Over 40% in US support torture

THE number of Americans who would condone torture, at least when used on terrorists in order to save lives, has risen over the past two years and now stands at over 40%, according to a new opinion poll.

The poll released by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a project managed by the University of Maryland, found that a narrow majority of Americans — 53% — think all torture should be banned.

But 31% would accept it in terrorism cases to save innocent lives, and a further 13% said it should be allowed in other circumstances as well, the nationwide poll found. The remaining 3% did not know or did not answer. The margin of error was 3.3%.

WorldPublicOpinion said a 2006 poll found 36% of Americans would accept torture in terrorism or other cases, compared with 44% now.

The latest poll was part of an international survey of public attitudes to torture, which found that 57% of respondents in 19 countries opposed it under all circumstances. In India, Nigeria, Turkey and South Korea, a majority agreed with torture at least in some cases.

The findings were issued at the United Nations to mark International Victims of Torture Day yesterday.

The issue is controversial in the United States because of reports of tough questioning of terrorism suspects at US detention centres in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President George W Bush has said the US does not practice torture. But the CIA has admitted using “waterboarding”, a form of simulated drowning, and a recent Justice Department probe cited cases of sleep disruption, “short shackling” (shackling the suspect to the floor in a way the forces them to lie in foetal position or squat) and other physical techniques.

WorldPublicOpinion had little explanation for the apparent rise in US public tolerance for torture except to say that “the US public receives a steady stream of news reports about terrorist attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Some 145 of the 192 UN member states are parties to a 1985 UN convention banning torture. But Amnesty says a majority of states either practice it secretly or are complicit in it.