Torture advocate

Torture advocate on refugee tribunal | BN Victoria | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (17-05-2005): "Torture advocate on refugee tribunal

May 17, 2005

From: AAP





A MELBOURNE professor who advocates torturing terrorism suspects revealed today he is also a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal and a lecturer in human rights law.

Professor Mirko Bagaric today defended his controversial paper, entitled Not enough (official) torture in the world?.



The former Victorian policeman argues that torture is justifiable 'when it is the only means possible in order to avert a moral catastrophe'.



'I would only condone it in the rarest of circumstances and certainly not as your garden variety interrogation or punitive technique,' he said on ABC radio today.



Professor Bagaric said he was not an authority on torture methods, but also said the preferred form of torture should be sticking needles under people's fingernails to cause excruciating pain.



He insisted his views did not conflict with his role on the tribunal.



But The Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture director Paris Aristotle said it was 'terrifying' that a person in Professor Bagaric's position held such views.



'Our clients, survivors of torture and trauma – women, men, young children – have all been tortured by regimes that use a similar theoretical base to justify their actions,' Mr Aristotle said.



'What happened in Iraq under Saddam, Hussein, what happened in Central America what's happened in countries throughout Africa, all of those regimes have used the natural extension of the arguments in Professor Mirko Bagaric's paper,' he told ABC radio.



'We would have great concerns if he were allowed to continue to hear any of the cases that our clients were presenting with.



'It would be very difficult for someone who had been tortured to feel safe and secure that their experiences were going to be treated in the manner that they would hope that they would be treated, if the person they were in front of had in fact mounted a very strong case for torture.'



Mr Aristotle said the academic's arguments were 'superficial and shallow' and relied on hypotheticals.



'The problem with that is that there's a great disparity between that as a theory and what happens in the real world where none of those elements are in fact secure and the guarantees simply do not exist.'



Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said although he had not read the whole paper, on face value he did not think it was acceptable.



'On face value it seems like a provocative stance to take, doesn't it?' he said."