That definition seems overly broad to me.
People wouldn't generally call keeping someone awake all night in order to try to get them to talk (inflicting suffering to obtain information), or slapping someone once because he threw feces at a guard (inflicting pain to punish him "for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed") torture.
And if they are torture, than torture has probably been committed by every major participant of every large war in history, and also happens in just about every prison system in the world.
There is a major difference between such things and breaking someone on a rack, or burning their eyeballs out. Different terms should be used for things with such major differences. Perhaps something like (in order of increased severity), rough treatment, mistreatment, severe mistreatment, torture, and extreme torture.
Now it may be decided that its wrong, or illegal, or should be illegal, to do things that fall well short of torture. Perhaps "severe mistreatment" or even just "mistreatment" is going to far and shouldn't happen. But even if we decide this, conflating carving someone up slowly with slapping someone or scaring them with dogs, doesn't serve any useful purpose. |
