Campaign Against Torture

About the Campaign Against Torture

PHR's Campaign Against Torture by US personnel began with an immediate response to the first allegations of torture at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq and at Guantnamo Bay. As we learned more about US interrogation policies and practices, it became clear that the government had authorized and implemented a widespread regime of psychologically abusive interrogation methods that could only be characterized as torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Since the inception of the Campaign, PHR has ensured that health professionals' concerns over US torture policy are communicated forcefully to key policymakers, through direct advocacy and the media. We helped mobilize health professional support for the "McCain Amendment" in late 2005 and coordinated opposition to provisions in the 2006 military commissions bill that could be exploited by the White House to justify abusive CIA interrogation methods. The Campaign continues to work intensively to reverse administration policy and legal opinions that support the use of physical and psychological torture by the CIA. In addition, we continue to press for revised military guidelines that protect the ethical duties of all health personnel.

Campaign Highlights

Our 2005 report, Break Them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces, was the first to comprehensively document the use of long-term isolation, threats of harm to the detainee or his family, severe humiliation, prolonged sleep deprivation, sensory assault, and other psychological interrogation methods by US forces. The report exposed the extraordinarily harmful health impact of these techniques and showed how the Justice Department reinterpreted US anti-torture law to undermine the prohibition against such forms of psychological torture.

The US Health Professionals' Call to Prevent Torture and Abuse of Detainees in U.S. Custody, which has been signed by more than 1200 physicians, psychologists, and others nationwide, reaffirms the health professional commitment against abusive interrogation methods and calls for full and transparent investigations of abusive interrogation practices; accountability for perpetrators up the chain of command; policies that will prohibit torture, including psychological torture; and clear ethical and military guidelines preventing health professional involvement in abusive treatment and interrogations.

In response to Pentagon guidelines mandating an active role for health personnel, particularly Behavioral Science Consultants (BSCs), in interrogations, PHR has advocated with considerable success for ethics policies barring health professionals from participation in interrogations.