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Greg Black

gjb at gbch dot net
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Amnesty International Australia — global defenders of human rights

global defenders of human rights


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Tue, 17 May 2005

Call for legal torture

This morning’s news outlets have reported an extraordinary proposal by two would-be academics at Deakin University—one of whom is currently the head of the law school—calling for the legalisation of torture. According to The Age, this pair of ethically bankrupt morons consider that torture should be permitted in cases of great need, e.g., in the so-called “war on terror”.

Given their academic status, you’d imagine that they could have done some basic research which would have shown them that there is no credible evidence that torture convinces victims to tell the truth. All it is proved to do is coerce people into telling the torturers what the victims think their captors want to hear.

Deakin needs to purge itself of this cancer immediately before its reputation is completely destroyed. And the legal profession needs to stand up en masse to denounce this stupidity before the rest of us conclude that the common prejudice against lawyers is completely justified.