Shedding light on a dark practice 8 Introduction The IRCT promotes torture documentation and the Istanbul Protocol through training, advocacy, university collaboration and facilitation of forensic exams and reports. Visit www.preventingtorture.org for more information. Dear reader, In the following pages a range of health and legal experts from around the world share their knowledge and experiences on documenting and reporting cases of alleged torture. Their insights are complex and many, but their message is clear and simple: torturers must be held accountable, and survivors must be given access to justice. It is a message to be heeded. While torture has been consistently prohibited in international law for more than half a century, it continues to be practiced in at least 100 countries around the world. And though the United Nations Convention against Torture obliges states to fully investigate all torture allegations and prosecute those responsible, the majority of perpetrators go unpunished and most victims do not receive the support and compensation they are entitled to. The Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment – commonly known as the Istanbul Protocol – was devised to address this problem. It provides a set of internationally recognised, practical guidelines for establishing medical evidence that can be used in court to prove allegations of torture. Such guidelines are crucial given that most torture methods are often designed to have maximum impact while leaving minimum detectable signs. In essence, what the Istanbul Protocol does is to equip medical doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists with a tool to objectively determine whether a person’s claim that he or she has been tortured can be medically verified. A major asset of this tool is that it enables the detection of physical and mental signs of torture even long after the abuse has occurred. Moreover, the Protocol provides legal professionals with clear guidelines on how to conduct torture-related proceedings, including how to present and consider forensic evidence. 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the Istanbul Protocol. Since its inception it has gained increasing recognition and