World governments were criticized by Amnesty International for failing to eradicate the use of torture worldwide, Al-Arabiya News reported.
Even though the practice of torture was outlawed by the U.N. 30 years ago, it continues to exist globally. The human rights group described the torture as being "endemic" in Egypt.
"Governments around the world are two-faced on torture - prohibiting it in law, but facilitating it in practice" Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary general, said at a press conference in the UK.
"Torture is not just alive and well - it is flourishing in many parts of the world. As more governments seek to justify torture in the name of national security, the steady progress made in this field over the last 30 years is being eroded," he said.
According to Ahram Online, a report titled "Torture in 2014: 30 Years of Broken Promises," in 2014 - surveying torture in 141 countries across every global region - said that if an anti-terrorism law currently being drafted by Egyptian interim authorities should pass, it would "erode the existing safeguards against torture and other ill-treatment."
Shetty's remarks were made at the launch of "Stop Torture," the international watchdog's latest global campaign to combat torture and other ill-treatment across the globe.
Countries where the watchdog noted widespread torture included Syria, according to Al-Arabiya.
"In the Middle East, there was such a hope with all the changes we saw with the Arab Spring but today all of these hopes are really a big question mark," Shetty told Al Arabiya News Channel in London.
"When you look at something like Syria, Amnesty has documented in great deal [torture] which is at an industrial scale so we have big challenges," he added.
In order to gauge global attitudes toward the practice of torture, a Globescan survey was commissioned by the watchdog as part of the campaign.
"According to the survey, 44 percent of respondents from 21 countries across every continent fear they would be at risk of torture if taken into custody in their country," Al-Arabiya reported. "Eighty-two percent of the respondents said they believed there should be clear laws against torture."
More than a third, however, responded that certain circumstances made the act of torture justifiable.
