ESwatini case highlights police use of torture across region

In a recent judgment, the High Court in eSwatini found that ‘tubing’ by police – a torture method in which the victim’s face is covered so that they can’t breathe – is now ‘notorious’ in that jurisdiction, suggesting that it’s a favoured means by which police try to force someone to speak. Carmel Rickard takes a look at the facts of the latest case involving ‘tubing’, but she also discovers that tubing, along with other methods of torture, are still being used by police in jurisdictions across the region. She unpacks in the case in her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site.