The Role of Health Professionals in Detainee Interrogation

A teenager tortured at Guantanamo, and the stalled legislation to ensure clinicians "first, do no harm"

By Santiago Wills
The Atlantic
Originally published November 11, 2012

Here is one excerpt:

In the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ever since leaked reports and testimonies -- including that of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, currently on trial in Guantanamo -- were published in 2004, the issue has attracted the attention of the media, health organizations, and political activists. Psychologists and doctors have clashed with their peers and with the Department of Defense over the role that health professionals should play in interrogations, given their oath to "do no harm." The Senate Judiciary Committee and numerous military investigations have confirmed that physicians and clinicians played a significant role during so-called enhanced interrogations, either through reverse engineering of the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program, or through monitoring and assisting in CIA black sites and prisons like Bagram and Guantanamo.

Recently, that conflict reached politicians in Albany, New York. This year, State Senator Thomas Duane and Assembly Member Richard Gottfried sponsored a unique piece of legislation that establishes sanctions (including license removal) for state-licensed health professionals who participate in torture or improper treatment of prisoners.

"The bill presents an opportunity to fill a gap in state law on the regulation of health professionals that desperately needs to be filled," Leonard Rubenstein, the former president of Physicians for Human Rights -- an independent organization that fights human rights violations all around the world -- said in a public forum. "Almost everyone agrees that the idea that health professionals can participate in abuse of detainees and prisoners is indefensible. If that is the case, it is also indefensible to exclude such acts from state law on licensing and regulation of health professionals."

The entire story is here.