Палаты пыток: история и устройство

Room where torture is inflicted

A torture chamber is a room where torture is inflicted. The medieval torture chamber was windowless and often built underground, dimly lit and specifically designed to induce horror, dread and despair. Another example of a torture chamber, perhaps not generally well known, is "The Thieves' Tower" in the Alsace region of France. Once a tower used for torture, it is now a small museum displaying instruments used upon the prisoners to get them to confess crimes. In Venice, the Palazzo Ducale had its own torture chamber, which was deemed to be of such importance that renovations started in 1507 so that the chamber walls could be kept strong and secure: "considerata la grandissima importantia de j cameroti di la Camera del tormento che siano forti e securi".

According to the narrations of Ashokavadana, King Ashoka, prior to his conversion to Buddhism, was a fierce and sadistic ruler, known as Ashoka the Fierce, who built a palatial torture chamber known as Ashoka's Hell. The legend of the torture palace is detailed in the writings of the Ashokavadana. According to Ashokavadana, Ashoka asked Girika, who was the official executioner of his kingdom, to design an elaborate torture chamber disguised as a beautiful and "enticing" palace adorned with all kinds of decorations and full of amenities such as exclusive baths decorated with flowers, fruit trees and many ornaments. It was artfully designed to make people long to just look at it. According to the accounts contained in the Ashokavadana, Girika, the architect of the chamber, was inspired by descriptions of the five tortures of the Buddhist hell for the design of the torture chamber and of the torture methods he inflicted upon his victims. The torture chamber was so terrifying, that King Ashoka himself was thought to have visited hell so that he could perfect its evil design. Ashoka made Girika promise that he would never allow anyone who entered the palace to exit alive, including Ashoka himself. Some time later a Buddhist monk by the name of Samudra happened to visit the palace and upon entering he was informed by Girika that he would be tortured to death, and was subsequently led into the torture chamber. His torturers however failed to injure him and he appeared able to neutralise their torture methods by performing miracles. Xuanzang in his writings mentions that in the 7th century AD he had visited the place where Ashoka's Hell once was.

The torture chamber was the final destination in a progression of four cell types during incarceration at the Palace of the Inquisition. The palace contained the Judgement Hall, the offices of the employees, the private apartments of the Grand Inquisitor and the detention cells adjacent to the apartments. The detention cell gradations started with the cells of mercy reserved mainly for rich transgressors who upon bequeathing all their property to the Inquisition were normally let go after a time of detention in the cells. For more difficult prisoners the next cell stage was the cell of penitence. These were situated in small round towers of about 3 metres (ten feet) in diameter. They were painted white and included rudimentary furniture such as a stool and a bed. Very little light was allowed in. If the prisoner did not cooperate, the next step in the detention process was the dungeon. The dungeon had walls 1.5 metres (five feet) thick, double doors and was in complete darkness. No conversation of any type was allowed in the dungeon. which served as headquarters for the Spanish Inquisition. It was used to torture Jews and other non Catholics. Approximately 800 individuals were put to death there.

The traditional torture users of modern times have been dictatorship governments e. g. the Nazis, Argentine military junta (at the Navy School of Mechanics), and the Chilean dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet as well as other South American regimes. The isolation felt inside the Nazi torture chambers was so strong that author, and victim, K. Zetnik, during his testimony at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961, has described them as another galaxy.

In Chile, during the Pinochet dictatorship, the use of converted locker rooms and skyboxes as torture chambers has been reported. The Esmeralda, a training ship of the Chilean Navy had also been used as a "floating torture chamber" during Pinochet's dictatorship. In 2011, protests erupted in Vancouver, Canada, upon a visit by the Esmeralda. In Santiago, Chile, Villa Grimaldi, once a cultural center, was used as a torture centre which included torture chambers. A tour of Villa Grimaldi has been described as a "tour of barbarity" featuring exhibits with descriptive signs such as "Place of hangings", "Torture chamber", "Annex torture chamber", "Women's cells 1x1 meter", "The Grill: Electric Beds" and others. Michelle Bachelet, who later became President of Chile, was tortured in a torture chamber during the Pinochet years. After the fall of Pinochet, the torture chamber victims and the relatives of the desaparecidos refused to strike a deal with Pinochet or with the politicians that followed him.

Use of torture chambers was also reported in Europe during the Greek military junta years (1967–1974). Alexandros Panagoulis and Army Major Spyros Moustaklis are examples of people tortured at the EAT/ESA (Greek Military Police) interrogation cell units. Jail cells, with dried blood on the floor and rusted shackles bolted to the walls, lined the corridors. In November 2004, U. S. Marines found a number of torture rooms in Fallujah by following trails of dried blood, or the smell of dead bodies. Some rooms were hidden behind fake walls, or concealed in basements. Libyans have entered abandoned torture chambers and found devices that have been used against opposition members in the past.

The CIA has been found to torture prisoners at black sites around the world.

In April 2022, evidence of the brutal mass rape and massacre by Russian forces of the residents of the Ukrainian town of Bucha came to light. Soldiers of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces said they had found eighteen mutilated bodies of men, women, and children in a summer camp's basement in Zabuchchya, near Bucha. Footage released by the Ukrainian army appeared to show a torture chamber in the basement. One of the soldiers said that some of the bodies had cut off ears or pulled out teeth, and that the bodies had been removed a day before the interview. An investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty verified that the basement was used as an "execution cellar" by Russian forces.