History of torture: what are the most brutal instruments used over the centuries

Torture is a practice that consists of cause physical or psychological pain to a person. The purposes for which it is implemented are generally: to extract information during an interrogation; punish an enemy; simply exercising sadism.

Torture exists since the ancient world and in the past it was regularly used by courts and armed forces, only since the Enlightenment have some intellectuals questioned its usefulness. Today torture is prohibited by international conventions and by the laws of many states but, nevertheless, it is used in numerous countriesincluding some democracies. Being such a widespread practice, they have been elaborated over the centuries countless systems and toolssome of them particularly brutal, to inflict torture.

What is torture and what is its purpose

Torture is a form of coercion that consists of inflicting physical or psychological pain. It is used for extort informationFor punish a culprit or an enemy or, in rare cases, for pure sadism. In some cases torture is inflicted with lo purpose of killing a condemned man: those who apply the sentence want death not to occur immediately, but to be preceded by pain and suffering.

Throughout history, some have been developed specific tools aimed at inflicting pain effectively. The level of savagery and the methods of use of these instruments varies greatly: consider that in the Middle Ages both the pillory (metal collar fixed to a column to expose the guilty to the pillory) and the nailed wheel (wheel on which the condemned man was blocked and left to die with broken legs and arms) were used.

A brief history of torture: from Herodotus to the Middle Ages

The use of torture is very ancient. One of the first attestations dates back to HerodotusGreek historian of the 5th century BC. C., which tells how a Persian prisoner captured by the Athenians was nailed alive to a stake. In many ancient civilizations, such as the Greek and Roman ones, torture was generally the case admitted against slaves and foreignerswhile those who enjoyed citizenship rights could not be tortured and, if sentenced to death, were executed with less cruel methods.

The torture was widely used in the Middle Agesso much so that during the Enlightenment it was believed (erroneously) that the cruelest systems had been introduced in this era. Torture was practiced by all courts, including the courts of the Inquisition, after all they were considered information extracted through torture is reliable and only in very rare cases did the judges question them. An almost unique case concerns the trial against the Knights Templar celebrated in Italy in 1311: the sentence, issued by the bishop of Ravenna, declared that confessions extracted under torture were not to be considered reliable.

Torture was also regularly used in the following centuries and only in Eighteenth centurywith theEnlightenmentits legitimacy was called into question. Among the jurists who took a clearest position against this practice, the figure stands out Cesare Beccariaauthor of the famous treatise Of crimes and punishments (1764), in which condemned torture not only because it is cruel, but also because it is useless for the purposes of obtaining reliable information. During theNineteenth century almost all European states abolished itat least officially, torture.

Torture from the twentieth century to today

However, abolition did not make torture disappear, for some regimes of the twentieth century they used it regularly both to obtain information and to punish opponents. Let’s remember the cases of Nazi regimeof various police forces in the Italian Social Republic (the state established by the fascists in Italy after the armistice of 1943), of some South American dictatorships of the 70s and 80s like the Argentine and Chilean ones.

It should not be thought, however, that torture is used only by dictatorial regimes. On the contrary, even the Democratic states sometimes they use torture. In the twentieth century, one of the best-known cases concerns French armed forcesThat they torture Algerians warring for independence in the 1950s and 1960s. In more recent times, they have shocked public opinion around the world the torture inflicted in Iraq by US soldiers in 2003 against prisoners detained in Abu Ghraib prison.

According to some analysts, they also amount to torture the interrogations carried out on some occasions by the Italian policefor example towards arrested people in 2001 for them protests against the G8 in Genoa. Forms of torture, even very brutal ones, are used by Israeli security forces against the Palestinians.

More generally, torture is used in numerous countries today, as they report Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, although there is not always agreement regarding what treatments qualify as torture. Unlike in the past, this is a practice kept secret by the authoritiesbecause it violates the UN Convention against Torturesigned in 1984 by most states, furthermore in many countries it is a practice explicitly prohibited by law (in Italy, torture has been considered a crime since 2017).

What are the instruments and techniques of torture

Over the years, courts and political-military authorities have “invented” dozens and dozens of forms of torturesome aimed at killing the tortured person and others aimed only at inflicting physical or psychological pain. One of the most used forms has always been la floggingwhich consists of beating a person with or without the aid of tools (whips, sticks, etc.).

In the ancient world, cruel methods such as torture were widespread among the forms of torture used to kill crucifixion and theimpalement (insertion of a pole from the anus to the throat). In the following centuries, other brutal systems were established, such as the torture of the wheelwhich consisted of tying the victim to a wheel, which was turned while an executioner hit the condemned man to break his bones and inflict more pain.

The fire it consisted instead of burning the condemned alive. More “imaginative” forms of execution of death sentences by torture were the boilingwhich involved placing the condemned person in boiling water or oil, or lo quarteringoften performed by tying the victim’s limbs to four horses, which were then made to run in opposite directions.

Among tortures not aimed at killing, one of the most widespread was the dei technique sections of ropealso used by the tribunals of the Inquisition: the condemned person was tied up, lifted up and made to fall rapidly, thus causing pain and sprains. Among other techniques, the use of was widespread pliers and tongssometimes red-hot, as well as the mutilation of body parts. In other cases, the condemned were exposed to beatingsor simply to the insults of the crowd, through the use of tools such as pillory.

In recent times, torture is often carried out by causing pain with the use of electric discharges. Other forms of torture are sleep deprivation and the waterboardingthat is, a form of simulated drowning, used by US security forces.