La torture discrète : capital social, radicalisation et désengagement militant dans un régime sécuritaire

Abstract

During the 1980s and 1990s in Turkey, torture was commonly used against activists. I call this form of torture ‘discreet’ torture because it was usually applied discreetly and without long-term imprisonment. The paper argues that discreet torture does not aim at obtaining information but is part of a system of state repression designed to demobilize society. Use of violence by the police was not intended to ‘cure’ or ‘normalize’ individuals but to prevent them from effective social or political mobilization. The paper suggests that in most cases such torture did in fact leave individuals politically disengaged. However, in some cases it did lead to radicalization, which in places like the Kurdish-majority southeast could produce further mobilization. However, in neither case did such discreet torture increase social capital in the same way as did more open and longer-term torture.

Keywords

• torture
• authoritarian regime
• radicalization
• militancy
• social capital