For Immediate Release
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) objects to the Trump Administration’s move to return to Congress copies of the Senate’s 2014 report on the CIA’s torture program.
The following statement is attributable to Sarah Dougherty, PHR’s senior anti-torture fellow:
“It’s deeply troubling that the Trump administration is handing over its copies of the Senate torture report. It’s a step backward in the years-long struggle to achieve transparency and criminal accountability – and deals a severe blow to the country’s ability to ensure that torture never happens again.
“The 6,700-page document, still shielded from public scrutiny, is the most comprehensive accounting of the CIA’s torture program. Its findings are critical to understanding how so many mistakes were made – and how to avoid making such grievous, harmful errors in the future. From the declassified executive summary, we got a glimpse of just how brutal the CIA’s torture and detention program was. It inflicted lasting mental and physical harm on detainees, and it did not yield intelligence. The torture program was ineffective, and an illegal and harmful breach of American laws and values.
“PHR has long advocated for a full public accounting of the torture program, particularly when it comes to the health professionals who were involved in designing it and carrying it out. We urge the Trump administration to preserve the report – to review it, learn from it, and commit to never returning to torture as U.S. policy. We also urge all health professionals to join the more than 1,000 other nurses, doctors, medical students, and clinicians who have signed our pledge against torture and ill-treatment.”
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.