On 1 June 2011 in Seville, the Coordinadora para la Prevención y Denuncia de la Tortura (CPDT, a network that includes 44 associations) released its eighth annual „Report on torture in the Spanish state“, a comprehensive analysis of cases of torture enacted by police officers and public officials in different contexts that range from demonstrations and prisons to police stations and policing in the streets. The definition that is used in collecting these cases is drawn from art. 1 of the UN Convention against Torture (CAT):
„For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions“. (more on statewatch.org)
