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{
    "id": 720025,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/720025/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 56,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Dawood",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2572,
        "legal_name": "Abdul Rahim Dawood",
        "slug": "abdul-rahim-dawood"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker for giving me this chance to support the Prevention of Torture Bill. Previously in this country, we used to have a problem. People used to be taken to the torture chambers. There used to be a dreaded police unit known as “Special Branch”. Thankfully, that name has since been changed to National Intelligence Service (NIS). I hope they did not inherit the bad habits of the Special Branch. Hon. Speaker, this Bill specifies what needs to be done. We do not have to go about meting out injustices or torturing suspects so that we can get information out of them. Many times, people have lost parts of their bodies like limbs and fingers. You know the way people get tortured is very inhumane. I believe that people who have gone through torture may not be able to sleep well. They may go into depression and experience all manner of bad things. This Bill goes very far in criminalising each and every kind of torture, be it physical or mental. We have incidences where people have been tortured mentally. You may be followed by State security agents everywhere you go merely because you are a suspect. That person will need to be hospitalised in an institution where he might not even come back. We need to see how we can go about it. When somebody is tortured by any agent of the State, the responsibility of compensating that person should not just fall on the State. It should be shared with the individuals responsible for the torture. Once the law against torture becomes operational, there should be no reason for the State to compensate victims of torture. The perpetrator of torture should be personally held responsible. His or her property should be attached for purposes of paying reparations to the persons whom he or she has tortured. Hon. Speaker, previously, we had many cases even in Meru. Sometimes back, people used to be taken to the forest where they were made to confess to crimes that they did not commit. Because they would want to escape the torturers’ hands, they would accept that they were criminals and they would be sentenced for no reason at all. There was a time when the President talked about it and apologised for whatever had happened back then. There were times when people would be taken from one town to another and they would be abandoned there. They would be tortured there. We have not been able to do much about it. I agree with the extradition of drug suspects. We need to get hold of all the drug lords in this country, if we are to set our country free from the menace of drug trafficking. I do not know if their rights were infringed or not but, apparently, they did bad things to other people. If they were tortured, it would not really matter because of what they did to other people. As I support this Bill, we should have a way of calculating the amount payable to victims of every kind of torture. We should do our civic duty of informing the people that when they are arrested or taken into custody, they are not supposed to be tortured. Rather, they should be treated humanely. We should not interfere with the human dignity in everything we do. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}