To Karen Tse, torture is entirely man-made. 

‘Torture is not something that came down from the sky,’ she said.

Tse, an international human rights defender, spoke at Hendricks Chapel on Tuesday evening as the third speaker of the University Lectures series this semester. The lecture was co-sponsored by the honors program with the College of Law and the School of Education. 

Tse primarily spoke of her experience in Cambodia, where she encountered several tortured prisoners, including a 12-year-old boy. It was during her time there that she realized the need for the integration of fair legal systems in countries around the world where human rights are ignored, she said.

‘I began to realize that it was not only Cambodia, but it was countries throughout the world that had this issue,’ Tse said.

After her time in Cambodia, Tse formed the nonprofit International Bridges to Justice in 2000 to promote systemic global change and support human rights, she said. The organization works to implement due process of law in courtrooms of countries that do not give people fair trials.

There are 113 countries in the world currently practicing torture, Tse said. Of those countries, 93 of them have passed laws within the last decade that say their citizens have a right to a lawyer and a right to not be tortured, Tse said. But sometimes these laws are ignored, and torture is used anyway, she said.

‘Today there are laws, but we need to stand up and we need to work,’ she said.

It is important for human rights activists to lay the groundwork for improvement, Tse said.

‘I think it’s important that we actually do the work of building legal infrastructure that gives early access to counsel for people,’ she said.

Tse also founded JusticeMakers, an online program that allows people to apply for a $5,000 fellowship to administer projects looking to end torture and implement due process, she said. She said she wanted to urge everyone to think about ways in which they can support the initiatives of programs such as JusticeMakers and IBJ.

‘There’s so much more that we could do,’ Tse said. ‘It’s about concrete resources to make it happen.’

SU students, faculty and various members of the community attended the lecture, filling nearly all of the floor seats in Hendricks.

Angela Binion, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she originally planned to attend the lecture because the honors program required her to, but she stayed longer than planned because she was impressed with Tse and the lecture.

‘It was better than expected, for being something that was required,’ Binion said. 

Before Tse’s speech, Binion had not heard stories of countries that use torture on their prisoners, she said. She was surprised such things would be allowed in the 21st century, she said.

‘It brought light to what’s going on internationally,’ Binion said. ‘It shows the corruption.’

snbouvia@syr.edu

Published on March 22, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Stephanie: snbouvia@syr.edu | @snbouvia