this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm sarah montague. in the a0 years since its introduction, almost every country in the world has signed the united nations convention against torture. that means states have an obligation to prosecute anyone considered to have perpetrated torture, and to prevent other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishments. my guest today is alice edwards, the un's special rapporteur on torture. with more wars in the world now than at any time since 1945, she says torture is at unacceptable levels. when she took up the job,

her priority was to build the foundations of a torture—free world. but is it fanciful to believe you can eradicate something that's been around for as long as humans have existed? alice edwards, welcome to hardtalk. thanks very much, sarah. the number of conflicts are on the rise. is torture on the rise, too? i think there is a direct correlation between the fact that we have 120 conflicts, armed conflicts going

on in the world right now, and what we're seeing are increasing reports of torture from multiple conflicts. how do you define torture? the general definition is from the un convention against torture, which is then used in more or less all the other international legal frameworks and is considered widely accepted without exception. essentially, severe pain or suffering that is inflicted on an individual with a specific purpose. so there's a purposeful intent, and that could be for the purpose of interrogating them, seeking a confession. it could also be for the purpose of oppression, discrimination and intimidation, and done by a public authority

or another person acting in an official capacity. there have also later been developments to say, well, where the state stands by and watches non—state actors perform those, uh, acts of cruelty, they can also be liable for those acts. 0k. so it can be by individuals, it can be by groups, non—state actors or nation states? yes, precisely. there's almost universal ratification of the treaty, which, i mean, in one sense, that's a remarkable success. there's only a few countries that haven't signed. but given that we're now talking about a rise in torture, one wonders what difference it's made. it's a fair question. there are now 175 states parties to the convention against torture. but more importantly than that, every state in the world has ratified a convention that prohibits torture of some form. the convention on the rights of the child, for example, also prohibits torture against children. that is a very positive thing that as a matter of rhetoric, there is accepted agreement. however, in practice,

there is a wide variation. what i say is there is no state with a perfect record. one could even categorise countries into different groupings. there are those states that blatantly use torture or cover up when it is used, but it is widely understood that they are using it by their populations, by the public officials and by the wider community. then there are a whole series of countries that perhaps are transitioning from dictatorship to democracy, who are emerging out of wars, who are building and trying to build democratic and human—rights—based communities. they are doing some good things and still have remnants and struggles of overcoming the past. and then one could have the batch of, say, western european countries that...in which some have entirely eradicated torture. they may have incidents of torture by certain officers, and then they may have one or two or three areas where they have serious

problems, such as in prisons, in policing peaceful assemblies, and also, regrettably, in their actions abroad. you have spoken to people who have been tortured. what is the effect of torture on the individual? the effect of torture is devastating. there is nothing more harmful than having your agency taken away by being placed in entirely a situation of powerlessness in which all the laws have gone out the window and there is a level of cruelty and brutality. and i think what distinguishes torture from other forms of assaults and beatings is it is a form of inhuman or degrading or cruel treatment. for those subjected to psychological torture, this is a long—time challenge to try and rid these awful memories that they have that may return. they may have injuries, they may have scars,

they may have reminders. let alone the context of sexual torture. and you're dealing with victims of torture all the time, and having been contacted by them. all the time. i spend a lot of my time interviewing, uh, victims and survivors. what is interesting about these survivors, when you get them in a room, is how shared their experiences are, regardless of whether you have the zimbabwean politician who's been taken away by the police in the middle of the night, or the fishmonger who happened to be going to her stall during the day and got caught up in a melee during a protest. the cruelty and the level of depravity that i hear, that is perpetrated on other

human beings, um, is really hard to handle, um, for them. it's very hard to handle for me. um, and it really shouldn't be in our...in the way in which we carry out, uh, business these days. 0k. so what does it tell us about those who are carrying it out? have you met torturers, too? i've met torturers, too. uh... and sometimes torturers don't know they're doing it. it's so normalised. iran a session in the gambia after they had their, uh, independence, um, and threw off the dictatorship. and we had a two—day training session. by day two, i thought, "i don't think people are "understanding what torture is. "so maybe we all need to start again and ask what do "they understand as torture?" and then we had this very positive discussion. and then i thought, "let me ask if anyone has ever tortured. "now we've understood

what torture is." and the hands went up. so people, sometimes for the first time in their lives, realise that what they had done was absolutely prohibited under international law, but that they were required to do it because they were part of the state. so, what, these are ordinary people pretty much? perpetrators, i think, could be anybody. 0k. now, you mentioned sexual violence, which is something in your most recent report, you argued sexual violence in conflict should be seen in law as torture. why? we've been doing a lot of work at the international community on addressing sexual and gender—based violence. and we haven't got that far. what the torture framework adds, and the benefits of it, is that, first of all, from a legal perspective, the torture prohibition is absolutely prohibited. no exceptions, no immunities for heads of state, no amnesties for anyone, and no statutes of limitations. which means no matter when you wish to report your torture, a prosecution can still happen.

contrast that with crimes, for example, of rape, where normally there are limits to when people must report. there are questions of consent. consent is not an element in the definition of torture. we don't ask victims of torture, for example, having been beaten or having been made to stand in stress position for hours, or having been hung up by their hands behind their heads, whether they consented to that torture. it is understood that they would not consent. so in being able to look at sexual violence, in particular rape, but also other forms within that context, i think we get a clear idea of what is actually going on, and better remedies for victims and survivors. 0k. so how do you go about it? i mean, you have to get all the nation states who signed it, to agree? no, we're not starting from scratch. there are a lot of jurisprudence that accepts that rape and other forms of sexual assaults can be torture. and this is most notably in the human rights courts, because they don't have any indication in there of rape

or sexual violence. so it's not that it's not accepted or understood. it's about allowing victims and survivors also to be able to call what has happened to them as torture. and the reason that is so important is because of the stigma that is attached to sexual violence that is not attached to being a victim of torture. well, let's talk about some other things you produced in your report and since the time you become the special rapporteur. on russia, on what's going on in ukraine with russia, you accused russia of using torture as a systematic, state—endorsed policy. and you said, "i think it's the first international armed "conflict we've had for a long

time where you have a high "volume of allegations of torture "of the old—fashioned kind." what did you mean by that? russia's full—scale invasion into ukraine is, first of all, what we used to call a crime against the peace, now a crime of aggression, understood as a violation of the un charter. and within that context, we have an army, the russian... ..of the russian federation, that is quite systematically... every time there is people being rounded up, prisoners of war, other forms of detainees, civilians and soldiers alike... ..they are using torture as a method to extract information or intelligence, to simply punish and humiliate ukrainians in the occupied territories, and within that context, sexual violence is being used. sometimes it's an escalation. so when they're not achieving their level of humiliation that they wish, they may scale up to

threats of sexual violence and then sexual violence. 0k. but you've got a situation where you're very clear in what you're saying. you've levelled the accusations. the un's committee against torture is made up of ten independent experts that monitor the implementation of the convention. one of its members is russian. and russia, of course, has a veto at the un. what does the russian state say about this when you're going to them and saying, "this is what i've found"? first of all, on the committee against torture and the russian member, on any review of russia, he would need to step aside. that is the way they work in terms of conflict of interest. the russian federation — i have approached them. i visited ukraine last year with two objectives. one was to look into allegations and investigations of sexual torture against ukrainians, and the second was to check on the standards of treatment that russian

prisoners of war were receiving from ukrainian authorities. even on that second point where, in fact, i was going to check on their own nationals, i did not receive any response. i asked them if they wanted to provide me with names and dates of birth, as well as possible locations, where i could find them, because my mandate allows me to travel without restrictions through... so russia didn't respond, even to check on their own? they did not respond, even to check on their own. i mean, the whole point about having a person in your position is to try to ensure some accountability. what do you do when you have a nation thatjust doesn't respond like that? well, so far, i continue to attempt to engage with them. they did officially respond when i delivered the report of my country visit to the human rights council. and i continue to raise issues with them. send letters. one of the most important points about all of this is the lack of access. my own access.

but actually, under the geneva conventions, the international committee of the red cross has a right to visit persons who are deprived of their liberty. and russia is also denying them access. i want to turn to somewhere else you mentioned in your report — sudan. i mean, you have one of the world's worst humanitarian crises there. half the population have been displaced and are facing acute hunger. that's more than 25 million people. a un investigation said there's no safe place in sudan now and accused both sides, both the sudanese army and the rapid support forces, of torture amounting to war crimes. what i wonder is when you have a situation like that, where a country has basically imploded, is what difference the convention makes. sudan is an interesting case study, because... i assisted the government to ratify the convention

against torture in the transition phase. in fact, i got a phone call the day before the coup happened, indicating that the bill to ratify the convention had now gone to parliament. that wouldn't have happened if bashir had not agreed. but the importance of that happening is that there is a framework for future accountability. sarah, quite often what i feel is that the work that we are doing is about documenting forfuture. it's not going to happen overnight. but we're talking... when you look at what we're talking about here, and the un talked about the sheer scale of sexual violence, it's staggering, he said, first—hand sources informed of rape of girls as young as eight and women as old as 75. what seems to be presented is both sides are being accused of war crimes. wouldn't they be prosecuted as war crimes? where does torture fit into that? yeah, prosecutor... torture is a war crime.

it can also be a crime against humanity and can also be a form of genocide. uh... i think in the context of sudan, there have not been efforts to look at what type of accountability mechanisms would happen. my preference for sudan, and actually it's the same preference for syria, is that there would be a internationalised or a hybrid treat...um... ..tribunal, which is a mix of international and national actors. and the reason why those are favoured by me is because not only is it...it has the imprimatur of an international body, so the world is watching, but at the same time they have the ability to capacitate national justice systems. so reform of laws, getting the judges on board, training the prosecutors so that when the peace arrives, and long after the peace, there will be apparatus in place to keep that going. 0k. well, let's turn to a very recent visit you made. you went to the kibbutzim in israel, which was attacked on december 7th 2023. was hamas guilty of torture in that attack?

the attacks on the 7th of october were...was...included acts such as massacres. 100... 1,200 people, estimated, were killed that day. the large majority were civilians, about 70 to 80%. and of the others, the commission of inquiry on israel and palestine has now said that they were hors de combat. so they were also... ..protected from such violence. in the context of what happened within that, there were some of the most egregious forms of torture that you can imagine. taking...cutting people's heads off, sarah, is a form of torture. 0k. so hamas guilty of torture in their attacks? absolutely. and very recently, the israeli

government sent you a report just last week on the physical and sexual abuse of hostages who have been released. there are, of course, still hostages held. hamas is guilty of torture? yes. hamas committed widespread torture on the day. 0k. you went to ramallah in the west bank. you haven't been able to go to gaza. what about israel? do you see evidence of torture in how it has acted in gaza? what i've been looking at primarily is the detention of large numbers of palestinians, soldiers and civilians, gaza, and also there's been an increase in detentions from the west bank. within that context, certainly the military has, uh, engaged in, uh... there are some allegations of torture as well as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. i'm very concerned about the sde teiman military base,

which now the supreme court is overseeing, uh... most of the detainees there have been moved out to other facilities. but i've now been informed that there are also problems in the ofer, another military facility. i've raised issues with the israelis around why they are blindfolding people for long periods of time, why they are handcuffing people for extensive periods of time. uh... because the idf has said that it ensures proper conduct towards detainees in custody and that any allegation of misconduct is examined and dealt with accordingly. are you satisfied? i'm not satisfied. essentially, what has happened since 7th of october is that there have been... ..an exponential growth in the number of people being detained by israel, which simultaneously also led the government to decide to reduce the conditions

in which people were held. so that is unacceptable. there are general, basic understandings about what conditions people need when they're in detention. i am concerned... also, there was a report quite widely documented of a... ..group rape, whether by object or by person, um, against a palestinian detainee. and i've spoken out about that, too. they are under investigation. the big problem with israeli investigations is that they are investigating themselves. so the line at international law is that they should be independent and impartial investigations. they may have parts within the israeli state that can do that, but the military should not be investigating themselves. have you been strong enough on israel? and the reason i ask this question is that last month,

palestinian groups wrote you a very critical open letter, saying that they're going to stop engaging with you. and they accused you of a lack of meaningful action, responsiveness and impartiality regarding israeli abuses. how do you respond to that criticism? i mean, this was a disappointing, uh, letter that they sent. um, i'm the only special rapporteur that has turned up to speak to them in, uh, in the state of palestine, in ramallah. so the fact that they took the decision not to meet with me when i was there to gather information and to hear their stories... what, they refused to meet you when you went to ramallah? they did refuse to meet me when i went to ramallah. um, i have not received much information over the last year from these organisations. they say they submitted multiple reports to you and requested meetings which have gone unanswered.

well, that is news to me. so i have actioned the information i have from several ngos, um, that i can name, and i have written to the israeli authorities on two occasions about allegations of torture and other ill treatment. i've met with the israelis on multiple occasions, which is part of the role, the kind of the letter writing and then what we call vertical filing. it gets filed and no—one does anything about it. i always make sure i follow up. i've done that four times with the israelis to make sure they're going to give me a response, to continue to put to them the allegations. now, that is... so you would justify... in response to them, you would say, "you're not being fair"? yes. they're not being fair. it is also, unfortunately, a misunderstanding about how the mandates operate. you don't have that much power? well, i don't have that much power, sarah. but at the same time, in order to act on cases, i need the consent of those individuals. so in order that they do not

get reprisals, etc, some information comes into the mandate, the organisations that send it, they don't have the consent of the individuals. which brings me back almost to where we started, which is where you have talked about eradicating torture. how...? is that a real...? it sounds fanciful. how can it be realistic, given that torture has been around as long as humans have existed? i think we need to set ourselves, as the international community, big goals. we had big goals at the end of the second world war. and we just need to keep striving towards them. we've got a lot more work to do to make human rights not only a legal system, but a system and a set of code of conduct that we all wish to live by. and, yes, there's a huge road left to go, and it's an incredibly frustrating position that on a daily basis, one is speaking to governments

about their practices and they are calling out other governments about their practices but denying their own. um, but one just has to keep putting it to the states and finding the evidence upon which one can show the documentation so that something can happen. alice edwards, thank you for coming on hardtalk. thank you very much, sarah. hello there. this cold, icy weather set

to continue for the rest of the working week. we've also had some fairly disruptive snow across parts of southern england. areas that haven't seen any snow for during this cold spell so far. so we continue with the sharp overnight frosts, further snow and ice in places mainly around coast, but as we head into the weekend, finally start to see a change of something less cold. as that area of low pressure clears away from the south, which brought the sleet and snow to southern england, it will leave a legacy of ice here. there will be further sleet and snow showers across northern scotland, northern ireland, some into north and west wales and ice could be a problem here as well. but for most it's going to be a very cold, frosty start with plenty of sunshine as we head into the afternoon, most places staying dry. but despite the sunshine after that very cold start, temperatures will struggle to get much above two or three degrees. we could reach four degrees or maybe even five degrees across the south—west. these will be the warmest spots, but it's a cold day, generally.

as we head through thursday night, temperatures fall like a stone under the clear skies. further wintry showers across northern and eastern coastal areas, and those temperatures really dip away. in fact, thursday night could be the coldest night of this spell so far, perhaps down to —17, or maybe even lower than that across the snow fields of scotland. for most, though, these are the towns and city values. something a little less cold for the far south—west. that's because we start to see a change. as we head into friday, this weather front will start to edge northwards and eastwards, very slowly pushing into this area of high pressure and it will tend to fizzle out. so it's the south—west of england, south wales. we'll see the cloud, maybe some sleet and snow. for most though, apart from a few coastal wintry showers, it's going to be a cold, dry, sunny day and again those temperatures struggling after that very cold start. friday afternoon we're looking

at freezing to around two or three degrees, but something less cold there for plymouth. and then that's the theme as we head into the weekend. this area of high pressure will bring quite a bit of sunshine, but we start to see south—westerly winds pushing in across the uk that will start to bring this milder air across scotland, northern ireland initially and then gradually across parts of england and wales. here it will be a slower change. as we head into next week, though, it will be evident. so we're into the low teens as we head into next week for scotland and northern ireland, and we'll be slowly getting less cold for england and wales, too. that's it from me.

live from washington, this is bbc news. disaster in los angeles. four wildfires are burning out of control. firefighters say they are short of water as the fires remain completely uncontained. at least 70,000 people have been ordered to flee their homes. more than a thousand buildings have been destroyed and authorities are warning all la residents that they are in danger. officials expect the fires to worsen due to ferocious winds, as president biden pledges extra firefighters and resources. hello. the death toll from california's wildfires has risen to five. four fires are continuing to burn out of control in the suburbs of los angeles. officials say despite best efforts, the fires are 0% contained. these are live pictures from los angeles. at least 70,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes — and tens of thousands more have been told to pack and be ready to go.