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Allen Keller
Asylum Network Volunteer, Field Investigator and Advocate
Turning Research into Advocacy
When Allen Keller first drove into a Cambodian refugee camp in 1985, he was immediately impressed by the number of people there who were missing limbs, the victims of landmines. Dr. Keller remembers one man in particular: "The thing that struck me was that he wasn't a soldier -- he was a poor farmer," Dr. Keller recalls. "When he stepped on a mine he was collecting wood for his family, out of economic necessity."
Six years later, he returned to Cambodia with Eric Stover, then the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, to conduct a full-scale study on the health consequences of landmines. Their work was published in the report "Coward's War: Landmines in Cambodia," which was written with Human Rights Watch. The study played a pivotal role in the campaign that led ultimately to the International Mine Ban Treaty. Dr. Keller, 47, credits that early experience with inspiring his future work. "I was going to a bunch of provincial hospitals, reviewing hospital records, documenting civilian casualties," he says. "That work has so much shaped who I am as a physician, as a human rights advocate, as well as a person."
A Commitment to Human Rights
Since then, Dr. Keller has played an important role in many PHR campaigns. He co-authored a PHR report on war crimes in Kosovo and traveled to Punjab, India, to investigate allegations of human rights abuses. Keller was part of a team that investigated twenty-one cases of extrajudicial executions, twenty disappearances and forty-three cases of torture by the Punjab police. The resulting report, Dead Silence: Legacy of Abuses in Punjab, called on the government of Prime Minister Rao and the militant forces to end the abuses and restore the rule of law to Punjab.
He also co-wrote Examining Asylum Seekers, the manual used by health professionals who volunteer with PHR's Asylum Network. Dr. Keller is one of the first volunteers with the Network and he continues to do medical evaluations and trains new members. In addition, he developed a curriculum on health and human rights for Princeton University and serves as a faculty advisor for the PHR student chapter at New York University.
Support for Torture Victims and Refugees
Dr. Keller is the Program Director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, which provides comprehensive mental and medical help for survivors of torture and of trauma. Dr. Keller was a co-founder of the program, now one of the largest in the country. The idea for the center developed out of Dr. Keller's work as a volunteer with PHR's Asylum Network. "The horrible thing is that torture happens and has devastating health and mental consequences," Dr. Keller says. "But there's a lot we can do to help people."
Dr. Keller calls PHR "an extraordinary organization" that he is humbled to be part of. "I've made so many connections and have been so nurtured through this community."
"There's much to be concerned about and much to be hopeful about, and my work with PHR reminds me of both. Hope doesn't happen by chance, it requires science and vigilance. It can be a marathon, but you have to see it through."
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