The second panel Torture as a disgrace of the 21st century gave voice to Artur Ligęska who described his traumatic experiences in prison in Abu Dhabi – he was convicted in the United Arab Emirates for life but later acquitted in May 2019. Also the following persons spoke out on the matter of contemporary torture: Andrii Chernousov – Ukrainian expert; Vahe Grigoryan – Armenian lawyer and defender of human rights, judge of the Armenian Constitutional Tribunal; Joseph Hoffmann – lawyer and academic lecturer, he worked, among others, in the International Center of Comparative Law and Politics and at universities in Erlangen and Jena in Germany; Maria Książak – psychologist who completed the post-graduate course in trauma psychology and crisis as well as PTSD therapy at the Psychiatry Department of the Philadelphia University; and Przemysław Kazimirski – director of the NMPT. The discussion was moderated by Marzena Ksel, Ph. D. – member of the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture (CPT). Panel members indicated that there is a lack of awareness on what torture is and how to diagnose and effectively help the victims of ill-treatment. Panelist also agreed that suitable legal regulations are missing which would guarantee that torture perpetrators receive a punishment commensurate with the committed act. I had not seen people for 8 months, I was tortured. What I saw were atrocities. (…) People were chained and they looked more like camels than human beings. (…) what I saw there was analogical to concentration camps from the second world war. Artur Ligęska Statements of the NMPT as a form of building an attitude of non-tolerance towards torture and cruel and degrading treatment ☞ T  he prohibition of torture is unconditional and not subject to any limitations. Torture is one of the gravest violations of human rights, it constitutes an assault on human dignity and degrades the society which accepts it. Since 2017 the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture has been using an educational tool in the form of NMPT statements. The statements present the NMPT’s positions on events significant from the point of view of torture prevention. Such events may include the passing of a ruling by a national court or the ECHR, media announcements or adoption of a legislative act. In 2019 the NMPT issued 3 statements which were published on the website. The first concerned the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on the case Kanciał vs. Poland (application no. 37023/13). In the opinion of the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture it was a breakthrough judgement emphasizing not only the importance of appropriate and proportionate use of means of coercion by authorized services but first and foremost also the significance 18 PART II – How does the nmpt work?