Recent Book: Evil into Evil: Torture: Cancer of Democracy
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6303600710 |
| Author | J. D.-H. Chapman |
| Published date | 01 July 1963 |
| Date | 01 July 1963 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
or feet; Humiliations, such as causing
Muslims to dance naked in front of
their relatives and neighbours. (He
expressly excludes what he describes
as"
the well-known'
beat-up'
method,
against which no-one protests".) He
ends with the judicious comment that
" some of the forms of violence used
are
unacceptable-but
some of the
reports of results obtained are first-
class ",
He concluded
that"
as the efficiency
of the police depends upon their being
able to use
certain'
methods',authority
must back up those police who will
be using these
methods"
and
that"
the
screen of hypocrisy surrounding these
police' procedures' must be removed".
In fact, however, the hypocrisy
steadily increased. As time passed,
the task was largely taken out of the
hands of the police and handed over
to .. specialist" military units, such as
that established in the notorious
Ameziane Farm, while indignant
denials of atrocities were regularly
made in Paris.
It
was around such
nuclei and the .. twisted and fanatical
officers" (General De Gaulle's words)
who ran them
that
the O.A.S. cohered,
finally to threaten the metropolitan
government itself with murder, violence
and chaos.
M. Vidal-Naquet seeks to prove the
universality of the attitudes leading to
the use of torture and brutality by
reference to contemporary events out-
side France. Some of his examples will
startle British police officers. It is
inept to cite the case of Podola and the
treatment of Nuclear Disarmament
demonstrators (as illustrating the
.. sanctity and impregnability" enjoyed
by the British police) in such close
proximity to the chapters on torture as
an instrument of state.
The author also refers to Cyprus,
and to Kenya. The parallels are not
exact, but one closes the book rather
uneasily. Could it possibly
...
?
J. D.-H.
CHAPMAN
REfJENT
BOOKS
EVIL
INTO
EVIL
PIERRE
VIDAL-NAQUET:
Torture: Cancer
of
Democracy. Translated by Barry
Richard. Penguin Books. 3s. 6d.
.. The part played by torture through-
out the Algerian war can be summed
up in a few words; it started as a police
method
of
operation, developed into
a military method
of
operation, and
then ultimately turned into a clandes-
tine State institution which struck at
the very roots
of
the life
of
the nation."
This is the theme of this alarming
book, which traces the malignant
growth of torture as a deliberate
method of obtaining intelligence and
confessions both in Algeria and in
metropolitan France itself.
The introduction points out that
torture was a legal, normal and
commonplace institution in France up
to the time of the Revolution, stem-
ming from the provisions of the Roman
law against crimen majestatis, and goes
on to suggest
that
in the 19th century
it became an accepted method in the
colonies, and, after its re-introduction
into occupied France by those work-
ing under the German Abwehr, became
endemic there, especially in the counter-
intelligence sections.
The main emphasis is on the events
in Algeria from 1954 to 1961, and here
the detailed record is horrifying,
not
so
much because of the bestiality and
cruelty of the practices described,
which in the circumstances, though
utterly unacceptable, were at least
comprehensible, but because of the
bland hypocrisy of the central govern-
ment which made ineffectual gestures
to prevent the spread of the cancer
while actually closing its eyes to its
growth and to the mortal perils which
it inevitably brought to the very heart
and home of the .. Rights of Man ".
The full text of the Guillaume
Report of 1955(presumably authentic)
is included as an appendix. This highly
respected senior civil servant found
that
torture had in fact been extensively
used by both police and military units.
He conscientiously lists the main
methods; the Water Method; the
Water-Pipe Method; Electric Shock
to armpits, neck, nostrils, anus, penis
LAW AND PROCEDURE IN MAGISTRATES' COURTS
JAMES
WHffESlDE
and J. P.
WILSON
(Editors): Stone's Justices' Manual 95th
Edition, 1963. Butterworths. Thick edition, 120s.; thin edition, 125s.
The Police Service will welcome the said
that
Stone is indispensable to
95th edition of this work.
It
is often practitioners, magistrates, and their
July 1963 360
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