Who were the torture doctors?

Medical complicity in abusive practices is one of the most disturbing revelations from the CIA  'torture memos'.

Physicians for Human Rights has released a short report – Aiding Torture – that highlights medical complicity in ‘designing, deploying, monitoring and legitimising the program of torture,’ used against prisoners in the so-called ‘war on terror.’ The report is a response to new revelations contained in the recently published CIA Inspector General’s Report of May 2004 and looks at specific techniques such as ‘walling, dietary manipulation and forced shaving’ and their effects.

Reprieve’s clients have often spoken of the key role played by health professionals in their torture and mistreatment. Medical professionals have been complicit in a variety of ways: they have monitored abuse, not to protect the prisoner but to enhance its efficiency; they have drugged prisoners through their food and anal suppositories; withheld medical treatment to prisoners in severe pain and been heavily involved in abusive force-feeding practices.

All this is a profound violation of medical ethics and the Hippocratic Oath. Aiding Torture deepens the case for a full investigation into medical complicity in abuse and the need for reparation for victims: such as compensation, medical care and psycho-social services.

Following release from Guantánamo and the secret prisons many former prisoners find it very difficult to access medical and psychological support - seeing doctors and psychologists reminds them of their past abuse and they find it hard to trust again. This is one of the particularly poisonous legacies of their torture and one of the challenges Reprieve’s Life After Guantánamo is encountering in trying to build useful support networks for former prisoners on their release.