Water torture

Water torture is torture using water. Because no external marks are left on victims of water torture, it is a favoured method of torture, and has notably been used against political prisoners in the People's Republic of China. Water torture was also popular in South Vietnamese prisons during the 1965-1973 war and also in South America during what was known as "Operation Condor" by Chile and Argentina. It was used as a legal torture and execution method by the courts in France in the 17th and 18th century, and was also employed by American soldiers during the Philippine-American War.

Haing S. Ngor, an Academy Award winning actor and survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s, explains in his book 'Survival in the Killing Fields' that water torture is in fact extremely painful. The water is dropped from a height of 7-8 feet which, over time, can be powerful enough to erode concrete. Haing Ngor was subjected to water torture over two days and was restrained with his head in a vise-like machine. The water gave him excruciating pain with each drop and wore some of the skin on his forehead away.

There are many forms of water torture:

• Water cure
• Waterboarding
• Dunking
• Very cold and hot water poured on victims in turn