wars Carthaginian merchants were in every port in the Mediterranean, buying and selling, establishing warehouses where they could, or just bargaining in open-air markets after getting off their ship. The Etruscan language has not yet been deciphered, but archaeological excavations of Etruscan cities show that the Etruscan civilization was for several centuries a customer and a vendor to Carthage, long before the rise of Rome. The Etruscan city-states were, at times, both commercial partners of Carthage and military allies.

Carthaginian Government

Carthage's government was an oligarchy, not unlike that of republican Rome, but few details are known. Roman writers referred to its heads of state as reges "kings"; Punic inscriptions and Greco-Roman accounts show the indigenous term was Sōfetīm "Judges" (the same name early rulers are given in the Bible), which might originally have been the title of the city's governor installed by the mother city of Tyre. Later, one sōfet or two sōfetêm, who were believed to have exercised judicial and executive (but not military) functions, were elected annually from among the most wealthy and influential families. These aristocratic families were represented in a supreme council comparable to the Roman senate that had a wide range of powers. However, it is not known whether the sōfetīm were elected by this council or by an assembly of the people. Although the city's administration was firmly controlled by oligarchs, democratic elements were to be found as well: Carthage had elected legislators, trade unions and town meetings. There was a system of checks and balances, as well as public accountability: the Head of the Admiralty would have to pay with his life for military defeat. Eratosthenes, head of the Greek library of Alexandria, noted that the Greeks had been wrong to describe all non-Greeks as barbarians, since the Carthaginians as well as the Romans had a constitution. Aristotle also knew and wrote about the Carthaginian constitution in his Politics (Book II, Chapter 11).

Carthaginian Religious Practices

Carthage under the Phoenicians was notorious to its neighbors for child sacrifice. Plutarch (ca. 46-120 CE) mentions the practice, as do Tertullian, Orosius and Diodorus Siculus. Livy and Polybius do not. Modern archeological excavations could be taken to confirm Plutarch's view. In a single child cemetery called the Tophet an estimated 20,000 urns were deposited between 400 BC and 200 BC, with the practice continuing until the early years of the Christian period. The urns contained the charred bones of newborns and in some cases the bones of fetuses and 2-year-olds. These remains have been interpreted to mean that in the cases of stillborn babies, the parents would sacrifice their youngest child. There is a clear correlation between the frequency of sacrifice and the well-being of the city. In bad times (war, poor harvests) sacrifices became more frequent, indicating an increased assiduousness in seeking divine appeasement. It is sometimes argued, however, that these bodies were merely the cremated remains of children that died naturally, although in light of other Canaanite evidence this seems less likely. The few Carthaginian texts which have survived make absolutely no mention of child sacrifice. It has been argued by some modern scholars that evidence of Carthaginian child sacrifice is sketchy at best and that it is far more likely to have been part of Roman propaganda against the Carthaginians to justify their conquest and destruction. The debate is ongoing among modern archeologists and other antiquarians. While the surviving Punic texts mention no practices of religious sacrifices, they are detailed enough to give a portrait of a very well organized caste of temple priests and acolytes performing different types of functions, for a variety of prices. Carthage had many gods. The supreme divine couple was that of Tanit and Ba`al Hammon. Priests were clean shaven, unlike most of the population. In the first centuries of the city ritual celebrations included rhythmic dancing, derived from Phoenician traditions. The goddess Astarte seems to have been popular in early times. At the height of its cosmopolitan era Carthage seems to have hosted a large array of divinities from the neighbouring civilizations of Greece, Egypt and the Etruscan city-states.

Conflict with the Greeks and Romans

First Sicilian War

Carthage's success led to the creation of a powerful navy to discourage both pirates and rival nations. This, coupled with its success and growing hegemony, brought Carthage into increasing conflict with the Greeks, the other major power contending for control of the central Mediterranean. The island of Sicily, lying at Carthage's doorstep, became the arena on which this conflict played out. From their earliest days, both the Greeks and Phoenicians had been attracted to the large island, establishing a large number of colonies and trading posts along its coasts. Small battles had been fought between these settlements for centuries. By 480 BC, Gelon, the tyrant of Greek Syracuse, backed in part by Greek support, was attempting to unite the island under his rule. This imminent threat could not be ignored, and Carthage - possibly as part of an alliance with Persia, then engaged in a war with Greece - fielded its largest military force to date, under the leadership of the general Hamilcar. Traditional accounts give Hamilcar's army a strength of three hundred thousand men; though these are almost certainly exaggerated, it must nonetheless have been of formidable force. En route to Sicily, however, Hamilcar suffered losses (possibly severe) due to poor weather. Landing at Panormus (modern-day Palermo), he was then decisively defeated by Gelon at the Battle of Himera. He was either killed during the battle or committed suicide in shame. The loss severely weakened Carthage, and the old government of entrenched nobility was ousted, replaced by the Carthaginian Republic.

Second Sicilian War

By 410 BC Carthage had recovered under a series of successful rulers. It had conquered much of modern day Tunisia, strengthened and founded new colonies in North Africa, and sponsored Mago Barca's journey across the Sahara Desert and Hanno the Navigator's journey down the African coast. Although, in that year, the Iberian colonies seceded—cutting off Carthage's major supply of silver and copper—Hannibal Mago, the grandson of Hamilcar, began preparations to reclaim Sicily, while expeditions were also led into Morocco and Senegal, and also into the Atlantic. In 409 BC, Hannibal Mago set out for Sicily with his force. He was successful in capturing the smaller cities of Selinus (modern Selinunte) and Himera, before returning triumphantly to Carthage with the spoils of war. But the primary enemy, Syracuse, remained untouched, and in 405 BC Hannibal Mago led a second Carthaginian expedition, this time to claim the island in its entirety. This time, however, he met with fierce resistance and ill-fortune. During the siege of Agrigentum, the Carthaginian forces were ravaged by plague, Hannibal Mago himself succumbing to it. Although his successor, Himilco, successfully extended the campaign by breaking a Greek siege, capturing the city of Gela and repeatedly defeating the army of Dionysius, the new tyrant of Syracuse, he, too, was weakened by the plague and forced to sue for peace before returning to Carthage. In 398 BC, Dionysius had regained his strength and broke the peace treaty, striking at the Carthaginian stronghold of Motya. Himilco responded decisively, leading an expedition which not only reclaimed Motya, but also captured Messina. Finally, he laid siege to Syracuse itself. The siege met with great success throughout 397 BC, but in 396 BC plague again ravaged the Carthaginian forces, and they collapsed. Sicily by this time had become an obsession for Carthage. Over the next sixty years, Carthaginian and Greek forces engaged in a constant series of skirmishes. By 340 BC, Carthage had been pushed entirely into the southwest corner of the island, and an uneasy peace reigned over the island.

Third Sicilian War

In 315 BC Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, seized the city of Messene (present-day Messina). In 311 BC he invaded the last Carthaginian holdings on Sicily, breaking the terms of the current peace treaty, and laid siege to Akragas. Hamilcar, grandson of Hanno the Navigator, led the Carthaginian response and met with tremendous success. By 310 BC he controlled almost all of Sicily and had laid siege to Syracuse itself. In desperation, Agathocles secretly led an expedition of 14,000 men to the mainland, hoping to save his rule by leading a counterstrike against Carthage itself. In this, he was successful: Carthage was forced to recall Hamilcar and most of his army from Sicily to face the new and unexpected threat. Although Agathocles' army was eventually defeated in 307 BC, Agathocles himself escaped back to Sicily and was able to negotiate a peace which maintained Syracuse as a stronghold of Greek power in Sicily.

Pyrrhus of Epirus

Between 280 BC and 275 BC, Pyrrhus of Epirus waged two major campaigns in an effort to protect and extend the influence of the Greeks in the western Mediterranean: one against the emerging power of the Roman Republic to defend the Greek colonies in southern Italy, the other against Carthage in a renewed attempt to wrest Sicily wholly from their control. After winning a complete victory over Rome at Heraclea, and another complete yet very costly victory at Asculum, Pyrrhus was soon distracted by opportunities in mainland Greece which had recently been invaded by the Gauls, and the Greeks of Sicily. Making a temporary peace with the Romans he left for Sicily and between 278-276 BC, defeated every Carthaginian force against him. Pyrrhus even managed to take Eryx, the strongest Carthaginian holdout. Yet at Lilybaeum, the Carthaginians were able to hold out against Pyrrhus, and the invader, soon found that he was no longer welcome by the Greek Sicilians. Leaving once again for Italy, he fought the Romans once more to a draw. Not having the resources and manpower to continue, Pyrrhus left for Epirus. For Carthage, this meant a return to the status quo. For Rome, however, it meant capturing Tarentum and holding the entirety of Italy. The result was a shift in the balance of power in the western Mediterranean: the Greeks were effectively reduced to their toehold in Sicily, while Rome's growing strength and territorial ambitions brought it directly into conflict with Carthage for the first time.

The Messanan Crisis

When Agathocles died in 288 BC, a large company of Italian mercenaries who had previously been held in his service found themselves suddenly without employment. Rather than leave Sicily, they seized the city of Messana. Naming themselves Mamertines (or "sons of Mars"), they became a law unto themselves, terrorizing the surrounding countryside. The Mamertines became a growing threat to Carthage and Syracuse alike. In 265 BC, Hiero II, former general of Pyrrhus and the new tyrant of Syracuse, took action against them. Faced with a vastly superior force, the Mamertines divided into two factions, one advocating surrender to Carthage, the other preferring to seek aid from Rome. As a result, embassies were sent to both cities. While the Roman Senate debated the best course of action, the Carthaginians eagerly agreed to send a garrison to Messana. A Carthaginian garrison was admitted to the city, and a Carthaginian fleet sailed into the Messanan harbor. However, soon afterwards they began negotiating with Hiero; alarmed, the Mamertines sent another embassy to Rome asking them to expel the Carthaginians. Her intervention had placed Carthage's military forces directly across the narrow channel of water that separated Sicily from Italy. Moreover, the presence of the Carthaginian fleet gave them effective control over this channel, the Strait of Messina, and demonstrated a clear and present danger to nearby Rome and her interests. As a result, the Roman Assembly, although reluctant to ally with a band of mercenaries, sent an expeditionary force to return control of Messana to the Mamertines.

The Punic Wars

The Roman attack on the Carthaginian forces at Messana triggered the first of the Punic Wars. Over the course of the next century, these three major conflicts between Rome and Carthage would determine the course of Western civilization.
- The First Punic War (264 BC to 241 BC)
- The Second Punic War (218 BC to 201 BC)
- The Third Punic War (149 BC to 146 BC) Rome consistently triumphed over Carthage during the Punic Wars. The end of the Third Punic War resulted in the end of Carthaginian power and the complete destruction of the city by Scipio Aemilianus: Roman soldiers went from house to house, slaughtering the people of Carthage and enslaving any who survived. Carthage's harbor was burned and the city razed. Between the first and the second Punic war, Carthage faced a major mercenary revolt. During the mercenary revolt Rome was able to acquire Sardinia. It is disputed whether the Carthaginian farmland was salted following the Battle of Carthage.

Roman Carthage

Battle of Carthage. On the reverse, the personification of Carthage, his capital.]] The site was too well-chosen to let it go to waste, however, and a new city grew up there, eventually becoming the second largest city in the western half of the Roman empire. By the late 2nd century, Carthage was the center of the Roman province of Africa, with a population of over 400,000 people. It briefly became the capital of an usurper, Domitius Alexander, in 308-311. Carthage also became a centre of early Christianity. Tertullian rhetorically addresses the Roman governor with the fact that the Christians of Carthage that just yesterday were few in number, now "have filled every place among you—cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very camp, tribes, companies, palaces, senate, forum; we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods." (Apologeticus written at Carthage, c. 197.) It is worth noting that Tertullian omits any mention of the surrounding countryside or its network of villas not unlike colonial hacienda society. In the first of a string of rather poorly reported Councils at Carthage a few years later, no fewer than seventy bishops attended. Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was represented more and more by the bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the Donatist controversy, which drew in the young Augustine of Hippo while he finished his education at Carthage before moving on to Rome. In 397 at the Council at Carthage, the Biblical canon for the western Church was confirmed. The political fallout from the deep disaffection of African Christians was a crucial factor in the ease with which Carthage and the other centres were captured in the 5th century by Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, who defeated the Byzantine general Bonifacius and made the city his capital. Gaiseric was considered a heretic too, an Arian, and though Arians commonly despised Catholic Christians, a mere promise of toleration might have caused the city's population to accept him. After a failed attempt to recapture the city in the 5th century, the Byzantines finally subdued the Vandals in the 6th century. Using Gaiseric's grandson's deposal by a distant cousin, Gelimer, as a pretext, the Byzantines dispatched an army to conquer the Vandal kingdom. On Sunday, October 15 533, the Byzantine general Belisarius, accompanied by his wife Antonina, made his formal entry into Carthage, sparing it a sack and a massacre. During the emperor Maurice's reign, Carthage was made into an Exarchate, as was Ravenna in Italy. These two exarchates were the western bulwarks of Byzantium, all that remained of its power in the west. In the early 7th century, it was the Exarch of Carthage, Heraclius (of Armenian origin), who overthrew Emperor Phocas. The Byzantine Exarchate was not, however, able to withstand the Arab conquerors of the 7th century. The first Arab assault on the Exarchate of Carthage was initiated from Egypt without much success in 647. A more protracted campaign lasted from 670-683. In 698 the Exarchate of Africa was finally overrun by the rising forces of Islam, and Carthage itself was destroyed by the Arab invaders, to be replaced by Tunis as the major regional center.

Carthage in fiction

- Hannibal's Children, an alternate history novel, about the Carthaginians.
- Gustave Flaubert, Salammbô, a novel on the mercenary wars in North Africa and around Carthage.

References

#Hannibal's Campaigns. Tony Bath. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Books, 1981. #Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context. Shelby Brown. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991. #La vie quotidienne à Carthage au temps d'Hannibal. Gilbert et Colette Charles-Picard. Paris: Hachette, 1958. #La légende de Carthage. Azedine Beschaouch. Paris: Gallimard, 1993. #Carthage: Uncovering the Mysteries and Splendors of Ancient Tunisia. David Soren, Aicha Ben Abed Ben Kader, Heidi Slim. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. #The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, colonies and trade. Maria Eugenia Aubet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. #Itineraria Phoenicia.Edward Lipinski. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement Oosterse Studies, 2004. #Carthage is also the codename of the mysterious fifth sector in the French animation series, Code Lyoko

Crushing by elephant

by Robert Knox.]] Crushing by elephant was a common sentence for those condemned to death throughout south and southeast Asia, particularly India, for over 4,000 years. The Romans and Carthaginians also used this method on occasions, and it is mentioned by Josephus and the deuterocanonical book of 3 Maccabees in connection with the Egyptians. For many centuries elephants were also used for military purposes, and death under the foot of an elephant was commonplace for deserters or prisoners as well as for military criminals. Rabbi Petachiah of Ratisbon, a twelfth-century Jewish traveler, reported an execution by this means during his stay in northern Mesopotamia: :At Nineveh there was an elephant. Its head is not protruding. It is big, eats about two wagon loads of straw at once; its mouth is in its breast, and when it wants to eat it protrudes its lip about two cubits, takes up the straw with it, and puts it in its mouth. When the sultan condemns anyone to death, they say to the elephant, "this person is guilty." It then seizes him with its lip, casts him aloft and slays him." The English sailor Robert Knox, writing in 1681, described a method of execution by elephant which he had seen while being held captive in Sri Lanka: :The King makes use of them for Executioners; they will run their Teeth through the body, and then taer it in pieces, and throw it limb from limb. They have sharp Iron with a socket with three edges, which they put on their Teeth at such times...
(An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14346], Robert Knox, London, 1681) An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in 1868.]] During an expedition to central India in 1868, Mr. Louis Rousselet described the execution of a criminal by elephant. A sketch was made of the execution showing the condemned being forced to place his head upon a pedestal, and then being held there while an elephant crushed his head underfoot. The sketch was made into a woodcut and printed in "Le Tour du Monde", a widely circulated French journal of travel and adventure. Occasionally, executions would be prolonged either by having the elephant drag the condemned through the streets before the execution (usually by a rope attached to the elephant's leg), or through the use of an elephant that was trained to crush limbs first, and then the chest, often with excruciating slowness. Most rajahs kept elephants for the purpose of execution by crushing. These executions were often held in public as a warning to any who might transgress. To that end, many of the elephants were especially large, often weighing in excess of nine tons. The executions were intended to be gruesome and, by all accounts, they often were. Some monarchs also adopted this form of execution for their own entertainment. Emperor Jahangir of India's long-running Mughal dynasty ordered a huge number of criminals to be crushed for this purpose, although the Mughals had no monopoly on death by elephant; during the 18th century the rival Marathas confederacy also used this method of execution. The Maratha Sardar Santaji Ghorpade (1764-1794) admitted to a weakness for this particular punishment and, for the slightest error, would order an offender to be crushed beneath the enormous feet of his royal elephant. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Muslim courts of law in South Asia commonly ordered their condemned to be crushed by elephants. Increased domination by the British Empire led to the decline and eventual end of elephant executions. Death by elephant is still not uncommon in parts of Africa and South Asia where humans and elephants co-exist, but these tend to be the result of wild elephants attacking humans rather than tame elephants being used by humans to kill other humans. A similar, but unrelated term is Elephant "Crushing". It refers to a method of domesticating young elephants seen mainly in Asia. The practice is condemned by animal rights groups such as PETA.
Category:Death penalty Category:Torture Category:Elephants simple:Crushing by elephant

Torture

was an infamous torture device.]] Torture is is the infliction of severe physical or psychological torment as an expression of cruelty, a means of intimidation, deterrent, revenge or punishment, or as a tool for the extraction of information or confessions. Torture is almost universally considered to be an extreme violation of human rights, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Signatories of the Third Geneva Convention and Fourth Geneva Convention agree not to torture protected persons (enemy civilians and POWs) in armed conflicts, and signatories of the UN Convention Against Torture agree not to intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on anyone, to obtain information or a confession, to punish them, or to coerce them or a third person. These conventions and agreements notwithstanding, it is estimated by organizations such as Amnesty International that around 2/3 of countries do not consistently abide by the spirit of such treaties.

Current legal status of torture

On December 10, 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Article 5 states "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". Since that time the use of torture has been regulated by a number of international treaties, of which the two major ones are the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.

United Nations Convention Against Torture

The "United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment"(UNCAT) came into force in June 1987. The most relevant articles are articles 1, 2, 3 and the first paragraph of article 16. :Article 1 :1. Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. :2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application. 1 :Article 2 :1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction. :2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. :3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture. :Article 3 :1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. :2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. :Article 16 :1. Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture of references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. There are several points which should be noted:
- Section 1: torture is defined as severe pain or suffering, which means there exist levels of pain and suffering which are not severe enough to be called torture. Discussions on this area of international law are influenced by a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR). See the section Other conventions for more details on the ECHR ruling.
- Section 2: If a state has signed the treaty without reservations, then there are no exceptional circumstances whatsoever where a state can use torture and not break its treaty obligations. However the worst sanction which can be applied to a powerful country is a public record that they have broken their treaty obligations. In certain exceptional cases the authorities in those countries may consider that, with plausible deniability, this is an acceptable risk to take as the definition of severe is open to interpretation.
- Section 16: contains the phrase territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, so if the government of a state authorises its personnel to use sensory deprivation on a detainee in territory not under its jurisdiction then it has not broken its treaty obligations. At the moment this treaty has been signed by about half the countries in the world.

Geneva Conventions

The four Geneva Conventions provide protection for people who fall into enemy hands. They envisage war in its traditional form, whereby people in uniforms fight clearly defined enemies in uniform, within a clearly defined arena. It therefore divides people into two explicit groups: combatants and non-combatants (civilians). There is a third group whose existence is implied, but whose treatment is not covered in detail. These are unlawful combatants, such as spies, mercenaries and other combatants who have broken the laws of war, for example by firing on an enemy while flying a white flag. Whilst combatants and non-combatants are provided substantial protection, a lesser level of protection is afforded to unlawful combatants. The third(GCIII) and fourth(GCIV) Geneva Conventions are the two most relevant for the treatment of the victims of conflicts. Both treaties state in their similarly worded article 3 that in a non-international armed conflict that "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms... shall in all circumstances be treated humanely and that there must not be any "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture." or "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment". Under GCIV most enemy civilians in an international armed conflict will be "Protected Persons" under the meaning of GCIV, (see exemptions section immediately after this for those who are not). Under article 32, protected persons have the right to protection from "murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments...but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by non-combatant or military agents." The treatment of prisoners of war (POWs) in an international armed conflict is covered by GCIII. In particular article 17 states that "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.". GCIII POW status has far fewer exemptions than "Protected Person" status under GCIV. If a person is an enemy combatant in an international armed conflict, then they will have the protection of GCIII and be entitled to be regarded as POWs under GCIII unless they are an unlawful combatant. If there is a question of whether the combatant is an unlawful combatant, they must be treated as POW's "until their status has been determined by a competent tribunal" (GCIII article 5). If the tribunal decides that they are an unlawful combatant, and they are a Protected Person under GCIV, they will still have the some protections under GCIV Article 5. They must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial [for war crimes], shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention". A person, who is found guilty of war crimes in an international armed conflict, or is not protected by GCIV because of some other exemption, is no longer protected by the Geneva Conventions.

Geneva Convention IV exemptions

GCIV provides an important exemption: :"Where in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention [ie GCIV] as would ... be prejudicial to the security of such State." (GCIV article 5) In a conflict like the U.S. War on Terrorism many so-called "unlawful combatants" have been controversially denied protection under the Geneva Conventions, because they are either excluded by their nationality (see below) or they are deemed to be so dangerous that Article 5 can be invoked. There are two further groups who are not protected by GCIV: # Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. # Nationals of a neutral State in the territory of a combatant State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, cannot claim the protection of GCIV if their home state has normal diplomatic representation in the State that holds them (article 4). Since nearly every state has diplomatic recognition of every other state, most citizens of neutral countries in a war zone are not able to claim any protection from GCIV.

Geneva Conventions' Additional Protocols

In addition, there are two additional protocols to the Geneva Convention: Protocol I (1977), relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts and Protocol II (1977), relating to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts. These clarify and extend the definitions in some areas, but to date many countries, including the United States, have either not signed them or have not ratified them. Protocol I does not explicitly mention torture but it does clarify one or two points which effect the treatment of POWs and Protected Persons. The first is that it explicitly involves "the appointment of Protecting Powers and of their substitute" to monitor that the Conventions are being enforced by the Parties to the conflict. It also broadens the definition of a lawful combatant in occupied territory to include those who carry arms openly but are not wearing uniforms, so that they are now lawful combatants and protected by the Geneva Conventions. It also defines who is a mercenary and therefore an unlawful combatant and not protected by the same conventions. Protocol II "develops and supplements Article 3 [relating to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts] common to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 without modifying its existing conditions of application" . It states in Article 4.a "Violence to the life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular murder as well as cruel treatment such as torture, mutilation or any form of corporal punishment;", Article 4.b "Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault;" and Article 4.h "Threats to commit any of the foregoing acts". There are other clauses in other articles which entreat humane treatment of enemy personnel in an internal conflict, which have a bearing on the use of torture, but there are no other clauses which explicitly mentions torture.

Other conventions

During the Cold War, in Europe a treaty called European Convention on Human Rights was signed. The treaty was based on the UDHR. It included the provision for a court to interpret the treaty and Article 3 "Prohibition of torture" stated "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the five techniques of "sensory deprivation" were not torture but were "inhuman or degrading treatment". See Accusations of use of torture by United Kingdom for details. This case was 9 years before the UNCAT came into force and had an influence on States thinking about what constitutes torture ever since.

Supervision of anti-torture treaties

In times of armed conflict between a signatory of the Geneva conventions and another party, delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) monitor the compliance of signatory to the Geneva Conventions, which includes monitoring the use of torture. The Istanbul Protocol, an official UN document, is the first set of international guidelines for documentation of torture and its consequences. It became a United Nations official document in 1999. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) "shall, by means of visits, examine the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty with a view to strengthening, if necessary, the protection of such persons from torture and from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." as stipulated in Article 1 of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, are actively involved in working to stop the use of torture throughout the world and publish reports on any activities they consider to be torture.

Domestic and national law

Countries which have signed the "United Nations Convention Against Torture", have a treaty obligation to include the provisions into domestic law. The laws of many countries therefore formally prohibit torture. However, such de jure legal provisions are by no means a proof that, de facto, the signatory country does not use torture. To prevent torture, many legal systems have a right against self-incrimination or explicitly prohibit undue force when dealing with suspects. Torture was abolished in England about 1640 (except peine forte et dure which was only abolished in 1772), in Scotland in 1708, in Prussia in 1740, in Russia in 1801. The French 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, of constitutional value, prohibits submitting suspects to any hardship not necessary to secure his person. Statute law explicitly makes torture a crime. In addition, statute law prohibits the police or justice from interrogating suspects under oath. The United States includes this right in the fifth amendment to its constitution, which in turn serves as the basis of the Miranda warning that is issued to individuals upon their arrest. Additionally, the US Constitution's eighth amendment expressly forbids the use of "cruel and unusual punishments", which is widely interpreted as a prohibition of the use of torture. However, there has been some debate over the interpretation of U.S. and international law. In 2002 a controversial Justice Department memo, since repudiated, defined torture as "intentionally causing permanent damage to vital organs or permanent emotional trauma" (so techniques such as electric shocks are considered acceptable). Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle acknowledged that confessions obtained under duress would be acceptable as evidence in Guantanamo Bay. As of November 5, 2005: US Congress is considering attaching Senator John McCain's amendment banning torture to the 2006 Defense appropriations bill; McCain has himself experienced torture as a prisoner of the Viet Cong. The amendment would ensure an end to the U.S. use of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, and extraordinary rendition, which have become common practice since September 11, 2001. However, Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republicans are asking for exemptions for the CIA in the torture ban.

Use of torture

Recent times in the context of this article is from December 10, 1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

Torture in the past

United Nations General Assembly during the Spanish Inquisition. Circa 1700 AD. According to Herrera Puga the authorities:
"placed no limits on the means; in this way they used the rack, the lash, fire, etc. In some cases... they applied padlocked irons to the flesh which even led to the amputation of a hand..." ]] Torture was used by many governments and countries in the past. In the Roman Republic, for example, a slave's testimony was admissible only if it was extracted by torture, on the assumption that slaves could not be trusted to reveal the truth voluntarily. In much of Europe, medieval and early modern courts freely inflicted torture, depending on the accused's crime and the social status of the suspect. Torture was seen as a legitimate means for justice to extract confessions, or obtain the names of accomplices or other information about the crime. Often, defendants sentenced to death would be tortured prior to execution, so as to have a last chance that they disclose the names of their accomplices. Torture in the Medieval Inquisition was used starting in 1252. In the Middle Ages especially and up into the 18th century, torture was considered a legitimate way to obtain testimonies and confessions from suspects for use in judicial inquiries and trials. The torture methods used by inquisitors were mild compared to secular courts, as they were forbidden to use methods that resulted in bloodshed, mutilation or death. One of the most common forms of medieval inquisition torture was known as strappado. The hands were bound behind the back with a rope, and the accused was suspended this way, dislocating the joints painfully in both arms. Weights could be added to the legs dislocating those joints as well. Other torture methods could include the rack (stretching the victim’s joints to breaking point), the thumbscrew, the boot (crushing the foot and leg), water (massive quantities of water forcibly ingested), and the medieval red-hot pincers, although it was technically against church policy to mutilate a person's body. If stronger methods were needed, or death, the person was handed over to the secular authorities who were not bound by any restrictions. In 1613 Anton Praetorius described the situation of the prisoners in the dungeons in his book "Gründlicher Bericht über Zauberey und Zauberer" (Thorough Report about Sorcery and Sorcerers). He was one of the first to protest against all means of torture.

Torture in recent times

Torture remains a frequent method of repression in totalitarian regimes, terrorist organizations and organized crime. In authoritarian regimes, torture is often used to extract confessions from political dissenters, so that they admit to being spies or conspirators, probably manipulated by some foreign country. Most notably, such a dynamic of forced confessions marked the justice system of the Soviet Union (thoroughly described in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago). Some Western democratic governments have on occasions resorted to torture, or acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, of people thought to possess information perceived to be vital for national security which can not be obtained quickly by other methods. As recently as 1976, the European Commission on Human Rights found the British government guilty of "torture, inhuman and degrading treatment. From 1972 onwards when Amnesty International published its path-breaking "Report of an Enquiry into Allegations of Ill Treatment in Northern Ireland" the organization has maintained a fairly continuous drumbeat of revelations and recommendations about the behaviour of British operatives in Northern Ireland. Many countries find it expedient from time to time to use techniques of a kind used in torture; at the same time few wish to be described as doing so, either to their own citizens or international bodies. So a variety of devices are used to bridge this gap, including state denial, "secret police", "need to know", denial that given treatments are torturous in nature, appeal to various laws (national or international), use of jurisdictional argument, claim of "overriding need", and so on. Torture has been a tool of many states throughout history and for many states it remains so (unofficially and when expedient and desired) today. Despite worldwide condemnation and the existence of treaty provisions that forbid it, torture is still practiced in two thirds of the world's nations. .

Torture by proxy

In 2003, Britain's Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, made accusations that information was being extracted under extreme torture from dissidents in that country, and that the information was subsequently being used by Britain and other western, democratic countries which officially disapproved of torture . The accusations did not lead to any investigation by his employer, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and he resigned after disciplinary action was taken against him in 2004. No misconduct by him was proven. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office itself is being investigated by the National Audit Office because of accusations of victimisation, bullying and intimidating its own staff . Murray later stated that he felt that he had unwittingly stumbled upon what has elsewhere been called "torture by proxy" and with the euphemism of "extraordinary rendition" by the American administration. He thought that Western countries moved people to regimes and nations where it was known that information would be extracted by torture, and made available to them. This he alleged was a circumvention and violation of any agreement to abide by international treaties against torture. If it was true that a country was doing this and it had signed the UN Convention Against Torture then that country would be in specific breach of Article 3 of that convention.

Aspects of torture

The use of torture has been criticized not only on humanitarian and moral grounds, but on the grounds that evidence extracted by torture tends to be extremely unreliable and that the use of torture corrupts institutions which tolerate it. The purpose of torture is often as much to force acquiescence on an enemy, or destroy a person psychologically from within, as it is to gain information, and its effects endure long after the torture itself has ended. In this sense torture is often described by survivors as "never ending". See Psychology of torture to study the pyschological effects associated with torture.

Psychological Torture

Psychological torture is torture directed to the psyche as opposed to the body. It uses (nominally) non-violent torments to damage or destroy the subject's mental, emotional, and psychological well-being. Psychological torture often induces far more lasting and insidious pain, suffering and trauma than its physical counterpart. Forms of psychological torture include:
- Extreme sleep deprivation
- Exposure to extreme temperatures
- 24/7 blindfolding or hooding, to enhance disorientation
- Mock execution
- Being forced to witness atrocities to others.
- Extended solitarity confinement.
- Being forced to commit atrocities to others (including torture).
- Being forced to eat the flesh of a murdered family member.
- Being forced to betray others.
- Re-education with insidious (non-violent) thought-reform techniques.
- Calculated violation of social/sexual taboos.
- Continous calculated humiliations

Incrimination of innocent people

One well documented effect of torture is that with rare exceptions people will say or do anything to escape the situation, including untrue "confessions" and implication of others without genuine knowledge, who may well then be tortured in turn. There are rare exceptions, such as Admiral James Stockdale, Medal of Honor winner, and F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, G.C., who refused to provide information under torture.

Secrecy/publicity

Depending on the culture, torture has at times been carried on in silence (official denial), semi-silence (known but not spoken about) or openly acknowledged in public (in order to instill fear and obedience). Since torture is in general not accepted in modern times, professional torturers in some countries tend to use techniques such as electrical shock, asphyxiation, heat, cold, noise, and sleep deprivation which leave little evidence, although in other contexts torture frequently results in horrific mutilation or death. Evidence of torture also comes from the testimony of witnesses, such as those that testified about the atrocities committed by British troops in Norther Ireland during the Troubles. Evidence also comes from amateur photographers, like those who photographed the torture at Abu Ghraib prison.

Motivation to torture

It was long thought that "good" people would not torture and only "bad" ones would, under normal circumstances. Research over the past 50 years suggests a disquieting alternative view, that under the right circumstances and with the appropriate encouragement and setting, most people can be encouraged to actively torture others. Stages of torture mentality include:
- Reluctant or peripheral participation
- Official encouragement: As the Stanford prison experiment and Milgram experiment show, many people will follow the direction of an authority figure (such as a superior officer) in an official setting (especially if presented as a compulsory obligation), even if they have personal uncertainty. The main motivations for this appear to be fear of loss of status or respect, and the desire to be seen as a "good citizen" or "good subordinate".
- Peer encouragement: to accept torture as necessary, acceptable or deserved, or to comply from a wish to not reject peer group beliefs. At worst this leads to competition between torturers to produce more pain or harsher results.
- Dehumanization: seeing victims as objects of curiosity and experimentation, where pain becomes just another test to see how it affects the victim.
- Disinhibition: socio-cultural and situational pressures may cause torturers to undergo a lessening of moral inhibitions and as a result act in ways not normally countenanced by law, custom and conscience.
- Organisationally, like many other procedures, once torture becomes established as part of internally acceptable norms under certain circumstances, its use often becomes institutionalised and self-perpetuating over time, as what was once used exceptionally for perceived necessity finds more reasons claimed to justify wider use.

Medical torture

Main article: Medical torture At times, medicine and medical practitioners have been drawn into the ranks of torturers, either to judge what victims can endure, to apply treatments which will enhance torture, or as torturers in their own right. An infamous example of the latter is Dr. Josef Mengele, known then by inmates of Auschwitz as the "Angel of Death".

Torture murder

Main article: Torture murder Torture murder is a term given to the commission of torture by an individual or small group, as part of a sadistic or murderous agenda. Such murderers are often serial killers, who kill their victims by slowly torturing them to death over a prolonged period of time, and is usually preceded by a kidnapping where the killer will take the victim to a secluded or isolated location.

Effects of torture

Organizations like the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture try to help survivors of torture obtain medical treatment and to gain forensic medical evidence to obtain political asylum in a safe country and/or to prosecute the perpetrators. Torture is often difficult to prove, particularly when some time has passed between the event and a medical examination. Many torturers around the world use methods designed to have a maximum psychological impact while leaving only minimal physical traces. Medical and Human Rights Organizations worldwide have collaborated to produce the Istanbul Protocol, a document designed to outline common torture methods, consequences of torture and medico-legal examination techniques. Torture often leads to lasting mental and physical health problems. Physical problems can be wide-ranging, e.g. sexually transmitted diseases, musculo-skeletal problems, brain injury, post-traumatic epilepsy and dementia or chronic pain syndromes. Mental health problems are equally wide-ranging; common are post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety disorder. Treatment of torture-related medical problems might require a wide range of expertise and often specialized experience. Common treatments are psychotropic medication, e.g. SSRI antidepressants, counseling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, family systems therapy and physiotherapy. Main article, see Psychology of torture for psychological impact, and aftermath, of torture.

Torture devices and methods

It is plainly evident that, since the earliest times, tremendous ingenuity has been devoted to devising ever more effective and mechanically simpler instruments and techniques of torture. That those capable of applying such genius to the science of pain could in future employ their capabilities in other directions was not lost on the authorities: for example, after Perillos of Athens demonstrated his newly invented brazen bull to Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, Perillos himself was immediately put inside to test it, but he was removed before he died. Torture does not require complex equipment. Several methods need little or no equipment and can even be improvised from innocuous household or kitchen equipment. Methods such as consumption by wild animals (antiquity), impalement (Middle Ages) or confinement in iron boxes in the tropical sun (World War II Asia), are examples of other methods which required little more than readily available items.

Torture using chemicals

Torture victims may be forced to ingest chemicals or other products (such as broken glass, heated water, or soaps) that cause pain and internal damage. Irritating chemicals or products may be inserted into the rectum or vagina, or applied on the external genitalia. Cases of women being punished for adultery by having hot peppers inserted into their vaginas were reported in India. Similar means were used in many instances in African strife. It was widely accepted that during British rule over India, the police would make people confess by inserting chilies in various body orifices.

Electrical torture

A modern method of torture is to apply electrical shocks to the body. For added effects, torturers may apply the shocks to the genitalia or insert the electrode into the mouth, rectum or vagina.

Torture methods

- Bastinado
- Beatings and physical violence
- Boiling
- The boot
- Castration
- Chinese Water Torture
- Denailing
- Disfigurement
- Drowning or Water cure
- Flagellation
- Flaying
- Foot roasting
- Solitary confinement
- Mancuerda
- Mock executions
- Peine forte et dure (Pressing)
- Pitchcapping
- Rape
- Scaphism
- Sensory deprivation
- Shabach technique
- Sleep deprivation
- Sound (Extremely high volumes, dynamic range, low frequency or noise intended to interfere with rest, cognition and concentration)
- The Spanish boot
- Squassation
- Strappado (also known as "reverse hanging" and "Palestinian hanging")
- Ta'liq hanging from a metal bar. "Kentucky Chicken"
- Tickling
- Water boarding
- Whipping

Torture devices

- Brazen bull
- Breaking wheel
- Iron Maiden
- Judas Chair
- Peace breaker's muzzle
- Pear of Anguish
- Pillory
- Rack
- Scavenger's daughter
- Scold's bridle
- Spanish boot
- Stocks
- Tablillas
- Thumbscrew
- Tucker telephone

Methods of execution and capital punishment

Any method of execution which involves, or has the potential to involve, a great deal of pain or mutilation is considered to be torture and unacceptable to many who support capital punishment. Some of these, if halted soon enough, may not have fatal effects.
- Burning at the stake
- Beating
- Boiling to death
- Burial alive
- Roasting in the brazen bull
- Crucifixion
- Crushing
- Disembowelment
- Drawing and quartering
- Eaten alive (eg by wild beasts)
- Electric chair
- Garroting
- Gas chamber
- Hanging (no drop or short drop)
- Impaling
- Lethal injection (supposed to be next to painless, but agonizingly painful if the anaesthetic drugs fail to keep the paralysed victim unconscious as he/she dies (as with John Wayne Gacy))
- Sawing
- Stoning
- "The boats": see Scaphism

Quotes

Philip Limborch, a preacher and able annotator, quotes in his History of the Inquisition, a writer of the name of Julius Clarus, whom it would appear formed a very forcible idea of the powers of imagination, since he allows them four parts in five of the torments decreed by that satanic tribunal. Limborch represents Clarus as saying, "Know that there are five degrees of torture, videlicit, first, the torture of being threatened to be tortured; secondly, the torture of being conveyed to the place of torture; thirdly, the torture of being, and bound for torture; fourthly, the torture of being hoisted on the torturing rack; and fifthly, and lastly, the torture of squassation."

Other meanings of the word

Especially in countries where citizens can expect to be spared routine exposure to real torture, the word "torture" is used loosely (and to some people, inappropriately) for ordinary, even accidental discomforts. For example, "I was stuck in a traffic jam for three hours today, it was torture!" Rather paradoxically the term is also commonly used in BDSM, where similar methods to inflict pain and/or humiliation are used, though generally in mitigated form, as games, i.e. for the inverse purpose of giving the 'players' sexual and/or fetish pleasure from inflicting and/or enduring the 'torturous' discipline. This is even true for techniques such as genitorture, which can only be used in a virtual parody since the real thing implies inacceptable medical risks. The root word of torture is 'to twist'. It means to apply torque, to turn abnormally, to distort, or to strain.

Etymology

The word came from Latin tortura for
- torqu-tura, originally meaning "act of twisting".

External links

- Torture in the past
- [http://www.medieval-castles.org/torture.htm Medieval Torture Devices - Information]
- [http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/july/whipped-slave.htm Account of Slave Torture] in 1863
- Psychology of torture
- [http://www.torturecare.org.uk Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture]
- [http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996727 Everyone Is a Potential torturer], New Scientist, 25 November 2004, reporting on
- Fiske et al., SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: Why Ordinary People Torture Enemy Prisoners, Science 2004 306: 1482-1483
- Ethical arguments regarding torture
- [http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/01/when-doctors-go-to-war.html "When Doctors Go to War"]
- [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/400rhqav.asp?pg=1 The Truth About Torture] - A defense of government torture.
- [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/opinion/06danner.html?oref=login&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position= We Are All Torturers Now] by Mark Danner New York Times, 6 January 2005 [http://www.markdanner.com/nyt/010605_torturers.htm same article on Danner's website]
- [http://www.slate.com/id/2119122/nav/ais/ What Is Torture? An interactive primer on American interrogation] by Emily Bazelon, Phillip Carter, and Dahlia Lithwick, May 26, 2005 for Slate A Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Company
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