Stress position

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A stress position, also known as a submission position, is a form of punishment that 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]

A harsher version requires keeping the bottom fully raised, which means working against gravity and puts very severe pressure on the glutes. Sometimes this raised position is also combined with spanking on the bottom, which is well-exposed on account of being raised. Yet another version is to require walking in the murga position. This cannot be done without lifting the bottom, and is therefore even harsher than raised murga as it combines keeping the bottom high along with walking in this very awkward and uncomfortable position. In other instances, the punishee is beaten on the back while in murga without necessarily making them raise their bottom. One other version is to put a weight on the back while in murga for added severity, but without requiring the bottom to be lifted.

Murga is used primarily as discipline within educational institutions. The punishment also sees usage by the police, as an informal punishment for petty crime, sometimes in combination with spanking on the bear bottom.^[4] The punishment is sometimes administered in public as a type of public humiliation.

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 their back. Their upper torso is bare, and they lie prone on the ground. They are 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 in Eritrea, the victim's upper torso is bare, the victim stands on a block, their arms are tied to branches of a tree, and the block is removed, leaving them 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)
• Pau de arara

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