The Hooded Men 1971

The Hooded men are 14 men who were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment in Northern Ireland by the British army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1971.

The Irish Government, on behalf of the men who had been subject to the five techniques, took the case to the European Commission of Human Rights (Ireland v. United Kingdom, 1976 Y.B. Eur. Conv. on Hum. Rts. 512, 748, 788-94 [Eur. Comm’n of Hum. Rts.]).

The Commission stated: ...unanimously considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture, on the grounds that (1) the intensity of the stress caused by techniques creating sensory deprivation "directly affects the personality physically and mentally"; and (2) "the systematic application of the techniques for the purpose of inducing a person to give information shows a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages...a modern system of torture falling into the same category as those systems applied in previous times as a means of obtaining information and confessions. - European Court of Human Rights

The Commission's findings were appealed.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) trial Ireland v. the United Kingdom (Case No. 5310/71) in 1978 ruled: 167. Although the five techniques, as applied in combination, undoubtedly amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, although their object was the extraction of confessions, the naming of others and/or information and although they were used systematically, they did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture as so understood...168. The Court concludes that recourse to the five techniques amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment, which practice was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights Article 3. On 8 February 1977, in proceedings before the ECHR, and in line with the findings of the Parker Report and UK Government policy, Sam Silkin, both Attorney General for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland, stated:

...
Wikipedia