Humanitarian organisation ICRC apologises after making Twitter joke about torture

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has apologised and deleted a tweet which appeared to joke about torture.  

The humanitarian organisation on Wednesday posted on Twitter: “Torture is legal in some situations” followed by a disclaimer in bold text underneath which read: “This claim is disputed by the Geneva Conventions”.  

The post appeared to be a meme attempting to poke fun at a recent rise in fact-checking on Twitter, however it was removed just hours later and replaced with an apology.  

The ICRC wrote in a tweet: “We just deleted a tweet on torture that used a trend on fact checking. Why? First, it led to some confusion as to whether torture is always illegal. To be clear: Torture is banned – absolutely – under international law.  

“Secondly, there were concerns the tweet was at the expense of people who have experienced torture. We take that seriously, and are very sorry for any harm caused.  

“Finally, it relied on Unicode special characters, which meant the important part of the message was lost for some people. That was an oversight on our part. We’re always trying to find new ways to bring awareness to the rules of war. This missed the mark.  

“We strive to prevent torture and put an end to it where it does occur. We also care for the victims of abuse and their families.”  

Henok G Gabisa, an international human rights expert, said the post was a “very poorly thought-out meme”.  

He added in a tweet: “The mere fact of inviting this for social media debate isn’t a fair game. Those you seem to be poking fun at don’t dispute that torture is a jus cogens; they dispute the contents (what’s torture or not). Your meme defies that!”  

While BBC Middle East correspondent Quentin Sommerville wrote: “We may have jumped the shark.”