Torture is rampant across the world and has become almost normalised by the "war on terror" and its glamorous portrayal in shows such as 24 and Homeland, Amnesty International says.
The London-based human rights group is launching a new campaign aimed at ending torture, which it says remains widespread even 30 years after a blanket prohibition was agreed by the United Nations.
In the past five years, Amnesty says it has recorded incidents in 141 countries, including 79 of the 155 signatories to the 1984 UN Convention against Torture.
The global survey of 21,000 people in 21 countries also revealed a widespread dread of the practice, with 44 per cent saying they feared being abused if they were taken into custody.
Yet over a third of the respondents said they believed torture was sometimes necessary and acceptable to gain information that may protect the public.
"It's almost become normalised, it's become routine," Amnesty secretary-general Salil Shetty told reporters at the launch of the Stop Torture campaign in London.
"Since the so-called war against terrorism, the use of torture, particularly in the United States and their sphere of influence ... has become so much more normalised as part of national security expectations."
Support for torture ranged widely across nations, from 74 per cent in China and India, to just 12 per cent in Greece and 15 per cent in Argentina, the GlobeScan survey found. It was released on Tuesday.
In Britain, which had the lowest fear of torture among all the countries, 29 per cent backed its use - a fact Amnesty country director Kate Allen attributed to the popularity of violent, spy-based TV shows.
"Programs like 24 and Homeland have glorified torture to a generation, but there's a massive difference between a dramatic depiction by screenwriters and its real-life use by government agents in torture chambers," she said.
The group described police brutality in Asia, where torture is a "fact of life", and pointed out that more than 30 countries in Africa have yet to make such abuse punishable by law.
Shetty spoke of "the cruelty of inmates in the United States being held in solitary confinement with no light", of stoning and flogging in the Middle East and of the "stubborn failure" of European nations to investigate allegations of complicity in torture.
The new campaign focuses on five countries where torture is a particular problem and where the NGO believes it can have the most impact: Mexico, the Philippines, Morocco and Western Sahara, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.
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