The United Nations expert panel charged with monitoring worldwide efforts to ensure adequate protection for all persons against torture and other cruel or degrading treatment or punishment opened its thirty-second annual session today in Geneva.

Declaring that “the sad truth is that we have a long way to go in stamping out torture,” United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on all states to ratify the international agreements against the evil, to devise new strategies to combat it and to contribute generously to the UN fund to aid victims.

Declaring the current definition of torture in international conventions too vague, the top United Nations human rights official said today his office would submit an expanded definition that would show how to draw a line - a red line - that made clear that certain acts were not acceptable.

Having reached less than one-tenth of its annual target for funding in the first quarter of the year, a United Nations trust fund for victims of torture appealed today for donations to help it reach its minimum goal of $13 million for 2003.