Persuasive Speech Against Torture

Across history humans have declared certain inalienable entitlements that they believed everyone should have. These rights and entitlements are so essential that humans have spent years fighting for and protecting them. They were something that we believed every human should be given, something that should never be taken away from anyone. Countless lives lost in the battle against oppression and tyranny all in the name of standing up for what they believed to be their inherent rights as humans. Torture has been used across countless civilizations since the beginning of the human era. It provided a convenient way of extracting information from a reluctant prisoner. However, the techniques used to torment the prisoner into submission were extremely
inhumane. These techniques included sexual assault, sleep and sensory deprivation, solitary confinement, mock execution, and forced medication. Many agreed that this was completely unacceptable and sought to protect anyone from having to go through the anguish of torture. One of the most important pieces of documentation to our country explicitly forbids “cruel and unusual punishments, including torture” (The Founding Fathers, US Const. amend. VIII, sec. 1). Furthermore, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (UN General Assembly, art. 5). The fact that the right appears in near verbatim in two very important documents speaks measures about how important it really is and what lengths we must go to protect it. Sadly, protecting your rights as a torturee is extremely challenging due to the nature of torture.
The torturee will likely be put in a completely humiliating and degrading position in an attempt to break them. They’ll be in no position to stand up to their oppressors and will feel completely overpowered. This is exactly why great lengths must be taken to ensure that no one should ever be put into this situation. As citizens with rights we must fight to protect those who cannot stand up for their own rights. If we voice our concerns about the treatment and status of these prisoners the government will have no choice but to hear us and feel pressured to act. Through letters to our elected representatives and campaigns to raise awareness we can help bring an end to this atrocity. No one should ever be put in a position where they can see death as a better alternative than what they’re currently going
through. While torture may seem like an archaic form of punishment, it is still very much alive and practiced today.
Sadly, “Since January 2002, the Bush Administration has justified the maltreatment of prisoners of the ‘war on terror’ because the detainees are unlawful enemy combatants not guaranteed the rights dictated in the Geneva Conventions or U.S. law” (Dorothee, “FAQs: Does the U.S. Torture People?"). We’re intentionally manipulating the law and classifying our prisoners of war as detainees in order to justify the use of torture as a means of extracting information from them. Facilities such as Guantanamo Bay were established outside of the United States to further aid in obfuscating the ambiguous legal grey lines that we seem to be crossing with these detainees. We have to result to force feeding them because they refuse to eat as a sign of protesting against the injustices committed against them. They aren’t alone either, “With more than 100 inmates refusing food, four senior UN human rights experts and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called for an end to the indefinite detention of Guantánamo's inmates and for their prosecution, transfer or immediate release.”(Bowcott, "Force-feeding at Guantánamo Bay Puts Pressure on Obama to Close Prison."). With overwhelming support for these inmate’s rights, it seems rather bewildering that as a country that prides itself on the protection of human rights we continue to deprive these inmates from the most basic human
rights. This issue is not one that can be resolved easily. Protecting our country is absolutely essential and being prepared for an attack is crucial. However, using torture as an attempt to extract information from prisoners of war that might not have anything to tell us seems like the wrong approach. The legal grey area that these prisoners fall into makes solving this problem very tricky. There’s no clear solution to what exactly we should do with the prisoners. However, we should honor their rights and stop torturing them for information that might not even be trustworthy.