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The Torture Report

By Dr Les Dove
United Kingdom 1995 – Updated 2009

Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy … censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives … Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hood-winked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a freeman, a whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything - you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. Robert A Heinlein

Aims and objectives of the report

The main objectives of this report are to explore the basic elements of psychological torture in order to try and reach conclusions as to why psychological torture is now being used so widely and to examine why it is being used in many countries that purport to be free democracies. This will build upon the writers own research in various countries, plus his own wide personal experience of psychological torture, which leaves no doubt that such methods are being used far more often than many people would suspect. In turn, this leads to the following specific aims:

• To explore the question why, by whom, and with what authority psychological and other methods of torture is being carried out.
• To identify relevant information and evidence concerning psychological torture.
• To examine reasons for the lack of public information on the subject.

Background to the report.

There are references in various books concerning the activities of internal security forces who employ torture in one form or another, (Even in some so-called 'democracies') yet psychological torture and its use in the West seems not to have been probed to any great depth at all. Indeed, people in the West have become used to hearing about 'torture in other countries", but what of their own standards? Are those people living in the West really so blameless as they would have others believe? Is it always "others" who torture and never themselves?

Experience in investigating this subject leads to the realization that a number of 'charitable organizations' in the United Kingdom, supposedly set up to investigate breaches of human rights (including torture), appear to be more concerned in keeping the 'national image' rather than exposing torture within their own country. In other words, it appears that some human rights organizations are avoiding their real responsibilities in some areas, simply because they feel that they may incur the wrath of their own state security service, namely MI5 (Military Intelligence) and the police Special Branch (Secret Police), if they probe into areas the British establishment does not wish them to.

Indeed, according to the National Council for Civil Liberties (UK), now simply called Liberty, their organization was targeted by the British security services. They suffered much harassment as a result. This kind of harassment, plus the certain loss of government funding, is intended to keep British human rights organizations 'in line' and the British public ignorant of what is happening within their own country.