A MODERN INQUISITION.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8769, 22 March 1907, Page 1

A MODERN INQUISITION.

A harrowing story of torture, said to have been systematically carried out in the Biga prison, is told in the Berlin Vorwarta by a political prisoner, who gives the name 3 of sixteen persons, who, he declares, have undergone it. The allegation is that torture is carried on every night of the week, except Sundays, from 10 p.m. or midnight till about six in the morning, in a special chamber on the second floor of the prison, con taining ail sorts of instruments of torture, such as rubber sticks, pincers, long pins, etc., as well as a rack on which the victim is stretched, bound hand aad foot, with a wet rag over his mouth. It is done in the presence of spies and police, and not infrequently in that of higher dignii tarias asd the local nobility who constitute the " Self defence League." Thus on November 29 th torture was used in the presence of Baron Baden, che district chief, and at another time under the eyes of Baron Bekke, the reputed organisar of the pogrom at Tukkum. The modus operandi is said to be as follows :—The victim is brought into the room and stripped of all his cloihes. He is then told to natrie his friends and "accomplices.'' Should he refuse, they stretch him on the rack and give him a number of strokes with a rubber stick—sometimes several hundred. With a viaw to heightening the pain salt is often strewn over the wounds, and the flogging continues till the victim becomes Eenseless. Ho is then-, brought back to his Eenses and again asked to name his accomplices. If he continues to be obstinate they tear out his nails and bis bair, and pierce through hi 3 hands and his feet with long pins. Should this again prove of no avail the torturers tear out pieces of flesh from his body with hot pincers, knock out his teeth *nd perform other indescribable cruelties. The writer then tells the story of ffie Guning, 24 years old, who proved " obstinate" to the last and underwent the whole series of torture from the first stage to the last. The inquisition in this case lasted three weeks, after which the victim was handed to a court-matf'al and shot All tho hair from his beard was plucked out, and hair on his head turned grey. H ! s face was horribly mutilated, in many places the skin was torn or scraped off, and his spine ind several ribs broken.