Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 358, Issue 9283, 1 September 2001, Pages 752-756
The Lancet

Reportage
The torturous road to democracy—domestic crisis in Nepal

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(01)05844-5Get rights and content

Summary

Largely unnoticed by the outside world, an armed Maoist insurgence has wrested control of areas in 45 of Nepal's 75 administrative regions and has resulted in more than 1700 deaths since 1996.1 State figures indicate that 1000 of these people were Maoist and about 400 were police—120 of whom died in attacks on police outposts in early April and July of 2001 alone. The remainder were “class enemies” of the “People's War”—ie, members of ruling parties. As public security collapses, the consequences for the Nepalese are random imprisonment, torture, and risk of extrajudiciary execution from both sides. Torture has increased greatly as a consequence of the insurgence, but was already deeply rooted in Nepalese authority and used as a primary approach to solving crime. More than 70% of Nepalese prisoners claim to have been tortured while in custody, and at least 50% claim they signed confessions as a result. INSEC (Informal Sector Service Centre), a human rights organisation, documented 1035 cases of state perpetrated torture in the year 2000,2 which has been suggested to be a gross underestimate of the true figure. The long-term physical, social, and psychosocial consequences for survivors are often severe. The Centre for Victims of Torture, Nepal, a non-government organisation based in Kathmandu, has been studying the effect of torture on survivors, and has implemented Nepal's only treatment programmes for those brave enough to seek help.

Section snippets

Collapse of democracy

The 1990 revolution brought a new constitution to Nepal and to an expectant population, according to Rajesh Gautam, human rights activist and a historian at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu. Nepalese people hoped for equal access to power for all, freedom of expression, and the right to form political parties. Although relatively free and open elections have since been regularly held, the changes failed to fulfil the expectations of most Nepalese people, especially in rural areas. The new

Torture

As a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), Nepal acknowledges that torture is:

“Any act by which severe pain or suffering whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him/her or a third person, information or confession, punishing him/her for an act he/she has committed or intimidating him/her or another

Treatment

Specialised care of torture victims was not developed until the mid-1980s,11 and successful treatment of survivors in Nepal is further hindered by health-professionals' mainly western-based understanding of the psychiatric effects of torture. Increasing evidence,12 however, suggests that crosscultural understanding of symptoms of torture can be relevant in development of appropriate forms of treatment as long as local contexts are thoroughly understood, and rehabilitation is guided by local

Redress

Recompense by the Nepalese government for torture victims is very rare, and payments are often out-of-court settlements that avoid bringing perpetrators to justice. I have been unable to find any example of the Nepalese police being prosecuted for acts of torture, and the likelihood of change in the near future is slim. One unusually well documented case6, 17 concerned the severe beating and torture of three truck workers who were suspects in a theft of about UK£2500. The story was big enough

Prevention

Prevention is an increasingly important ambition of CVICT, who aim to bring change through litigation, penal reform, and public education. van Ommeren claims that most Nepalese people do not think that torture is a crime. In fact, torture is not a crime in Nepalese domestic law, which thus fails to comply with provisions of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984). Penal Reform International, the UK Department for

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