 When it comes to authoritarian regimes matters are, of course, much worse. Let us set aside the infamous Soviet Gulags under Stalin and also Hitler’s concentration camps, and rather consider some more recent examples. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission stated that under the apartheid regime, “torture was used systematically by the Security Branch, both as a means of obtaining information and of terrorising detainees and activists. Torture was not confined to particular police stations, particular regions or particular individual police officers” (TRC 1998: 187). In Chile the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR 1993: 1122) detailed over 2000 victims of human rights violations by the security forces of the Pinochet regime of which victims approximately half were killed (hundreds tortured to death) and the remaining half disappeared after arrest. According to Juan Mendez (a UN Special Advisor who was himself tortured during the Argentinean military dictatorship): “Torture became systematic and pervasive during the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s, but it would be a mistake to trace its origins only as far as this dark era. In fact, torture was used by dictatorial as well as elected but authoritarian governments throughout the twentieth century” (Mendez 2005: 56).