How to stop torture - Karen Tse

[Music] [Music] [Applause]

In 1994, I walked into a prison in Cambodia, and I met a 12-year-old boy who had been tortured and was denied access to counsel. As I looked into his eyes, I realized that for the hundred of letters that I had written for political prisoners, I would never have written a letter for him because he was not a 12-year-old boy who had done something important for anybody. He was not a political prisoner; he was a 12-year-old boy who had stolen a bicycle.

What I also realized at that point was that it was not only Cambodia, but of the 113 developing countries that torture, 93 of these countries have all passed laws that say you have a right to a lawyer and your right not to be tortured. What I recognized was that there was an incredible window of opportunity for us as a world community to come together and end torture as an investigative tool.

We often think of torture as being political torture or reserved for just the worst, but in fact, 95% of torture today is not for political prisoners. It is for people who are in broken down legal systems, and unfortunately, because torture is the cheapest form of investigation—it's cheaper than having a legal system, cheaper than having a lawyer and early access to counsel—it is what happens most of the time.

I believe today that it is possible for us as a world community, if we make a decision to come together, to end torture as an investigative tool in our lifetime. But it will require three things. First is the training, empowerment, and connection of defenders worldwide. The second is ensuring that there is systematic early access to counsel, and the third is commitment.

So, in the year 2000, I began to wonder, what if we came together? Could we do something for these 93 countries? I founded International Bridges to Justice, which has a specific mission of ending torture as an investigative tool and implementing due process rights in the 93 countries by placing trained lawyers at an early stage in police stations and in courtrooms.

My first experiences, though, did come from Cambodia. At the time, I remember first coming into Cambodia, and there were, in 1994, still less than 10 attorneys in the country because the Khmer Rouge had killed them all. Even 20 years later, there were only 10 lawyers in the country. Consequently, you'd walk into a prison and you would meet women; you'd say, "Why are you here?" A woman would say, "Well, I've been here for 10 years because my husband committed a crime, but they can't find him." So, it was just a place where there was no rule of law.

The first group of defenders came together, and I still remember, as I was training, I said, "Okay, what do you do for investigation?" and there was silence in the class. Finally, one woman stood up, and she said, “Nekru,” which means teacher. She said, “I have defended more than 100 people, and I've never had to do any investigation because they all come with confessions.”

We talked about, as a class, the fact that number one, the confessions might not be reliable, but number two, we did not want to encourage the police to keep doing this, especially as it was now against the law. It took a lot of courage for these defenders to decide that they would begin to stand up and support each other in implementing these laws.

I still remember the first cases where they came all 25 together; she would stand up, and they were in the back, and they would support her. The judges kept saying, "No, no, no, no, we're going to do things the exact same way we've been doing them." But one day, the perfect case came, and it was a woman who was a vegetable seller. She was sitting outside of a house; she says she actually saw the person run out who she thinks stole whatever the jewelry was. But the police came, they got her; there was nothing on her.

She was pregnant at the time; she had cigarette burns on her; she miscarried. When they brought her case to the judge for the first time, he stood up and he said, “Yes, there's no evidence except for your torture confession, and you will be released.” The defenders began to take cases over and over again, and you will see they have step by step begun to change the course of history in Cambodia.

But Cambodia is not alone. I used to think, “Well, is it Cambodia or is it other countries?” But it is in so many countries. In Burundi, I walked into a prison, and it wasn’t a 12-year-old boy; it was an eight-year-old boy for stealing a mobile phone. Or a woman—I picked up her baby, a really cute baby—I said, "Your baby's so cute," and she said, "Yeah, but she's why I'm here because she was accused of stealing two diapers and an iron for her baby," and still had been in prison.

When I walked up to the prison director, I said, "You've got to let her out; a judge would let her out." He said, "Okay, we can talk about it, but look at my prison: 80% of the 2,000 people here are without a lawyer. What can we do?" So, lawyers began to courageously stand up together to organize a system where they can take cases.

But we realize that it's not only the training of the lawyers but the connection of the lawyers that makes a difference. For example, in Cambodia, it was that Pong did not go alone, but she had 24 lawyers with her who stood up together. In the same way, in China, they always tell me it's like a fresh wind in the desert when we can come together.

Or in Zimbabwe, where I remember Innocent coming out of a prison, where everybody stood up and said, "I've been here for 1 year, 8 years, 12 years without a lawyer." He came, and we had a training together, and he said, "I have heard it said," because he had heard people mumbling and grumbling, "I have heard it said that we cannot help to create justice because we do not have the resources."

And then he said, "But I want you to know that the lack of resources is never an excuse for injustice." With that, he successfully organized 68 lawyers who've been systematically taking the cases. The key that we see, though, is training and then early access.

I was recently in Egypt and was inspired to meet with another group of lawyers, and what they told me is they said, "Hey, look, we don't have police on the streets now. The police are one of the main reasons why we had the revolution; they were torturing everybody all the time." I said, "But there have been tens of millions of dollars that have recently gone into the development of the legal system here. What's going on?"

I met with one of the development agencies, and they were training prosecutors and judges, which is a normal bias as opposed to defenders. They showed me a manual, which actually was an excellent manual. I said, "I'm going to copy this." It had everything in it; lawyers can come at the police station; it was perfect. Prosecutors were perfectly trained. But I said to them, "I just have one question: by the time that everybody got to the prosecutor's office, what had happened to them?"

After a pause, they said, "They had been tortured." So, the pieces are not only the training of the lawyers but us finding a way to systematically implement early access to counsel because they are the safeguard in the system for people who are being tortured.

As I tell you this, I'm also aware of the fact that it sounds like, “Oh, okay, it sounds like we could do it,” but can we really do it? Because it sounds big, and there are many reasons why I believe it's possible. The first reason is the people on the ground who find ways of creating miracles because of their commitment.

It's not only Innocent, whom I told you about in Zimbabwe, but defenders all over the world who are looking for these pieces. We have a program called Justice Makers, and we realize there are people that are courageous and want to do things, but how can we support them? So it's an online contest where it's only $5,000 if you come up with an innovative way of implementing justice, and there are 30 Justice Makers throughout the world from Sri Lanka to Swaziland to the DRC who, with $5,000, do amazing things through SMS programs, through parallel...