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Torture Journal: Journal on Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture
Vol. 33 No. 3 (2023)We take a look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Jana Javakhishvili introduces the concept of “substitutive trauma,” which refers to the utilisation of unprocessed collective traumatic experiences by political leadership to create shared feelings of victimhood and vengeful attitudes within a population. The analysis explores how a substitutive trauma-based psycho-political dynamic culminated in February 2022 in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The article argues that the community of traumatic stress professionals, studying and understanding macro-societal processes, can contribute to reducing and ameliorating such destructive psycho-political developments. Most of Jana’s reasonings can surely by applied to the situation in Gaza.
Lopatina et al., present an analysis of the impact of the Russian occupation on the activities of Berdyansk State Pedagogical University in Ukraine, explaining the different challenges faced by the university community under occupation, particularly emphasising human rights violations and academic freedom and institutional resilience mechanisms to manage to maintain classes despite the invasion.
In a qualitative study with survivors and legal practitioners, Rud et al. also present data on resilience, but in this case of victims of torture in Russia. They analyse law enforcement institutions and ways they challenge an individual’s resilience as torturing environments and how it is faced, regardless of the vulnerabilities of the individual, their social status and institutional context. It is a path-breaking study that provides fresh perspectives on a subject that has been scarcely addressed in the anti-torture field.
Also on resilience in torture survivors is the editorial, with reflections, learnings and ways forward in a field that lacks more scientific research.
The issue also addresses the topic of torturing environments. Alejandro Forero’s paper reviews prison overcrowding as ill-treatment or torture under international law, focusing on three aspects: minimum standards with respect to living space, the use of tools to establish the existence of harm caused by inhuman conditions of incarceration and some corrective, restorative measures for prisoners that innovative jurisprudence is introducing.
Stroppa presents the work of Physicians for Human Rights Israel and Antigone on an International Guiding Statement of Alternatives to Solitary Confinement, proposing global guidelines for reducing and overcoming the use of solitary confinement in prisons.
Finally, a research study presented by Barbieri et al. examines the prevalence of hallucinations in a sample of treatment-seeking trauma-affected refugees. It analyses the relative role of torture and some other interpersonal traumatic events (i.e., imprisonment, sexual assault, non-sexual assault) as well as PTSD severity and a range of socio-demographic variables in the emergence of hallucinations.
Additionally, Castilla conducts a brief review of the recently published General Comment No.1 of the Committee against Forced Disappearances in the context of migration as a new opportunity to re-humanise the management of migrations in all regions of the world.
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Torture Journal: Journal on Rehabilitaiton of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture
Vol. 34 No. 1 (2024)This issue features a special section on the use of less lethal weapons and in particular the use of kinetic energy projectiles as a form of ill-treatment or torture.
Pau Pérez-Sales introduces this issue with an Editorial that reviews the specificities and complexities of strategic litigation in the cases of ocular injuries by less-lethal weapons, with a focus on the challenges of collecting evidence during and after the injury event, building on the Istanbul Protocol's medical and psychiatric assessments. It also explores possible litigation venues for human rights organisations and provides guidance on the ophthalmological, medical, psychological, psychometric and psychosocial aspects of evidence-gathering.
Matthew McEvoy, Neil Corney, Marina Parras and Rohini Haar present a comprehensive review of the state of the art from a medico-legal perspective based on Omega Foundation’s experience.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Edwards, recalls from her recent report to the UN General Assembly the existence of instruments that are inherently constitutive of torture concerning the use of less lethal weapons, and calls, in her contribution to the Journal, for their international prohibition.
Marie Brasholt and the Dignity medical team present a comprehensive review based on case studies published in the literature on the health impacts of electric shock weapons. This goes hand in hand with the Editorial, which comprehensively reviews elements related to the litigation of cases and, especially, the forensic assessment of eye injuries based on the Istanbul Protocol.
The reviews are followed by case studies with articles by Malose Langa and colleagues (South Africa), Jose Tejada and colleagues (Chile), Anaïs Franquesa and colleagues (Spain), and the MOCAO survivor’s organisation (Colombia). These contributions reflect the perspectives of the survivors and the enormous legal, medical and psychosocial difficulties faced by victims in all these countries.
In the Perspectives section, Carles Guillot provides a first-person testimony of his struggle as a victim of traumatic eye injury and the endeavours of the collective he represents.
Within the regular articles section, Jörg Alfred Stippel presents a review of cases of ill-treatment and torture in the Chilean penal system and Justine Dee a review of evidence-based physical therapies in torture survivors.
Finally, the issue closes with a couple of contributions on the situation of solitary confinement in Turkey based on a visit of a delegation of experts to the country, the situation of the high-security internationally contested prison system in El Salvador by Professor Lutz Oette, the situation of mentally ill persons in prisons in Kosovo by Niman Hajdari, and a letter by Andres Gautier on the situation in the occupied territories of Palestine.
The use of less lethal weapons as a form of ill-treatment or torture is probably one of the most comprehensive and complex issues to have emerged in the field in recent years and we are proud of the important role played by survivors in many of the articles we publish: Undoubtedly a distinct element that we want to maintain and enhance in the future.
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