Read the report (pdf)

PHR strongly supports Massachusetts bill H.3361 (Lewis) and S.1090 (Eldridge), An Act to Prohibit the Participation of Health Care Professionals in the Torture and Abusive Treatment of Prisoners, which will subject to professional sanctions any Massachusetts-licensed health care professionals who participate in the torture or abusive treatment and interrogation of prisoners. It will also require health care professionals to report instances of torture or abusive treatment of prisoners, and provide protection for those professionals who refuse to participate in prohibited acts or who investigate them.

Read the report (pdf)

PHR strongly supports New York bill A.6665 (Gottfried) and S.4495 (Duane), An Act to amend the public health law, the education law and the labor law, in relation to prohibiting participation in torture and improper treatment of prisoners by health care professionals, which will bar all health care professionals from participating in the torture or improper treatment and interrogation of prisoners, requires health care providers to report torture or improper treatment of prisoners to responsible authorities, and provides whistleblower protections for health care professionals who refuse to undertake prohibited acts and those who participate in investigations of lawbreaking.

PHR’s Director of the International Forensic Program, Stefan Schmitt, recently appeared in an interviewwith the BBC World Service to discuss the UN International Day of theDisappeared. Schmitt spoke of attempting to provide identification for many ofthe “disappeared” in Rwanda, victims of the genocide there in 1994. Hediscussed the inherent difficulties of such a task from a number of standpoints,whether it be the sheer number of bodies, a lack of technical capacity for properDNA and other forensic identification, identifying surviving family members, orsimply not having a record of who is actually missing.

 “You have such a hugenumber of victims, bodies just everywhere on the streets, fields ofbones…oftentimes if you want to return these remains back to their relatives,that becomes increasingly more difficult once these types of scenes have beendisturbed…there were no relatives left anymore in many instances,” saidSchmitt.

Schmitt explains the importance of providing identificationof the victims to their family members. He explains how access to a loved one’sremains, even if it is just clothing or jewelry, and answers to the multitudeof questions surrounding their death can help to provide closure and a sense ofpeace, “…your body is a big part of how your family deals with the fact thatyou died and the aftermath of that.” 

Today is the first International Day of the Disappeared. Theday was created to spotlight the upcoming 20^th anniversary of theadoption of the UN General Assembly of the Declaration on the Protection ofAll Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Enforced Disappearances are short andlong-term detainment, or outright murder, of individuals or groups by Stateauthorities to suppress a population’s legitimate concerns or demands.  Regardless of who uses it, how it isemployed, or what justifications are proffered, such unspeakable violations ofhuman rights cannot be tolerated and PHR stands with the UN and the globalcommunity in continuing to raise awareness about this vital issue.

Listen to Schmitt discuss the Day of the Disappeared on BBC.

Nay Myo Zin was sentenced to ten years in prison by aBurmese court last week. Hiswife reported that he was arrested because Burmese secret police had foundan email in his inbox that discussed national reconciliation.

Zin was charged under the Electronic TransitionsAct 33a, which criminalizes “doing any act detrimental to the security ofthe State or prevalence of law and order or community peace and tranquility ornational solidarity or national economy or national culture.” This law isfrequently used to arrestdissidents (pdf).

Nay Myo Zin was the first person to be arrested forpolitical reasons since the new Burmese government took power earlier thisyear. His arrest and sentencing is another a sign that despite its claims to beon the path to democracy, the government has not changed. In addition to NayMyo Zin, there are 1,995 other political prisoners in Burma, according to the Assistance Association for Political PrisonersBurma.

PHR urges the Burmese government to embrace principles of democracyand release all political prisoners.

Between World AIDS Day (December 1) and International Human Rights Day (December 10), PHR is launching the 10,000 in 10 Campaign. We're mobilizing 10,000 Americans, including students nationwide, to ask their US Senators to support US ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2010.

We need your help to meet our goal. It will take 2 minutes:

• The petition is online now. Help us reach 10,000 signatures today!
• Get More Involved: Join our “10,000 in 10 Leadership Team” and make a pledge to collect 50 signatures from family, friends and colleagues. Email me at skalloch[at]phrusa[dot]org to join the team.

Why CEDAW?

Women all over the world are facing discrimination, abuse and systematic inequities that make them especially vulnerable to some of the most severe global health challenges. Until we promote and protect women's rights, the most severe diseases and health complications will continue to disproportionately affect women world wide.

Why Now?

The US remains one of only 7 countries in the world who have yet to ratify this critical treaty, along with Sudan and Somalia.

Since the treaty was adopted by United Nations in 1979, efforts for US ratification have come up repeatedly in the Senate but faced significant obstacles by CEDAW opponents, crushing potential for ratification. Now, CEDAW has strong support within the Foreign Relations Committee and is listed by the Obama administration as one of the top three treaties to ratify.

Things are looking a lot brighter: Let's make the most of this new opportunity to protect women's rights and support women's health worldwide by finally ratifying CEDAW!

Let your Senator know that it's time for the United States to ratify CEDAW and get serious about women's rights worldwide.

We are so happy to report that Dr. Arash Alaei has been released from Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran.

Arash's brother, Dr. Kamiar Alaei, says:

“I want to thank everybody around the world who campaigned for the release of my brother and me. They did a wonderful job during the past three years, and without the support of Physicians for Human Rights and the Coalition to Free the Alaeis, it is highly likely we would not be celebrating Arash’s release today.”

This week, sexual assault chargesagainst former IMF chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, were dropped due to concernsabout the credibility of his accuser, Nafissatou Diallo.The inconsistency of Diallo’s narrative, as well as lies contained in herasylum application, led the prosecution to conclude that its case was injeopardy. Due to the attack on her credibility, the truth regarding whathappened in that Manhattan hotel room will never be known. What does this meanfor other immigrants who fall victim to crime in the US?

Immigrant victims of crime often fearthat reporting incidents to the police may draw attention to their immigrationstatus. Fearing deportation, many victims remain silent instead ofcollaborating with law enforcement officials to prosecute criminals. Thefederal government attempted to address this problem by introducing the U-visaprogram as part of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of2000. Under the program, victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, humantrafficking, and other crimes are able to come forward and cooperate with lawenforcement without fear of deportation. However, many immigrants are not awareof the U-visa and law enforcement officials are not well trained in the use of itas a crime-fighting tool. Therefore, the efficacy of the program isquestionable: although 10,000 U-visas are available per year, less than 8,000were granted in 2010.

On Monday, the Obama Administration announced a policywhich will suspend deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants who poseno threat to national security or public safety – including individuals who havereported a crime. In June, the Morton Memowas issued and states that ICE will not initiate removal proceedings against anindividual known to be the victim or witness to a crime. Both of thesedevelopments are positive steps toward the protection of immigrant crimevictims; however, the effects remain to be seen. 

Crime affects entire communities,not just individuals. Criminal offenders tend to be recidivists – repeatingtheir crimes until they are caught and convicted. If immigrant victims areunwilling to report crimes for fear of deportation, we will all feel theimpact. Until immigrants feel safe and empowered to work with police toidentify and prosecute criminals, the safety of all Americans will be at risk.

Bahraini authorities released medic Rula Al-Saffar on August 21 following five months of arbitrary detention. Her release comes shortly after her three-week hunger striketo protest her arbitrary arrest and subsequent torture while in detention atthe hands of Bahraini authorities.

Rula Al-Saffar was head of the Bahrain Nursing Societyand AssistantProfessor at the College of Health Sciences.  A cancer survivor,Mrs. Al-Saffar also served as an Executive Board Member of the Bahrain Cancer Societyand founder of the National Association for Cancer Awareness.  

While the release of Al-Saffar isencouraging, authorities have not dismissed the charges against her. On 28 AugustAl-Saffar must appear before military court alongside at least 19 other medical workers whoface seemingly trumped-up charges of having treated injured pro-democracyprotesters in March.

PHRis also alarmed that contrary to earlier statements guaranteeing civiliantrials, pro-democracy activists will now be tried in a military court.Al-Saffar, pro-democracy activists and all other political prisoners must beguaranteed fair trials in civilian courts.

Physicians for Human Rights renews its callfor the unconditional releaseof all detained medicsand the dismissal ofall charges against those released. PHR calls on the Bassiouni commission of inquiryto conduct medical and psychological evaluations of all persons who havealleged torture by Bahrainauthorities.

Yesterday’s announcement from the Obama administration that“prosecutorial discretion” should be used to allow undocumented students tostay in the US, and that enforcement efforts should instead focus ondeportation of criminals, is little more than a public relationssmokescreen.  Ever since the Administration confirmed that states may nolonger opt out of Secure Communities, advocates have come down hard on President Obama for failing to live up to promises made to immigrantcommunities in the US.

The fact is that the size of the detention system and the number ofdeportations under the current Administration are far outpacing those samenumbers under the Bush Administration, and plans to expand even furthercontinue to develop under President Obama’s direction. Undocumented studentsare no safer or more stable with this new announcement than they werepreviously: they still are subject to deportation at any time and have nopotential path to citizenship, regardless of the quality of their character,scholarship, work ethic, or ties to the community.

Did a psychologistviolate his professional ethics when he developed abusive interrogationtechniques for use on Guantanamo Bay detainees? Last week, a New York statecourt dismissed a petition which would have forced the New York Office ofProfessional Discipline to answer that question.

The New York Office ofProfessional Discipline, which oversees standards for psychologists, haddecided not to investigate the actions of John Leso, a psychologist who advisedGuantanamo military authorities on “harmful and abusive psychologicaltechniques.” The lawsuit, brought by NY psychologist Steven Reisner, alleged thatLeso’s advice on techniques including sleep deprivation and the withholding of foodmust be investigated by the agency. However, recently the court decided that Dr.Reisner did not have legal standing in the case and he did not have the rightto question the agency's decision.

Human rights groupsand psychologists have been pressing regulators in several states toinvestigate this very issue. The Reisner lawsuit exemplifies this attempt toshed a much-needed light on psychologists’ role in terror suspectinvestigations. In 2005, the media reported on a leaked military log which indicated that Leso observed thequestioning of a prisoner and advised interrogators on how to increase theprisoner’s level of stress. Leso’s suggestions included isolating the prisoner,threatening the prisoner with a dog, shackling the prisoner and othertechniques. Court documents also indicate that Leso led a behavioral science consultationteam at Guantanamo in 2002 and 2003 and recommended interrogation tactics suchas exposing detainees to severe cold, depriving them of sleep and forcingliquids into them intravenously. 

“In this case, theviolation of ethical standards is obvious,” Dr. Reisner stated. 

Although actingSupreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla didn’t necessarily disagree stating,“My sensibility is with you…I do think it has a huge moral implication here,”she ultimately threw out the case on the technicality of no ‘standing.’ 

Psychologist licensingboards in California, Louisiana, Ohio and Texas have also rejected complaintsabout psychologists who were said to have participated in abusiveinterrogations of detainees at Guantanamo. Despite these failures, psychologistsshould be held accountable for their violations of ethics codes. Since licensingboards appear unwilling to do their job and enforce ethical standards amongtheir members, it is time for the states to step in. PHR supports statelegislatures in passing legislation that would make “ethical standards” and“accountability” mean something.  NY andMassachusetts are currently contemplating such legislation.