Asha

Torture

Reading up on refugee issues and conditions before that force a person into fleeing their country. Pretty disturbing. Here is a little piece of what I was just reading…. and these aren’t even the worse of it all. Every time I read another one I’m like…things can’t go worse than this and then I’m shocked again.

A woman in the Middle East:

I was home the day the soldiers came to our house. I was afraid and crept under the table and I saw how my mother talked to the soldiers, and my little sister- she played and laughed. The soldiers asked my mother, “Where is your brother?” My mother became frightened and didn’t answer. “I don’t know,” she answered finally. “What do you mean, you don’t know?” said the soldiers, and they shot my mother and my little sister. My mother lay there, and I cried and ran and told my uncle about it. He cried and tore at his hair and hit himself on the head. “Come with me,” I said. And we saw that my mother was dead. That was very common in my country. I was 14 when it happened.


And to remind us of slightly older struggle….Part of a testimony of a political prisoner after the military coup in 1973:

Ceaser C. was 27 years old political community leader with some high school education; he was married and had three children. He was arrested seven times between 1973 and 1977, each time with great violence. He was subjected to a series of tortures: being beaten all over his body for four hours at a time; simulated executions; deprivation of sleep for 48 hours; humiliation and harassment; broken teeth caused by stones put into his mouth and then hammered; witnessing his brother’s torture with electric prods; and other forms of violence and humiliation. Cesar has electric shock applied to his genitals for 12 hours at a time, losing consciousness several times, and was hung by the neck; metallic objects of different sizes simulating a penis were introduced through his anus and then electric shock applied; he was partially suffocated with plastic bags and his head forced into pails of water or urine and excrement. He was forced to witness the raping of women by soldiers and trained dogs. Torture inflicted upon him resulted in brainwashing and sever disintegration, which led him to betray two of his closest clandestine political contracts. Subsequently, his having informed on his friends constituted the core of his disturbance. (Testimony taken in April 1979).

Something like this is probably happening in some part of the world as I write this….

posted by mir @ 12:09 PM