Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for various reasons, including punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions of torture are restricted to acts carried out by the state, but others include non-state organizations. A variety of methods of torture are used, including psychological methods to provide deniability. Beating is the most common form of physical torture. Most victims of torture are poor and marginalized people suspected of crimes, although torture against political prisoners or during armed conflict has received disproportionate attention. Torture is prohibited under international law for all states under all circumstances and is explicitly forbidden by several treaties. Opposition to torture stimulated the formation of the human rights movement after World War II, and torture continues to be an important human rights issue.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1844: Julia Gardiner married President John Tyler at the Church of the Ascension in New York, becoming the first lady of the United States. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Gardiner_Tyler> 1889: Bangui, the capital and largest city of the present-day Central African Republic, was founded in French Congo. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangui> 1907: Organized by Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, among others, Bolshevik revolutionaries robbed a bank stagecoach in Tiflis, present- day Georgia. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1907_Tiflis_bank_robbery> 1997: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first book in the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels by J. K. Rowling, was published. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher%27s_Stone> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: distance: 1. (transitive) 2. Often followed by from: to set (someone or something) at a distance (noun sense 1.1) from someone or something else. 3. To cause (a place, a thing, etc.) to seem distant, or (figurative) unfamiliar. 4. To leave behind (someone or something moving in the same direction; specifically, other competitors in a race) some distance away; to outpace, to outstrip. 5. (figurative) 6. To keep (someone) emotionally or socially apart from another person or people. 7. To exceed or surpass (someone, such as a peer or rival); to outdo, to outstrip. 8. (reflexive) To keep (oneself) away from someone or something, especially because one does not want to be associated with that person or thing. 9. (chiefly US, horse racing, archaic) Of a racehorse: to beat (another horse) by a certain distance; also (passive voice), to cause (a horse) to be disqualified by beating it by a certain distance. 10. (obsolete) 11. To cover the entire distance to (something). 12. To depart from (a place); to leave (a place) behind. 13. To indicate or measure the distance to (a place). 14. To set (two or more things) at regular distances from each other; to space, to space out. 15. (intransitive, reflexive) Often followed by from. 16. To set oneself at a distance from someone or something else; to move away from someone or something. 17. (figurative) To keep oneself emotionally or socially apart from another person or people; to keep one's distance. [...] <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/distance> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: Man should possess an infinite appetite for life. It should be self-evident to him, all the time, that life is superb, glorious, endlessly rich, infinitely desirable. At present, because he is in a midway position between the brute and the truly human, he is always getting bored, depressed, weary of life. He has become so top-heavy with civilisation that he cannot contact the springs of pure vitality. --Colin Wilson <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe write to: [email protected] Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
