WORLD: The Best Way to Prevent Torture: Academics vs. Human Rights Defenders
September 18, 2014
A group of researchers associated with the Sydney University in Australia claim that they have found a more effective way than what has been tried so far, to prevent torture. The more effective way, as claimed, is to engage with the torturers themselves; which means to engage with officers of the security establishments. Quite an expensive project has been undertaken and one of the last acts of that project was the hosting of a conference in Bangkok. This gave rise to a controversy due to Sri Lankan authorities threatening to withdraw from the Conference if two well-known human rights organizations in Sri Lanka – who were also invited - would attend this conference. The international research team obediently complied with the Sri Lankan Government’s request and withdrew invitations to the two human rights organisations from Sri Lanka.