Torture-inflation

We earlier examined the case of rape inflation, a political and journalistic maneuver that has now risen, in some jurisdictions, to the level of a legal principle, whereby someone who has not literally committed rape -- or even sexual intercourse at all -- can still be convicted of "rape", so long as the Twitter votes are heavy enough.

And now we have a novel case of torture inflation:

http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/schweiz/die-schweiz-wegen-folter-verurteilt-1.18156009?extcid=Newsletter_25092013_Top-News_am_Morgen

The police-blotter facts: A man from Burkina Faso, having managed to make his way to Geneva, was at a notorious narcotics market in that city, when police asked to see his I.D.  He resisted;  a scuffle ensured, during which he bit a policeman, and suffered a broken shin.

Those facts, apparently, are not in dispute.   Where opinions diverge, is over what to do about it.

From the standpoint of the Confoederatio Helvetica, deportation of the perp would seem to be in order.  But the perp himself felt entitled to gentler treatment than he had found at the hands of the Swiss police -- gentleness of a sort by no means to be encountered in his savage homeland -- and complained to a European court in Strasburg, France.  (By “European”, I don’t mean in the sense of being merely “located somewhere in Europe”, but “operating supranationally”, in the One-World-Government sense of the familiar nightmare.)

Now, it is well known that the European Union (HQ: Brussels) is in a position to dictate to the member states, such things as how long their bananas must be.  (Belgium itself is unable to keep things civil as regards its own population, as between French and Flemish, but is eminently qualified to dictate terms to everyone else.)  But Switzerland is not a member of that multiheaded body.  So, how to interfere in a local police affair, becomes legally something of a puzzle.   They have no jurisdiction.

And so the answer is to appeal to some overarching human principle, so huge  as to trump all local or national legislation.  Switzerland was accordingly accused of torture.

And convicted.  And condemned to pay heavy damages to the perp.

As mentioned, the Swiss Confederation is not currently a member of the European Union.  But as one reader commented:  “...und somit ist klar, was uns beim Beitritt zur EU erwartet. Schludereien !”

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Für psychologisch tiefgreifende Krimis,

in pikanter amerikanischer Mundart,

und christlich gesinnt,

klicken Sie bitte hier:

http://www.linguasacrapublishing.com/justice.html

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Randbemerkung:  

None of this is to imply that the behavior of the Swiss police was impeccable;  we are in no position to know.   Our point is more basic:  That no-one should be allowed to go jurisdiction-shopping -- outside of the nation, even -- wielding a (bogus) cudgel to swat a fly.  

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Related to (and more common than) torture-inflation, is genocide-inflation.   That ruse is now so common, we need not even exemplify it.  Further, all attempts at johnny-come-lately genocide-one-upmanship  are already more than adequately policed by certain alertly watchful ethnic groups, who consider that they have an exclusive patent in that area, and resent any newcomers horning in.

[Update 5 Nov 2013]  Now here's a new one -- chemical weapons inflation!

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday hears about a love triangle, complete with attempted poisonings and 24-hour surveillance by postal inspectors. Although it sounds like an episode of Law & Order (with a dash of Days of Our Lives), the case has global implications.

In 2005, Carol Anne Bond was a 34-year-old Philadelphia suburbanite living with her husband of 14 years. But when she found out that her best friend was pregnant and that her own husband was the father, she became enraged and began threatening her friend, by phone and in writing.

Bond pleaded guilty to harassment charges in state court, but was not deterred. She quickly moved on to more dangerous conduct. Over the next eight months, Bond stole toxic chemicals from the chemical manufacturing company where she worked and ordered other chemicals over the Internet. She combined the chemicals into a compound that is potentially lethal in small amounts — and is also bright orange. Bond spread the toxic material on her rival's mail, mailbox, front doorknob, car door and other surfaces.

But because of the orange color, the mistress, Myrlinda Haynes, easily spotted the chemicals and avoided any injury except a thumb burn.

Haynes complained more than a dozen times to the local police, who refused to take any action. Eventually, her mail carrier alerted the Postal Service, which videotaped the betrayed wife spreading the chemicals 24 separate times.

So What Does All This Have To Do With A Treaty?

The federal government prosecuted Bond for violating the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty signed by the United States that bans the unauthorized use or storage of dangerous chemicals. Bond was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison — three times the sentence she could have received if the state had chosen to prosecute her.

She appealed to the Supreme Court, contending that the statute Congress passed to enforce the treaty is unconstitutional because it violates states' rights.

Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who represents Bond, contends that a simple assault case like this is the state's business to prosecute if it wishes to do so, not the federal government's. The treaty power, he argues, cannot trump the Constitution's structure of limited federal power.

"Is it really necessary to criminalize an individual's conduct" in a situation like this, he asks, "when it doesn't involve multiple victims or acts of terrorism?"

http://www.npr.org/2013/11/05/243029845/a-toxic-love-triangle-heads-to-the-supreme-court

Ludicrous.  Like something out of The Onion.
In Nina Totenberg's (excellent) segment on NPR this evening, she quoted one Supreme Court justice as observing that the convention as written could be read as applying to animals as well, and that therefore he himself could be charged with Crimes Against Humanity -- distributing a toxic substance -- on Halloween, since he gave chocolate to children :  chocolate being dangerous to dogs.

[Update 15 November 2014]  One Lesley McSpadden, mother of recently deceased Ferguson thug Michael Brown,  recently made state visit to Geneva, Switzerland, where, like Dennis Rodman donning a diplomatic hat that doesn’t quite fit, she  addressed the United Nations Committee Against Torture, who listened meekly and sagely to her address.

Now it does happen, in fact, that extensive torture is waged in the Saint Louis area, even against children.  It is not, however, the police who are here at fault, but rather that same ethnic community which Dame McFadden self-appointedly purports to represent.

A St. Louis woman was sentenced Friday to 78 years in prison after admitting to beating, whipping and waterboarding her children in a prolonged pattern of abuse that prosecutors described as "systematic torture."

Lakechia Schonta Stanley, 34, of St. Louis, faced 34 felonies, including multiple counts of assault…

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-woman-sentenced-years-in-prison-for-waterboarding-her/article_078697bb-8a60-5998-9f77-0a559e180325.html

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[10 Dec 2014]

Along with “torture inflation”, there is the antiparallel process of torture deflation -- minimizing it -- in the wake of yesterday’s Senate report.  Those who wish to defend the Bush-era practices call them “enhanced interrogation”.  And today’s press review on Medi1  referred to them simply as “des méthodes très musclées”, which sounds rather flattering.

A medieval instrument of Enhanced Interrogation

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