Guantanamo currently has 800 prisoners in the only detention center known throughout the world. But no one knows exactly how many of those captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq are now locked in secret prisons that exist in countries of Eastern Europe, or how many were taken to prisons in Morocco, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan, where torture is common practice. The confession of the CIA comes just before the U.S. Government prohibited explicitly using a method of torture that consists of simulating drowning. The practice of torture to obtain information is common in police stations in Latin America, Africa and Asia. If efforts to eradicate these humiliations have advanced into something, it is partly due to international pressure from countries with a strong tradition as a State of law. If these countries do not maintain a coherence, who shall ensure by those rights? If the guilt of persons is conditioned at a price in dollars, if the life of people who have not had judgment and still has not demonstrated his guilt is truncated by a degrading experience not only for them, but also to the Western world that defends the values of freedom and the rule of law, political and social order of the world is in danger.

This fight would also be in danger if used utility arguments which, until today, work because the use of torture has not prevented the attacks in Iraq, in Afghanistan, Algeria and Morocco. In addition to the latent danger posed to Western countries, where have arrested a terrorist cell with the intention of killing. If arguments based on the utility sought, Governments that claim to defend our freedom will focus its efforts in creating effective methods of torture to get the information they need. In fact, they are already getting it with their hidden cameras, with information from our shopping by Internet and our bank details. The fight against torture should be based on ethical principles that we must defend if we intend to be civilized.