Is Torture Ever Justified?

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Lisa Hajjar points out that torture, by definition, is something that a government does to a person in its custody. Imprisoned people are vulnerable people. Whatever they did, or may be suspected of having done, once in our hands they are completely vulnerable to us.

Justice has many meanings and can be defined in many ways. But it is clear in the Scriptures that God’s understanding of justice tilts in the direction of the vulnerable. “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the Egypt.  Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry” (Ex. 22:21-23). As this text suggests, primary forms of injustice include the violent abuse and domination of the powerless by the powerful and their exclusion from participation in a community that cares about their rights and needs.

One reason why there are so many layers of procedures and protections given to accused and imprisoned persons in our legal system (and to prisoners of war in international law) is precisely their powerlessness at the hands of government authority. Justice requires attempting to balance the scales so that defenseless people are not overpowered or abused by governments. This is especially important in any legal system, which has the power to deprive people of their liberty, and sometimes their lives.  

The tens of thousands of people who have been detained by our government and military in the last seven years are, by definition, as prisoners, vulnerable to injustice. Those of them who have been abused or mistreated by representatives of our nation—as in the examples cited in this essay--are victims of injustice, however carefully we may define or excuse the treatment that we have meted out to them. They were in our hands and we abused our power over them. They were dominated, harmed, abused, and sometimes violated physically, even murdered. Christians must learn to care about justice—more, we must develop a deep passion for justice, the kind of passion for justice that God has, the one who hears the cries of the oppressed and dominated (Ex. 2:23-25). Torture is an injustice and must be protested as such.