Editing Torture (section)

===Abolition and continued use===
[[File:Goya y Lucientes, Francisco de - The custody of a criminal does not require torture - Google Art Project (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|"The custody of a criminal does not require torture" by [[Francisco Goya]], {{circa|1812}}]]
Torture remained legal in Europe during the seventeenth century, but its practice declined.{{sfn|Einolf|2007|p=109}}{{sfn|Beam|2020|p=400}} Torture was already of marginal importance to European [[criminal justice system]]s by its formal abolition in the 18th and early 19th centuries.{{sfn|Einolf|2007|pp=104, 109}}{{sfn|Beam|2020|p=404}} Theories for why torture was abolished include the rise of [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] ideas about the value of the human person,{{sfn|Hajjar|2013|p=19}}{{sfn|Wisnewski|2010|p=25}} the lowering of the standard of proof in criminal cases, popular views that no longer saw pain as morally redemptive,{{sfn|Einolf|2007|p=109}}{{sfn|Wisnewski|2010|p=25}} and the expansion of imprisonment as an alternative to executions or painful punishments.{{sfn|Hajjar|2013|p=19}}{{sfn|Beam|2020|pp=399–400}} It is not known if torture also declined in non-Western states or European colonies during the nineteenth century.{{sfn|Einolf|2007|p=111}} In China, judicial torture, which had been practiced for more than two millennia,{{sfn|Evans|2020|loc=History of Torture}} was banned in 1905 along with flogging and ''[[lingchi]]'' ([[dismemberment]]) as a means of execution,{{sfn|Bourgon|2003|p=851}} although [[torture in China]] continued throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Guo |first=Zhiyuan |date=2019-03-20 |title=Torture and Exclusion of Evidence in China |journal=[[China Perspectives]] |volume=2019 |issue=1 |pages=4553 |doi=10.4000/chinaperspectives.8742 |issn=2070-3449 |doi-access=free}}</ref>{{Sfn|Pérez-Sales|2016|p=155}}

Torture was widely used by [[colonial powers]] to subdue resistance and reached a peak during the anti-colonial wars in the twentieth century.{{sfn|Einolf|2007|p=112}}{{sfn|Hajjar|2013|p=24}} An estimated 300,000 people [[Torture during the Algerian War of Independence|were tortured]] during the [[Algerian War of Independence]] (1954–1962),{{sfn|Pérez-Sales|2016|pp=148–149}} and the United Kingdom and Portugal also used torture in attempts to retain their respective empires.{{sfn|Barnes|2017|p=94}} Independent states in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia often used torture in the twentieth century, but it is unknown whether their use of torture increased or decreased compared to nineteenth-century levels.{{sfn|Einolf|2007|p=112}} During the first half of the twentieth century, torture became more prevalent in Europe with the advent of [[secret police]],{{sfn|Wisnewski|2010|p=38}} [[World War I]] and [[World War II]], and the rise of [[communist state|communist]] and [[fascist]] states.{{sfn|Einolf|2007|p=104}}

Torture was also used by both communist and anti-communist governments during the [[Cold War]] in Latin America, with an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 victims of torture by United States–backed regimes.{{sfn|Einolf|2007|pp=111–112}}{{sfn|Hajjar|2013|pp=27–28}} The only countries in which torture was rare during the twentieth century were the [[liberal democracies]] of the West, but torture was still used there, against ethnic minorities or criminal suspects from marginalized classes, and during overseas wars against foreign populations.{{sfn|Einolf|2007|p=112}} After the [[September 11 attacks]], the US government embarked on [[enhanced interrogation techniques|an overseas torture program]] as part of its [[war on terror]].{{sfn|Hajjar|2013|pp=1–2}} It is disputed whether torture increases, decreases, or remains constant.{{sfn|Einolf|2023}}

[[Black site]]s are used in the 21st-century as a means to torture detainees, [[CIA black sites|including by the CIA]].<ref>{{cite web |last= Tate |first= Ryan |date= 9 December 2014 |title= Nine CIA 'Black Sites' Where Detainees Were Tortured |url= https://theintercept.com/2014/12/09/map-of-cia-black-sites/ |website= The Intercept |access-date= 26 April 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date= 14 September 2016 |title= The dark prisoners: Inside the CIA’s torture programme |url= https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/9/14/the-dark-prisoners-inside-the-cias-torture-programme |work= Al Jazeera |access-date= 26 April 2025}}</ref>