10/08/2006
PHR Welcomes American Psychological Association’s Endorsement of Human Rights Principles: Says APA’s Interrogation Guidelines Still Undermine Those Principles
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today welcomed action by the American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) Council of Representatives, the APA's governing body, which adopted as APA policy long-standing international human rights standards for the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. The group said that these basic principles should always guide the conduct of health professionals and behavioral scientists. But PHR also rebuked the APA for not addressing the central question before it: that under Defense Department guidelines, practice, and its interpretation of human rights law, psychologists have been, and will likely continue to be, embroiled in practices that violate those very principles. For More Information
PHR Calls for APA to Prohibit Psychologists from Participating in Interrogations and for US Government to End Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT); Congress Must Investigate Use of Torture Tactics, Including Involvement of SERE Instructors
PHR Responds to the American Psychological Association's Recommendations on Torture and National Security
See PHR's report: Break Them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces
Press release: PHR Welcomes American Medical Association's Adoption of Rules Against Physician Involvement in Interrogations
On Salon.com: Psychological Warfare
PHR reiterated its long standing call for the APA to explicitly prohibit its members from designing, implementing, or assisting in interrogations. This would bring the APA guidelines in line with new policies adopted by the American Medical Association, the World Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association, each of which explicitly prohibit physicians and psychiatrists, respectively, from directly participating in interrogations. “This is a critical moment for both the psychological profession and the country,” said PHR Executive Director Leonard Rubenstein. “As the APA convention in New Orleans continues, the Council of Representatives must insist on this urgently needed change in the APA’s interrogation policy. Current APA guidance for psychologists in national security interrogations by no means ensures their compliance with the basic human rights principles endorsed by the APA Council today,” Rubenstein added. “Indeed, APA policy risks placing psychologists in the position of contributing their expertise to continuing coercive interrogations at Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.” The resolution adopted today makes no reference to current APA interrogation policy (set forth in the 2005 report of its Presidential Task Force on National Security, or the “PENS report”) and is not an endorsement of the “PENS Report,” as Judith Van Hoorn, who introduced today’s resolution, made clear when she presented it. “The APA’s adoption of the internationally accepted ban on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is only a starting point,” Rubenstein said. But he warned that the APA’s “mere recitation of that principle ignores the Bush Administration’s distortion of the terms, ‘torture’ and ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.’ Therefore, ethical standards based on those terms alone -- as the APA’s are now -- provide wholly inadequate guidance to psychologists.” He noted, too, that current Pentagon policy also allows behavioral scientists to share medical information about a detainee with interrogators. APA guidelines encourage psychologists to play a central role in national security interrogations, “even though,” Rubenstein explained, “legal opinions of the Bush administration have drained US law against psychological torture of any meaning. In fact, several methods of psychological torture and abuse have been authorized at the highest levels, including forced nudity, sexual humiliation, prolonged sleep deprivation, exploitation of fears and phobias, and more.” The interpretations of law that permitted these techniques remain in effect today. Brigadier General Stephen Xenakis, MD (USA-Ret), an advisor to PHR, said, “Without an additional resolution passed immediately by the Council, there will remain a vacuum in guidance and protection for military and civilian personnel in these command structures and operational settings. Standards without rules do nothing to stop abusive and illegal tactics ongoing as part of US counterterrorism operations.” The public record now includes some disturbing evidence of the role of psychologists in abusive interrogations. Government documents show that a psychologist played a key role in the prolonged sleep-deprivation and other abuses of a “high value” detainee; that experts from the military’s “SERE” program (in which US personnel are subjected to psychologically abusive interrogation methods as part of their training) provided assistance and training to interrogators at Guantanamo; and that in questionnaires completed for a report of the Army Surgeon General, some psychologists serving on Behavioral Science Consulting Teams (“BSCTs”) list SERE as a basis of their training as interrogation advisors. Respondents to these questionnaires also identified APA ethics policy as a source of guidance for their role in interrogations. Psychologist Steven Reisner, Ph.D., who urged the Council to take more definitive action in an address earlier today, said, “a psychologist simply cannot act ethically in the current interrogation environment, which, as Philip Zimbardo [a former APA president] characterizes it, is itself unethical. When psychologists contribute in any way to interrogations in such settings, they violate, and erode, the most basic ethical standards that have guided our profession for generations. As Dr. Zimbardo has urged, we must ensure that the ethics of the psychological profession are no less demanding, and no less protective, than are those of the other health professions.” Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) mobilizes the health professions to advance the health and dignity of all people by protecting human rights. As a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. SOURCE: PHRUSA.org |
