coercing him or a third person for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity." 156. Torture thus constitutes the intentional and systematic infliction of physical or psychological pain and suffering in order to punish, intimidate or gather information. It is a tool for discriminatory treatment of persons or groups of person who are subjected to the torture by the State or non-state actors at the time of exercising control over such person or persons. The purpose of torture is to control populations by destroying individuals, their leaders and frightening entire communities. 157. The Complainant has submitted that the various incidences of armed attacks by the military forces of the Respondent State, using military helicopters and the Janjawid militia, on the civilian population, forced eviction of the population from their homes and villages, destruction of their properties, houses, water wells, food crops and livestock, and social infrastructure, the rape of women and girls and displacement internally and outside national borders of the Respondent State, constitute violation of the various cited articles of the African Charter, one of which is Article 5. The totality of the aforesaid violations amount to both psychological and physical torture, degrading and inhuman treatment, involving intimidation, coercion and violence. 18 158. In Media Rights Agenda v Nigeria , the Commission stated that the term ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment or treatment’ is to be interpreted so as to extend the widest possible protection 19 against abuse, whether physical or mental. InJohn Modise v Botswana , the Commission elaborated further and noted that ‘exposing victims to personal sufferings and indignity violates the right to human dignity’. It went on to state that ‘personal suffering and indignity can take many forms, and will depend on the particular circumstances of each communication brought before the African Commission’. 159. Based on the above reasoning, the African Commission agrees with the UN Committee Against 20 Torture in ]Hijrizi v. Yugoslavia that forced evictions and destruction of housing carried out by nonstate actors amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, if the State fails to protect the victims from such a violation of their human rights. Hijrizi v. Yugoslavia involved the forced eviction and destruction of the Bozova Glavica settlement in the city of Danilovgrad by private residents who lived nearby. The settlement was destroyed by non-Roma residents under the watchful eye of the Police Department, which failed to provide protection to the Romani and their property, resulting in the entire settlement being leveled and all properties belonging to its Roma residents completely destroyed. Several days later the debris of Bozova Glavica was completely cleared away by municipal construction equipment, leaving no trace of the community. 160. The Committee against Torture found that the Police Department did not take any appropriate steps to protect the residents of Bazova Glavica, thus implying acquiescence and that the burning and destruction of their homes constituted acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment within the meaning of Article 16 of the Convention against Torture or other Cruel, Inhuman Degrading 21 Treatment or Punishment. Consequently, the Committee held that the Government of Serbia and Montenegro had violated Article 16 of CAT by not protecting the rights of the residents of Bozova Glavica. 161. In a similar case dealing with allegations that the applicants’ property had been destroyed by Turkish security forces, the European Court of Human Rights arrived at the same conclusion, that the 22 destruction of homes and property was cruel and inhuman treatment. In Selçuk and Asker v Turkey , the Complainants were both Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin living in the village of Islamköy. In the th morning of 16 June 1993, a large force of gendarmes arrived in Islamköy and set fire to the houses and other properties of the said Complainants. 162. The Court held that “even in the most difficult of circumstances, such as the fight against organised terrorism and crime, the Convention prohibits in absolute terms torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The Court concluded that the treatment suffered by the 23 applicants in this case was so severe as to constitute a violation of Article 3 , adding that‘…bearing in mind in particular the manner in which the applicants’ homes were destroyed … and their personal circumstances, it is clear that they must have been caused suffering of sufficient severity for the acts of the security forces to be categorised as inhuman treatment within the meaning of Article 3”.