Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Uruguay.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Uruguay. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Uruguay U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/uruguay/
[accessed 11 August
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT The constitution
and law prohibit such practices, and there were no reports that government
officials employed them. Impunity for
security forces was not a significant problem. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Prison and detention
center conditions were poor and inhuman in several facilities due to
overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, inadequate medical care, inadequate socioeducational programming, and high levels of violence
among inmates. Certain prisons
lacked hygiene, sufficient access to water, sufficient or satisfactory food,
and adequate socioeducational and labor activities.
Prisoners sometimes spent 23 hours of the day in their cell, and several
inmates remained in their cells for weeks or even months. Inmates were sometimes
exposed to electrical, sanitary, and other risks due to poor infrastructure.
In July a fire in a prison cell left six inmates injured, but the cause of
the fire was unknown. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/uruguay/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 18 May
2020] F3. IS THERE
PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR
AND INSURGENCIES? Prisons are over
capacity, and conditions in many facilities are inadequate. Uruguay: Law
protecting police and military torture suspects must be annulled Amnesty
International AI, Press Releases, 19 October 2009 www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/uruguay-law-protecting-police-and-military-torture-suspects-must-be-annu [accessed 13 Feb
2014] [accessed 31 August
2016] A law in Uruguay
that has allowed the police and military to get away with torture and murder
should be annulled, Amnesty International said today, as the country prepares
to vote in a referendum on the future of the law. The law -- Ley de
Caducidad de la Pretencion Punitiva del Estado, or Expiry Law – prevents the
prosecution of police and military officials for crimes committed until 1985,
covering the eleven-year period of military and civilian rule when thousands
of cases of torture and many disappearances were documented. Ninety-nine percent
of political prisoners interviewed at the time by local human rights groups
claimed they had been tortured. At its peak, the number of political
prisoners held during the period reached 7000, according to estimates. "This law was
designed as a get-out-of-jail-free card for those who tortured, killed and
disappeared people in Uruguay," said Guadalupe Marengo, Americas Deputy
Director at Amnesty International. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. A/52/44, paras.
81-94 (1996) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/uruguay1996.html [accessed 12 March
2013] 91. The Committee
regrets the State party's delay in giving effect to the recommendations made
during the consideration of Uruguay's initial report. The Committee is
particularly concerned at the following: (a) The continuing gaps
in Uruguayan legislation which are impeding full implementation of the
provisions of the Convention; (b) The lack of a
provision introducing a definition of the crime of torture into domestic law
in terms compatible with article 1, paragraph 1, of the Convention; (c) The persistence
in Uruguayan law of provisions concerning obedience to a superior, which are
incompatible with article 2, paragraph 3, of the Convention. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For more
articles:: Search Amnesty
International’s website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=uruguay+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 20 January 2019] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61744.htm [accessed 15
February 2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61744.htm [accessed 7 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices, and unlike last year, there were no reports that
government officials employed them. The judicial and parliamentary branches
of government are responsible for investigating specific allegations of
abuse. Human rights groups reported that police sometimes mistreated
detainees. Detainees rarely filed complaints, but the government investigated
those complaints that were filed. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 1 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/uruguay [accessed 15
February 2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] The judiciary is
relatively independent but has become increasingly inefficient in the face of
escalating crime, particularly street violence and organized crime. The court
system is severely backlogged, and pretrial detainees often spend more time
in jail than they would if convicted of the offense in question and sentenced
to the maximum prison term. Allegations of police mistreatment, particularly
of youthful offenders, have increased. However, prosecutions of such acts are
also occurring more frequently. Prisons, which are overcrowded, were at 128
percent capacity in 2008. Many prisoners rely on visitors for food, and
medical care is substandard. According to a 2008 Honorary Anti-Tuberculosis
Commission report, 35 percent of Uruguay’s prison population has
tuberculosis. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
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ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century-
Uruguay", http://gvnet.com/torture/Uruguay.htm, [accessed <date>] |
