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Torture In Syria
This article describes the use of torture since the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which prohibited it. Torture is prohibited by international law and is illegal in most countries. However, it is still used by many governments. Torture is widely practiced worldwide: Amnesty International received reports of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in more than 150 countries during the four-year period from 1997 to 2001. These accusations concerned acts against political prisoners in 70 countries and other prisoners and detainees in more than 130 countries. State torture has been extensively documented and studied, often as part of efforts at collective memory and reconciliation in societies that have experienced a change in government. Surveys of torture survivors reveal that torture "is not aimed primarily at the extraction of information ... Its real aim is to break down the victim's personality and identity."Orlando Ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organized Crime
Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, terrorist groups, rebel groups, and Separatism, separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarianism, authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime simply exist to cater towards demand of illegal goods in a state or to facilitate trade of goods and services that may have been banned by a state (such as illegal drugs or firearms). Sometimes, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts protection racket, protec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Condor
Operation Condor (; ) was a campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America, involving intelligence operations, coups, and assassinations of left-wing sympathizers in South America which formally existed from 1975 to 1983. Condor was formally created in November 1975, when Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's spy chief, Manuel Contreras, invited 50 intelligence officers from Argentina, Brazil, Bolívia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay to the Army War Academy in Santiago, Chile. They were backed by the United States, which collaborated and financed the covert operations. France (which denies involvement), Republic of Venezuela, Venezuela, and Colombia are also alleged to have collaborated. The operation ended with the fall of the National Reorganization Process, Argentine junta in 1983. Due to its clandestine nature, the precise number of deaths directly attributable to Operation Condor is highly disputed. Some estimates are that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrogation
Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful information, particularly information related to suspected crime. Interrogation may involve a diverse array of techniques, ranging from developing a congenial rapport with the subject to torture. Techniques Deception Deception can form an important part of effective interrogation. In the United States, there is no law or regulation that forbids the interrogator from lying about the strength of their case, from making misleading statements or from implying that the interviewee has already been implicated in the crime by someone else. See case law on trickery and deception (''Frazier v. Cupp''). In 2021, Illinois became the first state to ban police officers from lying to minors during interrogations. As noted above, traditionally the issue of de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viet Cong
The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. It was formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, and conducted military operations under the name of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV). The movement fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the VC controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the VC was an insurgency indigenous to the South that represented the legitimate rights of people in South Vietnam, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. It was later conceded by the modern Vietnamese communist lead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered Diplomatic recognition, international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon, before becoming a republic in 1955, when the southern half of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 Geneva Conference, 1954 division of Vietnam. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) to the north, Kingdom of Laos, Laos to the northwest, Khmer Republic, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet Union, Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, Rep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix Program
The Phoenix Program () was designed and initially coordinated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, involving the American, South Vietnamese militaries, and a small amount of special forces operatives from the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam. In 1970, CIA responsibility was phased out, and the program was put under the authority of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS).Lewy, Guenter (1978), ''America in Vietnam'', New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 280-281 The program, which lasted from 1968 to 1972, was designed to identify and destroy the Viet Cong (VC) via infiltration, assassination, torture, capture, counter-terrorism, and interrogation. The CIA described it as "a set of programs that sought to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong." The Phoenix Program was premised on the idea that North Vietnamese infiltration had required local support within noncombat civilian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thuong Duc, Vietnam - A Viet Cong Prisoner Awaits Interrogation At The A-109 Special Forces Detachment In Thuong - NARA - 531447
Cháng () is the pinyin romanization of Chinese, romanization of the Chinese surname (''Cháng''). It was listed 80th among the Song Dynasty, Song-era ''Hundred Family Surnames''. "Chang" is also the Wade-Giles romanization of two Chinese surnames written Zhang (surname), Zhang in pinyin: one extremely common and written in Traditional Chinese and in Simplified Chinese, and another quite rare and written as in both systems. There is also a rare case of in Hong Kong written as Chang as well. For full details on them, see the "Zhang (surname), Zhang" and "Zheng (surname), Zheng" article. In Macao, this is the spelling of the surname "Zeng (surname), Zeng" . "Chang" is also a common spelling of the surname / (Chen (surname), Chen in Mandarin pinyin) in Peru. Romanization 常 is romanized as Ch'ang in Wade-Giles, although the apostrophe is often omitted in practice. It is romanized as Soeng and Sheung (surname), Sheung in Cantonese language, Cantonese; Seong and Siông in Minna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawrence Weschler
Lawrence Weschler (born 1952 in Van Nuys, California) is an American author of works of creative nonfiction. A graduate of Cowell College of the University of California, Santa Cruz (1974), Weschler was for over twenty years (1981–2002) a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'', where his work shuttled between political tragedies and cultural comedies. He is a two-time winner of the George Polk Awards—for Cultural Reporting in 1988 and Magazine Reporting in 1992—and was also a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award (1998). His books of political reportage include ''The Passion of Poland'' (1984); ''A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers'' (1990); and ''Calamities of Exile: Three Nonfiction Novellas'' (1998). His “Passions and Wonders” series currently comprises ''Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin'' (1982); ''David Hockney’s Cameraworks'' (1984); '' Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder'' (1995); '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taser
Taser (stylized in all caps) is a line of handheld conducted energy devices (CED) sold by Axon Enterprise (formerly Taser International). The device fires two small barbed darts intended to puncture the skin and remain attached to the target until removed by the user of the device. The darts are connected to the main unit by thin wires that achieve a high dielectric strength and durability given the extremely high-voltage electric current they conduct (typically 50,000 volts, or 2,000 volts under load), which can be delivered in short-duration pulses from a core of copper wire in the main unit. This enormous rush of current into the body produces effects ranging from localized pain to strong involuntary long muscle contractions, causing " neuromuscular incapacitation" (NMI), based on the mode of use (tasing frequency and environmental factors) and connectivity of the darts. When successfully used, the target is said to have been " tased". The first Taser conducted energy we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stun Belt
A stun belt is a belt fastened around the subject's waist, leg, or arm that carries a battery and control pack, and contains features to stop the subject from unfastening or removing it. A remote-control signal is sent to tell the control pack to give the subject an electric shock. Some models are activated by the subject's movement. The electrical pulse delivered by the control pack is based on the waveform developed by Jack Cover, which he called the TASER. These devices are used to control prisoners in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Some stun belts can restrain the subject's hands and have a strap going under his groin to stop him from rotating the belt around his waist to reach its battery and control pack and trying to deactivate it. Stun belts are not generally available to the public. In 1996, Amnesty International called on the United States to ban the use and export of the machine, arguing that it is a torture device that is "in direct contravention of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Dog
Dogs have a very long history in warfare, beginning in ancient times. From being trained in combat, to their use as scouts, sentries, messengers, mercy dogs, and trackers, their uses have been varied, and some continue to exist in modern military usage. History War dogs were used by the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Sarmatians, Baganda, Alans, Slavs, Britons, and Romans. Among the Greeks and Romans, dogs served most often as sentries or patrols, though they were sometimes taken into battle. The earliest use of war dogs in a battle recorded in classical sources was by Alyattes of Lydia against the Cimmerians around 600 BC. The Lydian dogs killed some invaders and routed others. At the Battle of Pelusium (525 BC), Cambyses II deployed dogs, cats, and other animals held sacred by the Egyptians. By putting these animals on the front lines, he was supposedly able to get the Egyptians to cease using their projectile weaponry. During the Late Antiquity, Attila the Hun us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
