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Showing posts with label Guantanamo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guantanamo. Show all posts

Friday, February 27, 2015

U.S. Military Document Says Force-Feeding Violates Medical Ethics and International Law

Physicians for Human Rights
Press Release
Originally published January 30, 2015

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said today that a newly public U.S. military document acknowledging that force-feeding violates medical ethics shows the unlawfulness of hunger strike practices at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay. PHR called on the U.S. government to end all policies requiring clinicians to violate professional ethics and to immediately drop charges against the Navy nurse who refused to force-feed detainees.

“This document exposes the flawed medical and legal reasoning at the heart of Guantánamo’s force-feeding policy,” said Dr. Vincent Iacopino, PHR’s senior medical advisor. “Forcing treatment on mentally competent persons constitutes ill-treatment and possibly torture and is contrary to professional ethics. There is no evidence for the government’s claim that it is diagnosing or treating suicide or self-harm. Yet the command structure orders doctors and nurses to carry out force-feeding anyway, and attempts to justify the practice on the basis of medical necessity. The Navy nurse who stood up against this contradictory and harmful policy should not be discharged.”

The entire story is here.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Navy Nurse Faces Discipline for Actions at Guantanomo

By Kevin Gosztola
Firedoglake Blog
Originally published August 27, 2014

The first and only officer on the medical staff at Guantanamo Bay to conscientiously object to force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike has reportedly had his assignment ended. He has been sent back to Naval Health Clinic New England, his “parent command,” while an investigation is completed, which may result in discipline or a court-martial.

The Associated Press reported on August 26 that Navy Captain Maureen Pennington, who is “his commander at the network clinics, indicated, “An investigation has been conducted into his conduct while stationed at Guantanamo but it has not yet been determined if he will face any discipline.” He is “now on leave and military officials declined to provide details about him or any allegations he may face.”

The entire story is here.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

APA Declines to Rebuke Guantanamo Psychologist

By Spence Ackerman
The Guardian
Originally published January 22, 2014

America’s professional association of psychologists has quietly declined to rebuke one of its members, a retired US army reserve officer, for his role in one of the most brutal interrogations known to have to taken place at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian has learned.

The decision not to pursue any disciplinary measure against John Leso, a former army reserve major, is the latest case in which someone involved in the post-9/11 torture of detainees has faced no legal or even professional consequences.

The entire story is here.

The December 31 letter is here.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Guantanamo Ethics

Religion and Ethics Newsweekly
Originally published September 6, 2013

A growing movement is renewing calls for the facility at Guantanamo Bay to be closed, citing concerns about the treatment of prisoners. Especially troubling for human rights activists is the practice of force-feeding detainees against their will. “They’re prisoners, but that doesn’t mean that they’ve given up every right that they have as a human being,” says a US Naval Academy professor who visited Gitmo in 2009.

Watch the video here.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Guantanamo Bay: A Medical Ethics–free Zone?

George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H., Sondra S. Crosby, M.D., and Leonard H. Glantz, J.D.
June 12, 2013
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1306065

American physicians have not widely criticized medical policies at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp that violate medical ethics. We believe they should. Actions violating medical ethics, taken on behalf of the government, devalue medical ethics for all physicians. The ongoing hunger strike at Guantanamo by as many as 100 of the 166 remaining prisoners presents a stark challenge to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to resist the temptation to use military physicians to “break” the strike through force-feeding.

President Barack Obama has publicly commented on the hunger strike twice. On April 26, he said, “I don't want these individuals [on hunger strike] to die.” In a May 23 speech on terrorism, the President said, “Look at our current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are . . . on a hunger strike. . . . Is this who we are? . . . Is that the America we want to leave our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that.” How should physicians respond? That force-feeding of mentally competent hunger strikers violates basic medical ethics principles is not in serious dispute. Similarly, the Constitution Project's bipartisan Task Force on Detainee Treatment concluded in April that “forced feeding of detainees [at Guantanamo] is a form of abuse that must end” and urged the government to “adopt standards of care, policies, and procedures regarding detainees engaged in hunger strikes that are in keeping with established medical professional ethical and care standards.” Nevertheless, the DOD has sent about 40 additional medical personnel to help force-feed the hunger strikers.

The ethics standard regarding physician involvement in hunger strikes was probably best articulated by the World Medical Association (WMA) in its Declaration of Malta on Hunger Strikers. Created after World War II, the WMA comprises medical societies from almost 100 countries. Despite its checkered history, its process, transparency, and composition give it credibility regarding international medical ethics, and its statement on hunger strikers is widely considered authoritative.

The entire article is here.

Thanks to Gary Schoener for this lead.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

The Role of Medical Professionals Related to Hunger Strikes at Guantanamo

Obama to Seek Closing Amid Hunger Strikes at Guantanamo

By Charlie Savage
The New York Times
Originally published April 30, 2013

Here is a piece of the article:

Last week, the president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Jeremy A. Lazarus, wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel saying that any doctor who participated in forcing a prisoner to eat against his will was violating “core ethical values of the medical profession.”

“Every competent patient has the right to refuse medical intervention, including life-sustaining interventions,” Dr. Lazarus wrote.

He also noted that the A.M.A. endorses the World Medical Association’s Tokyo Declaration, a 1975 statement forbidding doctors to use their medical knowledge to facilitate torture. It says that if a prisoner makes “an unimpaired and rational judgment” to refuse nourishment, “he or she shall not be fed artificially.”

The military’s policy, however, is that it can and should preserve the life of a detainee by forcing him to eat if necessary.

“In the case of a hunger strike, attempted suicide or other attempted serious self-harm, medical treatment or intervention may be directed without the consent of the detainee to prevent death or serious harm,” a military policy directive says. “Such action must be based on a medical determination that immediate treatment or intervention is necessary to prevent death or serious harm and, in addition, must be approved by the commanding officer of the detention facility or other designated senior officer responsible for detainee operations.”

On Monday, Colonel House also said that some detainees on the “enteral feeding” list were drinking the supplement.

“Just because the detainees are approved for enteral feeding does not mean they don’t eat a regular meal,” he said. “Once the detainees leave their cell and are in the presence of medical personnel, most of the detainees who are approved for tube feeding will eat or drink without the peer pressure from inside the cellblock.”

Medical ethicists and the Pentagon also clashed during the Bush administration over hunger strikes at Guantánamo.

The entire article is here.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

MU halts administrator search after torture controversy

By Catherine Martin
The Columbia Daily Tribune
Originally posted on February 15, 2013

The University of Missouri is holding off on filling an administrative position that attracted a controversial candidate.

Larry James, who served as the director of behavioral science division at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, was one of two finalists being considered for the job of division executive director at the MU College of Education.

His past experiences, including allegations of involvement in torture, drew criticism from staff and sparked a protest on campus. An on-campus interview last week was open to the public, and questions from community members centered on James' alleged connections to torture.

The entire story is here.

From Guantanamo to Mizzou?

By Colleen Flaherty
Inside HigherEd
Originally published February 12, 2013

Retired Col. Larry James, a former Army psychologist, went into both Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to address and correct known human rights violations – hence the name of his 2008 book, Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib.

“This is very, very important conversation to have in a variety of venues, and it’s very important to understand what went wrong at these awful places,” said James – now dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University – of why he wrote the memoir. “If we keep things in secret we’re destined to repeat it again.”

But some of the revelations in Fixing Hell are being levied against him as he tries to secure an administrative post at at the University of Missouri at Columbia. An on-campus protest was held earlier this month as James’s name surfaced as one of two finalists for the position, division executive director in the College of Education. As such, he’d oversee 60 faculty and 29 staff members in three units, including the Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology.

Aamer Trambu, a business graduate student and member of the Muslim Student Organization, attended the protest, along with members of the St. Louis Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace group. He also attended a Mizzou forum last week at which James answered questions for more than an hour. A petition against James’s candidacy with at least 60 names was turned over to university administrators. (The American-Islamic relations council chapter also launched an online petition. Leaders did not respond to requests for comment.)

The entire article is here.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

NY judge won't order Gitmo doc probe

By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK – A judge has declined to force an investigation into whether an Army psychologist developed abusive interrogation techniques for detainees at Guantanamo Bay and should be stripped of his license, halting what civil-rights advocates have called the first court case amid a push to shed light on psychologists' role in terror suspects' interrogations.

The person who brought the case — another psychologist — doesn't have legal standing to do so, Manhattan Civil Court Judge Saliann Scarpulla said in a ruling filed Thursday.

Rights activists and some psychologists have pressed regulators in several states — unsuccessfully so far — to explore whether psychologists violated professional rules by designing or observing abusive interrogations.

In New York, rights advocates focused on John F. Leso, saying he developed "psychologically and physically abusive" interrogation techniques for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The state Office of Professional Discipline, which oversees psychologists, declined last year to look into Leso. The agency said that his Army work is outside its purview and that the agency isn't in a position to address larger questions about the appropriateness of detainee interrogation methods.
The decision spurred the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, the New York Civil Liberties Union and psychologist Steven Reisner to sue the agency last fall and ask the judge to force a review of techniques developed by Leso, who holds a New York psychologists' license.

"The ruling is unfortunate, as Dr. Reisner's claims raise serious and fundamental questions that should have their day in court," Center for Justice and Accountability lawyer Kathy Roberts said in a statement.

She said the groups are considering an appeal but also keeping their eye on proposed state legislation that would require investigating any allegation that a health care professional has participated in torture or other improper treatment.

Representatives for the state professional discipline office and the state Attorney General's office didn't immediately return calls. No contact information was immediately available for Leso, who isn't named in the court case and never chose to weigh in with a filing of his own. An Army spokesman didn't immediately return a call about Leso.

The rest of the story can be read here.