Stress position

"Stress Positions" redirects here. For the 2024 film, see Stress Positions (film).

Captured Viet Cong soldier, blindfolded and tied in a stress position by ARVN during the Vietnam War, 1967

A stress position, also known as a submission position, places the human body in such a way that a great amount of weight is placed on very few muscles. For example, a subject may be forced to stand on the balls of their feet, then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates an intense amount of pressure on the legs, leading first to pain and then muscle failure.

Forcing prisoners to adopt such positions is a torture technique that proponents claim leads to extracting information from the person being tortured.

Types of stress position

Murga punishment

A boy undergoing the murga punishment

Murga (also spelled Murgha) is a stress position used as a corporal punishment mainly in parts of the Indian subcontinent (specifically Northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) where the punished person must squat, loop their arms behind their knees and hold their earlobes. The word murga means "chicken" or "rooster", and the name reflects how the adopted pose resembles that of a chicken laying an egg.

It is used primarily in educational institutions, domestically, and occasionally by the police as a summary, informal punishment for petty crime. The punishment is usually administered in public view, the purpose being to halt the offense by inflicting pain, deter recurrence of the offense by shaming the offender and provide a salutary example to others.

Hands up punishment

The hands up punishment is a stress position given out as punishment in schools of the Indian subcontinent (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan). In this punishment, one is made to raise their hands above their head for a period of time. The recipient of the punishment is not permitted to join their hands above their head, and if they do so punishment time may be increased. The hands up position becomes painful within ten or fifteen minutes. The punishment is usually given for 30 minutes or more at a time. Sometimes one may be required to keep one leg up along with hands. The student is not allowed to change legs. The hands up punishment can also be done two other ways. It can be done with the hands in front of the recipient or out the sides and they cannot raise or lower the arms, only hold them out for a long time.

Eritrea

In Eritrea in the twenty-first century, several different stress-position torture methods are used.

Helicopter position

In the "helicopter position", the victim's arms and feet are tied behind his/her back. The victim's upper torso is bare, and the victim lies prone on the ground. The victims is typically kept in the position for one or two weeks, through all weather conditions, non-stop except for brief food and toilet breaks. In a variant of the method, the cord tying the arms and feet together is tied to a tree branch, suspending the victim from the ground. One Eritrean prisoner survived 55 days in the helicopter position, at temperatures of up to 50 °C (122 °F), after which his skin peeled off and he was held for eight months with one hand and arm tied behind his back. The prisoner escaped from Eritrea and studied law in Canada.

Jesus Christ position

In the "Jesus Christ position", known to have been used since 2003 in Adi-Abeto Prison, the victim's upper torso is bare, the victim stands on a block, his/her arms are tied to branches of a tree, and the block is removed, leaving the victim in a similar position to that of crucifixion. The victim is then beaten on the back. The duration of this torture position is normally limited to about ten to fifteen minutes to allow the victim to survive.

See also

• Psychological torture
• Jetliner position
• Strappado also known as the corda or Palestinian hanging
• Submission hold
• Shabeh (torture)

External links

• Human Rights First; Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality