A day without torture

Today will not be a day without torture, even if today, June 26, is the International Day in support of torture victims, established to encourage the application of the International Convention against Torture and other cruels, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. What's the use of such a day? to remember that many countries of the world still practice every day systematic torture against prisoners, migrants, political opponents. A recall to Italians that our country, despite having ratified the Convention, has never made a law to implement it.

And that's the reason why, inter alia, the policemen found guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment in the Bolzaneto barracks during the G8 in Genoa in 2001 have not been convicted for torture, even if what they did could not be named in any other way. So Italian citizens should know that if they are arrested and tortured have no hope that the culprits are actually punished.
Then there are countries in the world that have never ratified the Convention, such as Iran where in these days hundreds, perhaps thousands of opponents are arrested, or North Korea and Burma, where nobody knows what happens to prisoners. There are countries like Peru that have signed the Convention and ratified it but which nevertheless are of great concern regarding treatment of prisoners, especially if they belong to an oppresed and persecuted indigenous minority. And then there are the United States, that although members of the Convention and with solid civil rights at home, for years have killed, tortured and imprisoned without trial innocent persons only on the basis of suspicion of terrorism.
Then it's useful, an international day against torture. In Rome this evening goes on stage a show to remember the victims of torture and even the drama of rejection, in these days when a majority of migrants entitled to political refugee status are returned to Libya, a country that has signed the Convention but on which there are still many doubts about the real protection of human rights, especially against foreigners.
We need a day like this because world public opinion must become aware of what's happening in the world: the only way we will truly have someday a day without torture.