Stress position

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Stress position" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with Indian subcontinent and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new article, as appropriate. (March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

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 rapid onset of muscle fatigue and tear.

Forcing prisoners to adopt such positions is a torture technique that proponents claim leads to extracting information from the person being tortured.^[1]

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.^[2] The word murga means "chicken" or "rooster",^[3] and the name reflects how the adopted pose resembles that of a chicken laying an egg.^{[citation needed]}

It is used primarily in educational institutions, domestically, and occasionally by the police as a summary, informal punishment for petty crime.^[4] 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.

The hands up punishment is a stress position given out as punishment in schools of the Indian subcontinent (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan).^{[citation needed]} In this punishment, one is made to raise their hands above their head for a period of time.^{[citation needed]} 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 their 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.

In Eritrea in the twenty-first century, several different stress-position torture methods are used.^[5]

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 victim 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.^{[5]: 20 [6]} 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.^[7]

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.^[5]: 21

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

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