Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) strongly condemns a decision by the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to ban a film on sexual violence in the country in an attempt to cover up this pervasive issue. PHR urges the government to reverse its decision and instead to support screenings of the film to demonstrate a commitment to holding to account those responsible for sexual violence and ensuring justice for survivors.

The Ministry of Media has banned screenings of The Man who Mends Women in the DRC – the Wrath of Hippocrates, a documentary highlighting the work of Dr. Denis Mukwege, founder and director of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu and renowned champion of women’s rights and dignity. Dr. Mukwege has dedicated his life to ensuring that survivors of sexual violence receive the physical and psychological care and support they need to recover and ultimately seek justice. The government’s banning of the documentary undermines one of the most powerful voices on the issue of sexual violence – the voice of Dr. Mukwege. This act of censorship not only violates freedom of expression and the right to information, but effectively silences survivors by hiding the stories of their suffering, healing, and resilience.

The prevalence and brutality of sexual violence have become defining features of the protracted conflict in the DRC. But the government has the power to change that narrative. Instead of denying the pervasiveness of sexual violence and the harm caused to victims, the government should address the high rates of such crimes in the country.

When I visited Yemen last year, the situation was grim. The government was dealing with fuel shortages and protests against the lifting of subsidies. But, there was still hope. The airport and ports were functioning, the ministry of health was operational, and the minister of health was optimistic that the situation would improve for the people of Yemen.

One year later and five months after a Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign purportedly to subdue Houthi rebels in the north, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen has become catastrophic. In April 2015, the UN Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the UN charter, adopted resolution 2216 calling upon all Yemeni parties – particularly the Houthis – to end the violence. In the past few months, all sides have ignored the resolution, and despite several briefings on the deteriorating situation, the Security Council has failed to act. Its efforts to ensure short-term humanitarian pauses and longer-term ceasefires have both been futile. While political negotiations seem to be leading nowhere, the international community must act quickly to ensure that all parties to the conflict comply with international humanitarian law and avoid further aggravating an already devastating humanitarian disaster.

Yemen, an impoverished nation of 27 million people with tremendous public health needs, has been subjected to systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and restrictions on imports, which has led to the collapse of virtually all key services. The Saudi-led air strikes have destroyed major roads and facilities, such as Hudaydah port and the main runway at Sana’a International Airport, leading to the blockage of aerial and maritime aid deliveries necessary for survival. Even if aid could get into the country, distribution would be impossible under the current circumstances. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 21 million people are being denied food, water, health care, and education, while their homes are being bombed.

In blatant violation of international humanitarian law, all parties have destroyed numerous health facilities, and the majority of those that remain are not able to provide adequate health care due to a lack of fuel, medicine, personnel, and other vital supplies. While the data on attacks on health facilities in Yemen has not yet been systematically collected, Amnesty International released a report in August detailing the impact of attacks on select health facilities; the report states that at least 160 health care facilities have closed down and accuses all parties to the conflict of war crimes. In a recent press conference, the representative of Yemen’s ministry of health, Dr. Nashwan al-Atab, mentioned that from the 20 hospitals currently conducting surgeries, only three are receiving the international support necessary for them to function properly. Further documentation of attacks on health care and violations of international humanitarian law is necessary for the truth to be known and for victims to seek justice and reparations.

After seeing the extent of destruction in Yemen, Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, stated, “Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years.” And it is an apt analogy. Many of the tactics being used by the Saudi-led coalition mimic what the government of Bashar al-Assad has been doing in Syria, leading to a power vacuum and thus, a similar expansion of Islamic State and al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Yemen. But there is a telling difference between the two conflicts. The United States and other governments who have condemned the widespread and systematic violations of international humanitarian law in Syria are largely supportive of the Saudi-led coalition and silent about its violations. Instead, it is Russia – Syria’s ally on the UN Security Council – that is calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Yemen.

The people of Yemen and Syria know all too well the price of the UN Security Council’s inability to effectively fulfil its mandate to maintain international peace and security. The crux of this failure is the politicization of its five permanent members leading to paralysis when action is needed to save lives. It is time for the UN Security Council to take stock of its failure and set aside politics and reflexive reactions in the pursuit of peace and security. Only then can the people of Syria and Yemen begin the process of rebuilding their countries and their lives.

In the summer of 2013, when asked what he missed most, a 68-year-old Syrian refugee living in Jordan responded, “I miss my dignity.” Two years later, millions more Syrians have been stripped of their dignity as the international community has sat idly by, watching the refugee population swell, while only partially funding the humanitarian response and not offering them any realistic chance of resettlement. World Humanitarian Day reminds us that it is time for the international community to stop burying its head in the sand; countries must open their borders to protect refugees’ lives and to relieve overwhelmed host countries.

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are now more than 4 million Syrian refugees living mainly in Jordan, Lebanon, and Türkiye. Meanwhile, other countries, such as Qatar, have closed their borders to Syrian refugees. Because of the precarious living conditions inside these host countries, many have risked their lives at sea and hiked hundreds of miles across Europe hoping to a find better life. While Jordan, Lebanon, and Türkiye are bearing the brunt of this crisis – and unfortunately are not doing the best job – the international community, in its failure to step up, has exacerbated the situation.

Jordan and Lebanon both had high numbers of Palestinian refugees prior to 2011, and the addition of millions of Syrian refugees has only increased the economic and social burden and overwhelmed public services in the two countries. Lebanon’s population increased by 30 percent with the addition of Syrian refugees, and as anyone could have expected, the country’s overstretched public services has been unable to support this influx. Clinics run by UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations are the only place for Syrian refugees to access free health care services in these countries, but these clinics are not enough. Lebanon never provided free care to refugees and the Jordanian government stopped providing free treatment to Syrian refugees in November 2014. The lack of support from such host countries is not only harming Syrian refugees’ lives, but is also increasing instability in an already incredibly unstable region.

Complicating the situation further, most Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon have settled in already poor neighborhoods. Their unstable living conditions create significant financial stress, and understandably – for many Syrians – paying rent is a higher priority than paying for medical treatment. As a result, there have been outbreaks of communicable diseases such as measles, and a lack of follow-up for chronic diseases such as kidney failure. One out of five Syrians in Jordan taking medication for chronic diseases have stopped their medication – 50 percent of which are the direct result of financial constraints. In addition to the millions of refugees who need access to health services for chronic and acute illnesses, some individuals injured inside Syria during the conflict have been transported to Jordan and Lebanon for specialized care. However, some Syrians seeking treatment have been turned away at the borders or deported to a “no man’s land” – within Jordanian territory, but outside its official border crossing – where getting access to humanitarian aid is nearly impossible. Until the international community provides increased financial support and acts to take in refugees from these host countries, such deportations will likely increase.

The Turkish government has managed the Syrian crisis differently, as – unlike Jordan and Lebanon – it has signed the 1951 Refugee Convention. Türkiye has established its own registration system for refugees (outside of UNHCR), which in theory grants Syrians free access to primary and emergency health care services in Turkish facilities. About 90 percent of refugees in camps and 60 percent of refugees outside of camps are able to utilize this system. However, in practice, many Syrians have faced issues due to language barriers and hospitals being over-capacity. Some have also had trouble renewing their residency permits, which are required in order to access services. Ad-hoc clinics run by the World Health Organization and UNHCR help reduce the burden on public facilities, but as the patient load in Turkish hospitals has grown by 30 to 40 percent with the flood of Syrian refugees, these clinics are not sufficient to cover all refugees in need of care.

Jordan, Lebanon, and Türkiye cannot continue supporting millions of Syrian refugees while other countries such as the United States have welcomed fewer than a thousand. The international community should follow the examples of Syria’s neighbors and take action to improve the lives of Syrian refugees, who have already suffered through four and a half years of conflict. The 2015 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP), a country-driven plan in partnership with UNHCR addressing humanitarian needs for refugees, is only 25 percent funded, and the number of Syrian refugees is increasing with each passing day. Gulf and European countries and the United States must step up financially and fully fund the 3RP. They also must speed up their registration processes, allowing Syrians to legally seek refuge, rather than forcing them to risk their lives in makeshift boats and forests in an attempt to recover the dignity they have lost.

When the American Psychological Association (APA) Council of Representatives voted Friday morning to rescind its policy allowing psychologists to participate in the interrogation of security detainees, it was a tectonic shift. For more than a decade, the APA had worked hand in glove with the Department of Defense (DoD) and other U.S. government entities to enable psychologists to participate in “enhanced interrogations,” or torture and ill-treatment, of these detainees.

It would be difficult to overstate how important the APA’s support was to the Bush administration’s claim that it was acting within the law. The claim was that these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were safe, effective, and therefore legal. In short, psychologists gave cover to the lawyers arguing for this unlawful practice.

But psychologists should never have been involved in trying to redefine torture, or the deliberate infliction of severe pain and suffering for a specific reason, such as obtaining information from a detainee. Psychologists, better than most people, knew that trying to destroy someone’s sense of self, identity, autonomy, and control is not only illegal because it causes such severe pain and suffering, but is also unethical.

Like other health professionals, psychologists are bound by ethics to use their knowledge and skills to “do no harm.” This important principle exists because people turn to health professionals when they are in need, and abusing the power to treat would be devastating not just for the patient, but also for trust in the health field more broadly. The infamous Tuskegee experiment, in which black men were denied treatment for syphilis so that doctors could see how the disease progressed until it killed them, still haunts the medical profession in the United States. It also may well haunt black men who wonder if they can trust their doctors to see them as patients, not lab rats.

The 780 men and boys who were held at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay and countless others held in Bagram air base in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib in Iraq, and still undisclosed black sites were at risk of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment by those who took an oath to heal them. Many of the detainees who have since been cleared and released are still suffering and some may never recover.

To compound the suffering, the U.S. government has effectively denied all these detainees access to the courts to seek justice for these egregious human rights violations. They cannot make claims regarding their unlawful detention, transfers from different countries, denial of access to lawyers, or communication with their families. This is one of the reasons the APA’s vote reflects a dramatic change in attitudes – moving from denial, specious justification, and excuses to beginning to correct the wrongs and acknowledge the harms, many of which came to light in a recently released independent report commissioned by the APA. As the organization takes steps to come to terms with its collusion in illegal and deeply harmful practices, more information about those practices will be exposed.

It is fitting that health professionals are the first group of people to take responsibility for the myriad violations in the context of the U.S. government’s counter-terrorism policies. Psychologists and the APA have begun to heal themselves and in so doing may well have opened doors for those who have been harmed to seek justice.

Our work is far from over. Secrecy remains the government’s key tool for covering up the extent of its unlawful behavior. But as people of conscience step forward to say “not in my name,” the secrecy will erode and the path to accountability for the perpetrators and justice for the victims can begin.

Donna McKay, executive director at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), sent a letter to the leaders of the American Psychological Association (APA) supporting recommendations from the APA board to adopt new policies and practices that will establish and enforce a clear prohibition against psychologists’ participation in interrogations. For a decade, PHR, together with many colleagues within the APA, has vigorously objected to the association’s policies and positions on psychologist involvement in national security activities. Ahead of the APA’s annual meeting in Toronto, this letter provides key recommendations for the association. Read the full letter here.

At the beginning of July, a Yemeni activist wrote on Twitter: “We in #Yemen are no strangers to war, but we've never witnessed anything like terror & desperation of past 100 days. We won't forget.” July 2 marked 100 days since the beginning of the intervention in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition to stamp out the Houthi rebellion in the country. Unlike some of the other conflicts in the Middle East, Western press and political leaders have treated this ongoing onslaught with near radio silence.

The only practical solution to ending the desperation in Yemen is an immediate end to the Saudi-led bombardment and blockade of the country. Yet, Saudi Arabia continues to flex its military muscle in a game of geopolitical chess in order to punish Iran, a backer of the Houthi rebels. And the international community is sitting idly by as the horrific number of casualties grows; Yemeni civilians are paying the price for the world’s silence and inaction.

For more than 100 days now, Saudi Arabia has systematically inflicted collective punishment on civilians and used starvation as a weapon of war. The Saudi-led coalition’s blockade of Yemen has prohibited humanitarian aid from entering the country and has restricted civilians’ ability to flee the fighting. Equally disturbing is the deliberate targeting of health care facilities in Yemen – a trend that Physicians for Human Rights has seen at egregious levels in Syria. Yemeni civilians have little choice but to remain in their homes and hope that the war ends before they die from hunger, thirst, or airstrikes. Despite these egregious violations of international humanitarian law, the United States has expanded its role in the Saudi-led campaign.

International humanitarian organizations have expressed their alarm over the rapidly growing humanitarian crisis. According to UNHCR, the three and a half months of conflict have killed over 1,500 Yemeni civilians, wounded some 3,600 people, caused 200,000 civilians to flee as refugees, and led to the internal displacement of more than one million. OCHA has also published alarming numbers: 21 million people – 80 percent of the country’s population – now need humanitarian assistance. This month, the UN emergency relief coordinator added Yemen to its Level Three emergency response list, joining Syria, Iraq, and South Sudan as the world’s most severe, large-scale humanitarian crises. To put this in perspective, in just three months, Saudi Arabia’s bombardment and blockade of Yemen has created a humanitarian disaster nearing the scale of Syria’s four-year old humanitarian catastrophe.

Dozens of humanitarian and human rights organizations have called for ceasefires, an end to the blockade, an end to arms transfers, and increased humanitarian funding. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has also recognized the urgency of the situation, warning that, “Yemen’s very existence hangs in the balance.” As long as the international community lacks a coordinated response to the conflict, Yemeni suffering will only increase, along with security risks for the future.

Saudi Arabia is carrying out mass atrocities in Yemen with tacit support from the United States, its chief ally. The U.S. and its allies would do better to use its influence to put political pressure on Saudi Arabia and end impunity around the persecution of Yemeni civilians and the targeting of health care facilities. If the United States and the international community continue to sit idly by as its allies commit war crimes and Yemen spirals deeper into crisis, they too become complicit in potential Saudi war crimes. It is time to end the silence and ensure Yemeni civilians receive the protections they so deserve.