Investigations

Colleagues at Risk

Health professionals around the world risk their lives by speaking out and standing up for human rights. Repressive governments respond by threatening, arresting, detaining, "disappearing," and killing health workers. At times, simply practicing ethical, non-discriminatory medicine puts health workers at risk. In many cases, these heroes end up in prison or labor camps without necessary medical care or access to their families.

Defending colleagues at risk is at the core of PHR's work. PHR was founded in 1986 after Dr. Jonathan Fine and a group of US physicians visited Chile to advocate for the release of imprisoned health professionals. Since then, we have rigorously defended our colleagues and pressured governments for their release, supplementing secondary material with firsthand research and investigation.

In Turkey, PHR members have observed and documented colleagues' trials and in Libya, the Balkans, and Philippines have visited them in detention.