This interview is part of the United Against Torture Consortium’s Voices for Human Dignity multimedia initiative. This initiative celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Convention against Torture (1984-2024) by giving a voice to torture victims, experts, and activists.
Oswaldo Rodriguez is one of tens of thousands of Mexican citizens tortured with impunity over the past two decades. In their so-called ‘War on Drugs’, Mexican police have used arbitrary arrest and torture to extract confessions from the innocent.
Detained in 2002 by State Police of Tlaxcala, east-central Mexico, and accused of kidnapping, Rodriguez was water boarded and electrocuted until he confessed to being a member of a drugs gang. The police also targeted his family.
“I also heard the screams of people in other rooms, and I became desperate from hearing the voice of my father as he screamed,” said Rodriguez, in an interview filmed by Mexican NGO the Collective Against Torture and Impunity (CCTI). Rodriguez was sentenced to 77 years in prison.
Article 15 of the UN Convention Against Torture, which Mexico ratified in 1986, obligates States Parties to, “ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings”. The Convention was adopted by the UN General Assembly 40 years ago on 10 December 1984, an anniversary the United Against Torture Consortium (UATC) is marking with a series of interviews with torture survivors, experts and activists.
After 15 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, CCTI helped secure Oswaldo’s acquittal and release. “The most difficult aspect of torture is not really the beatings. It’s more the damage that leaves you marked for the rest of your life,” said Rodriguez. I would prefer not to feel it. Fear of not knowing where next … I still need to do a lot of work. There is much left to do.”
In 2017, Mexico passed anti-torture legislation that prohibits the use of confessions obtained under torture. But a 2021 report by UATC member World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) found Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office remained unwilling or unable to implement the new law.
In November 2023, Rodriguez was on of 15 torture survivors from 13 countries in Latin America who met face-to-face with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (SRT) to share their experiences of torture and views on improving access to justice and reparation.
“It is a great achievement to stand in front of the Rapporteur and present my case,” said Rodriguez. “We are confident that we are on the right track. We are standing in a good place. All we ask of authorities is that they value the evidence we have.”
Watch the full interview with Oswaldo Rodriguez.
This content was produced by the United Against Torture Consortium (OMCT, IRCT, FIACAT, APT, Omega, and REDRESS), funded by the EU. The contents are the sole responsibility of UATC and do not necessarily reflect the position of the EU.