The Kosovo crisis resulted in the largest population displacement in Europe since the Second World War. Journalists and human rights researchers investigated, documented, and reported many individual accounts of human rights violations taking place in Kosovo. PHR and Columbia University designed this study to establish patterns of human rights violations among Kosovar refugees by Serb forces, using a population-based approach.
By Audrey R. Chapman and Leonard S. Rubenstein
Human Rights and Health was prepared at the request of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and shows how, during the apartheid period, the leadership of the health sector in South Africa subordinated ethical and human rights obligations to the racist practices and political repression of the state. To protect and promote human rights in the health sector, the report recommends an overhaul of codes of professional conduct to incorporate human rights standards, a reform of professional societies and education, and the monitoring of human rights in health.
By Allen Keller, MD
Chinese authorities in Tibet routinely use torture as a means of political repression, punishment and intimidation. PHR documents the physical and psychological affects of torture committed by Chinese authorities in Tibet through interviews with Tibetans who have fled to India.
Learn more about our work to stop torture throughout the world.
For a two-week period at the end of June 1997, a three-person team from PHR worked in the Great Lakes region of Africa compiling testimony and data regarding the existence of human rights abuses committed by governments or warring parties against civilian and refugee populations.
The report’s findings on human rights violations in Eastern Congo and Western Rwanda were presented on July 16, 1997 at a hearing sponsored by the U.S. House International Relations Committee.
By Eric Stover, former PHR Executive Director
This report examines the wars in the former Yugoslavia through the prism of medical neutrality. Hospitals and clinics in or near conflict zones were deliberately and often repeatedly attacked. Patients and medical staff were shot at by snipers, and, in at least one case, forcibly removed from hospital wards and summarily executed.
The PHR team collected evidence of mass killings of civilians, interviewed witnesses and reviewed postmortem and crime scene photographs, and medically examined victims of torture and other abuses, over the course of several missions to the former Yugoslavia between October 1995 and November 1995.
By Gabriel J. Otterman, MD
Over a five month period in 1994, a medical team studied health conditions in thirteen of Cambodia’s twenty-four prisons. For the Khmer and the US health professionals it was a disquieting experience.Traveliong to prisons throughout the country, they found prisoners languishing in decaying buildings with little to eat and virtually no access to proper medical care.
PHR reveals how Indian police in the state of Punjab deliberately executed, “disappeared,” and tortured detainees to stamp out Sikh militant groups. Dead Silence documents incidents of torture, extrajudicial executions, and disappearances committed by the police between 1991 and 1993, after the end of the bloody conflict in Punjab and the restoration of an elected government.
By Physicians for Human Rights, The American College of Physicians, Human Rights Watch, and The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Each organization involved in the creation of this report has different viewpoints on the death penalty itself, and all members agreed that this report would not take a position supporting or opposing capital punishment. Instead, the report focuses on medical involvement in executions, and the need to explore and define the ethical boundaries of such conduct. We narrowed the scope of the project to physician involvement only, although we point out when other health professionals participated in executions. Finally, we focus on execution procedures, rather than on related issues, such as physicians’ role in sentencing or conducting autopsies.
This report documents that physicians continue to be involved in executions, in violation of ethical and professional codes of conduct. This involvement is often mandated by state law and specified in departmental regulations about execution procedures. Even when state laws are vague about requiring physician participation, our research indicates that in practice, physicians are often directly involved in the execution process. As more states attempt to create the appearance of humane, sterile, or painless executions, lawmakers and corrections officials may look to physicians to apply their medical skills for this purpose. But execution is not a medical procedure, and is not within the scope of medical practice. Physicians are committed to humanity and the relief of suffering; they are entrusted by society to work for the benefit of their patients and the public. This trust is shattered when medical skills are used to facilitate state executions.
Our recommendations are designed to ensure that current U.S. laws do not require physicians to violate professional ethics. Society must decide whether, how, and when to impose capital punishment – without involving physicians in the execution process.
In 1993, the bloody conflict in Indian-controlled Kashmir was in its fourth year. Indian troops had embarked on a “catch and kill” campaign against Muslim militants, resulting in a sharp escalation of human rights abuses.
PHR and Human Rights Watch provided comprehensive documentation of the consequences of India’s abusive policy in Kashmir in this report.
While fighting with Muslim insurgents in Kashmir who demand independence or accession to Pakistan, Indian troops are increasingly targeting civilians. PHR and Asia Watch investigated these efforts to crush support for the guerrilla forces, especially the military’s torture of detainees and the government’s targeting of health professionals.
Learn more about violations of medical neutrality by armed forces