Water Torture: A woodcut depicting waterboarding included in J. Damhoudère's Praxis Rerum Criminalium, Antwerp, 1556

Water Torture: A woodcut depicting waterboarding included in J. Damhoudère's Praxis Rerum Criminalium, Antwerp, 1556.

Ever wonder how much water you would have to drink to kill you? Water has actually been used in various forms of torture and execution throughout history. Although you may be familiar with waterboarding, which refers to the torture technique of continually pouring water over the victim's face or head to elicit the fear of drowning, forced water ingestion was force feeding water down the victim’s throat until water intoxication occurred. Water intoxication, also known as overhydration, can lead to fatal consequences by throwing off the body’s balance of water and sodium

A variety of methods for torturing victims have been developed. In the Bathtub or Bañera, which is contaminated with hair, vomit, urine or excrement, the victim's head is held under water until the point of suffocation, then the victim is removed from the water and further interrogated. Or the subjects are immersed in water with a hood over their heads or while tied in a cloth sack that prevents breathing when the victims are taken out of the water. Wet towels can also be wrapped around the victim's face to prevent breathing. They are bound and squirted with water under high pressure in the mouth and nose. Another form is to expose the victim's body to dripping water for extended periods of time. During interrogation the naked prisoners can be regularly drenched with cold water. Victims are held naked for long periods of time in cells partially filled with water. They are forced to sleep on wet floors

INCIDENCE

Water torture has been reported in the following countries: [Africa] Djibouti, Gabon, Kenya. [America] Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay. [Asia] China, Indonesia, Iran Islamic Rep, Korea Rep, Syrian AR

Often the victim has the mouth forced or wedged open, the nose closed with pincers and a funnel or strip of cloth forced down the throat. The victim has to drink all the water (or other liquids such as bile or urine) poured into the funnel to avoid drowning. The stomach fills until near bursting, swelling up in the process and is sometimes beaten until the victim vomits and the torture begins again

While this use of water as a form of torture is documented back to at least the 15th century,[4] the first use of the phrase water cure in this sense is indirectly dated to around 1898, by U.S. soldiers in the Spanish–American War,[a] after the phrase had been introduced to America in the mid-19th century in the therapeutic sense, which was in widespread use. Indeed, while the torture sense of the phrase water cure was by 1900–1902 established in the U.S. Army, with a conscious sense of irony, this sense was not in widespread use. Webster's 1913 dictionary cited only the therapeutic sense

Torture that makes use of water still exists under the name of waterboarding. In this variation, emphasis is placed on inducing the sensation of drowning rather than forcing the individual to consume, and subsequently regurgitate, large quantities of water

America has used water to torture people for more than a century

suspects the third degree to try to get confessions out of them. The water cure was one of the tools in that arsenal

In 1910, US courts began throwing out confessions that had been obviously forced out of defendants, especially when defendents appeared in court still sporting bruises or broken teeth. That made the water cure more common, because simulated drowning left no marks on the body

The full extent of the abuse was exposed by a commission of inquiry appointed by President Herbert Hoover and led by former attorney general George Wickersham. Hoover appointed the commission to learn why the enforcement of alcohol prohibition was failing so badly. Wickersham took his assignment as an opportunity to lead a comprehensive review of law enforcement practices

One of his reports, published in 1931, was the Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement. It found that "the inflicting of pain, physical or mental, to extract confessions or statements ... is widespread throughout the country."

Psychologist G. Daniel Lassiter examined the report in detail for his 2004 book, Orchestrated Physical Abuse. He described police use of the water cure as a "modern day variation of the method of water torture that was popular during the Middle Ages."

He wrote that "the water cure consisted of holding a suspect's head in water until he almost drowned; or thrusting a water hose into his mouth or down his mouth; or forcing a suspect to lay on his back (if not already strapped to a cot or slab) while pouring water into his nostirils, sometimes from a dipper until he was nearly strangled."

Outrage at the findings of the Wickersham Commission led to police forces trying to rein in this kind of behaviour. But it’s believed to have persisted into the 1940s

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