Today,the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) commemorates the eleventh anniversary of the UN International Day in Support of Victims ofTorture to recognize the pain and suffering that victims and survivors oftorture throughout the world has gone through.
In 1984, the General Assembly adopted the UN Convention against Torture andOther Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), whichentered into force on 26 June 1987. It was an important step in the much-neededprocess of globalising human rights and acknowledging that torture, and allforms of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, are absolutely anduniversally illegal and should not be condoned. There can be zero tolerance fortorture. In 1997, the United Nations General Assembly decided to mark thishistoric date and designated 26 June each year as the International Day inSupport of Vic tims of Torture. The Convention obliges States to make torture acrime and to prosecute and punish those guilty of it. It notes explicitly thatneither higher orders nor exceptional circumstances can justify torture.

InChinese occupied Tibet, it has a long and reprehensive history of gross humanrights violations abetted by a political culture of impunity towards past humanrights violations. The torture and ill treatment are endemic in the widenetwork of prisons and detention centers across the Tibetan plateau.