When Healers Harm: Center for Constitutional Rights

The Center for Constitutional Rights is putting together a list of health care professionals who participated in torture. It's an action campaign that seeks accountability. The project is new.

CCR is putting together a list of health care professionals who were involved in torture - and they have the resources to do that.

Their goal is accountability because other governing organizations don't seem to be doing anything.

I'm usually not a big fan of "outing," but this is one situation where I'm perfectly fine with it. The APA clearly condemns torture, by a very broad definition:

http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/councilres0807.html

*snip*

BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association affirms that there are no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether induced by a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, that may be invoked as a justification for torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including the invocation of laws, regulations, or orders;

BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association unequivocally condemns torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, under any and all conditions, including detention and interrogations of both lawful and unlawful enemy combatants as defined by the US Military Commissions Act of 2006;

BE IT RESOLVED that the unequivocal condemnation includes an absolute prohibition against psychologists’ knowingly planning, designing, and assisting in the use of torture and any form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;

BE IT RESOLVED that this unequivocal condemnation includes all techniques defined as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the 2006 Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the Geneva Convention. This unequivocal condemnation includes, but is by no means limited to, an absolute prohibition for psychologists against direct or indirect participation in interrogations or in any other detainee-related operations in mock executions, water-boarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation, sexual humiliation, rape, cultural or religious humiliation, exploitation of phobias or psychopathology, induced hypothermia, the use of psychotropic drugs or mind-altering substances used for the purpose of eliciting information; as well as the following used for the purposes of eliciting information in an interrogation process: hooding, forced nakedness, stress positions, the use of dogs to threaten or intimidate, physical assault including slapping or shaking, exposure to extreme heat or cold, threats of harm or death; and isolation, sensory deprivation and over-stimulation and/or sleep deprivation used in a manner that represents significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm; or the threatened use of any of the above techniques to the individual or to members of the individual’s family;

BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association calls on the United States government—including Congress, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency—to prohibit the use of these methods in all interrogations and that the American Psychological Association shall inform relevant parties with the United States government that psychologists are prohibited from participating in such methods ;

BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association, in recognizing that torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment can result not only from the behavior of individuals, but also from the conditions of confinement, expresses grave concern over settings in which detainees are deprived of adequate protection of their human rights, affirms the prerogative of psychologists to refuse to work in such settings, and will explore ways to support psychologists who refuse to work in such settings or who refuse to obey orders that constitute torture;

BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association asserts that any APA member with knowledge that a psychologist, whether an APA member or non-member, has engaged in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including the specific behaviors listed above, has an ethical responsibility to abide by Ethical Standard 1.05, Reporting Ethical Violations, in the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002) and directs the Ethics Committee to take appropriate action based upon such information, and encourages psychologists who are not APA members also to adhere to Ethical Standard 1.05

And involvement in torture makes them criminals - war criminals at that. Papers publish the arrest blotter. Courts publish the court docket. Newspapers name those arrested and suspected of crimes. That's not considered outing.

I'm for them never practicing medicine ever again.

What they did was criminal. Grossly so.

:kick:

I'll be checking back at the link from time to time. Frankly, I would want to know if my doctor committed crimes against humanity. I suspect that a great many people would want to know as well.