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Torture

Freedom from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is a fundamental human right established in international law. Since its founding in 1986, PHR's core mission has included investigating and reporting on the devastating consequences of torture on individuals, institutions, and society.

Health professionals can detect signs of physical and mental abuse that are not evident to traditional investigators. Where the torturer aims to silence the victim, PHR's work validates the survivor's voice. Where the torturer hides evidence of brutality, PHR provides physical proof of the violation. And, where the torturer uses the physician as an accomplice, PHR exposes the ethical travesty.

Based on our work, PHR developed the first set of international guidelines for investigating and assessing allegations of torture and ill-treatment.

US Torture

In response to US personnel's systematic infliction of psychological and physical torture against detainees, PHR seeks to restore the US commitment against torture, to ensure humane treatment of detainees, and to protect US health personnel from complicity in mistreatment and harm. PHR is also working on legislation in MA and NY to sanction health care providers who participate in acts of torture and ill treatment.

Global Torture

In 1999, PHR was a lead author on the first set of international guidelines for the documentation of torture and its consequences. The Istanbul Protocol provides a set of guidelines for the assessment of persons who allege they have suffered torture and ill treatment, for investigating cases of alleged torture, and for reporting such findings to judiciary and other investigative bodies.

Asylum

Every year, more than 40,000 people flee torture and unbearable persecution in their home country and seek safety in the US. PHR provides asylum seekers with medical and psychological evaluations to highlight the scars left by torture, beatings, sexual violence, slavery, and worse. PHR also protects survivors of torture and persecution by elevating the quality of health care in immigration detention centers, reducing the use of immigration detention, and eliminating arbitrary and unjustified barriers to asylum in the US.

Iran denies medical care to quell dissent (May 9, 2012)

Christy Fujio, Asylum Program Director at PHR, expresses concern in a recent Lancet article at reports emerging from Iran indicating the government is denying medical care to political prisoners. “The Iranian Government wants to break peoples' spirits, they want to set an example”, she said. “They do this overtly through torture, but they also do it more subtly by denying care and allowing people to suffer from their injuries.”

Fighting for the Forgotten (April 14, 2012)

As director of PHR's anti-torture program and as an attorney for Guantanamo Bay detainees, Kristine Huskey has been fighting for basic human rights and social justice since a few months after 9/11, when she took on her first clients. In a Yin Radio interview, Huskey talks about her work and how she manages to stay with it amid the worst of what human beings are capable of.

PHR Experts to Speak at Law Conference on Refugee Crises (March 29, 2012)

Still Waiting for Tomorrow: The Law and Politics of Unresolved Refugee Crises (pdf), a conference in Boston that will explore the scope and consequences of global refugee crises as well as potential policy responses to these crises, will feature PHR experts.

Republican Congressmen Mock Immigration Detention as a ‘Holiday’ for Immigrants (March 29, 2012)

At a Congressional hearing yesterday, Republican committee members attempted to portray immigration detention as a “vacation” for undocumented immigrants. “Nobody who has spent even a minute in an immigration detention facility would characterize it as a ‘holiday,’” said PHR's Christy Fujio “Detention center conditions are often worse a criminal jail. Nobody wants to be there.”

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Special Rapporteur Mendez Assessing Torture Prohibition Measures in Tajikistan (May 10, 2012)

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Juan Méndez, is currently visiting Tajikistan to assess measures taken by the Tajik government to bring its torture prohibition legislation into compliance with international standards.

House Republicans Set the Wrong Priorities for Immigration Detention (May 9, 2012)

The House Appropriations Committee reverses sensible changes in immigration detention policy in the Obama Administration's budget and allocates over half of ICE's budget for detention and removal.

Death on the Border: Questions Raised About Border Patrol Oversight (April 25, 2012)

As onlookers watched from a nearby overpass, a dozen officers from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) beat and tasered Antastacio Hernandez Rojas until he had a heart attack.

A Doctor's Response to Torture (April 23, 2012)

In the recent volume of the Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr. Sondra Crosby—a PHR volunteer physician—describes her experience treating a former Guantánamo detainee who she calls “Rashid.” Rashid is a survivor of US torture.

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Crucial Senate Hearing on Indefinite Detention Includes PHR Testimony by Dr. Scott Allen (March 2012)

PHR's testimony by Dr. Scott Allen based on important findings from the groundbreaking report, “Punishment Before Justice: Indefinite Detention in the US,” was submitted by Senator Dianne Feinstein at a crucial Senate hearing on indefinite detention.

PHR Applauds New Government Guidance on Sexual Orientation Asylum Claims (January 2012)

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes the release of a new training course for Asylum Officers charged with hearing claims from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex asylum applicants. Given the increasing volume of people who seek asylum in the US after facing persecution and torture in their home countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, this new training course is a sorely-needed resource for government officials who hold the fates of LGBTI asylum applicants in their hands.

PHR Condemns President Obama’s Signing of National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA) (January 2012)

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) condemned today President Barack Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA). On the eve of 2012, President Obama signed the NDAA into law, making military indefinite detention in America permanent. Although the President’s signing statement expressed “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement applies only to the current administration and does not impact how future administrations interpret the law.

PHR Calls on President Obama to Veto National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA) (December 2011)

PHR today calls on President Barack Obama to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 (NDAA). The House and Senate conference report does not fix fundamental flaws found in the provisions regarding treatment of terrorism suspects.

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Featured Campaign

US doctors 'hid signs of torture' at Guantánamo

US government doctors who cared for the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay deliberately concealed or ignored evidence that their patients were being tortured, the first official study of its kind has found. Read More »

Featured Expert

Steven Reisner, PhD

Steven Reisner, PhD

Dr. Reisner has worked tirelessly to amend policies of the American Psychological Association that support psychologists’ participation in unethical military and intelligence interrogations in places such as Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, and the CIA ‘black sites’. Read More »