UK interrogation techniques condemned

Prominent international forensic experts have strongly condemned the UK intelligence officers for the ways they use to investigate detainees abroad, which include hooding and torture.


A group of 33 experts published a joint article in the scientific journal, Torture, in which they have attested that hooding is associated with a number of physical and psychological effects that constitute torture.

The experts are members of the International Forensic Expert Group established by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT).

The British government is being challenged in the High Court on its guidance to spies on the detention and interviewing of detainees overseas, particularly in Iraq.

The practice of hooding typically involves covering the head of a detainee in some manner.

Hooding practices may vary and the effects of hooding may depend on a number of factors related to the application and context of its use.

Those factors include:
- the material composition of the hood (i.e. the effectiveness of sensory deprivation and interference with air exchange)
- duration and frequency of its use
- tightness of the hood around the head
- the presence of contaminants (i.e. urine, feces and blood) in the hood
- and the use of additional methods of torture and/or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (CIDT).

Meanwhile, mock executions, beatings and other methods of torture are often practiced in conjunction with hooding to maximize the infliction of physical and psychological pain.

Public Interest Lawyers and, in separate claims, the British Equality and Human Rights Commission are challenging UK government guidance - published as an annex to a document “Standards of Arrest, Detention and Treatment”.

The document states that methods of obscuring vision and hooding are unlawful, “except where these do not pose a risk to the detainees physical or mental health and is necessary for security reasons during arrest or transit.”

The international forensic experts have asserted in their journal article that “interrogation personnel are rarely aware of such conditions and cannot reasonably be expected to be able to make an assessment of whether the use of a hood would pose a risk to health”.

Miriam Reventlow, Head of Advocacy at the IRCT, pointed out that hooding is already illegal under international law.

“Key international human rights bodies have consistently considered that hooding constitutes a method of torture and/or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, where it is used together with other coercive techniques - which it regularly is”, said Reventlow.

“In order to ensure the absolute prohibition of torture, national courts and legislation should follow this interpretation and declare the use of hooding illegal under all circumstances,” added Miriam.

The IRCT is therefore calling on the British government, and other governments around the world to bring an end to this barbaric practice which has no place in modern democratic societies.