Psyche, Science, and Society

Depression more likely in middle age

A new world-wide study finds a U-shaped curve of happiness, with those of us in “midlife” (40-60) more likely to be depressed than the young or old, the Guardian reports:

Happiness is being young or old, but middle age is misery

by Alok Jha

People are most likely to become depressed in middle age, according to a worldwide study of happiness. The team of economists leading the work found that we are happiest towards the beginning and end of our lives, leaving us most miserable in middle years between 40 and 50.

The results, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, showed that people’s levels of happiness followed a U-shaped curve, a pattern that was remarkably consistent in the vast majority of countries the researchers looked at, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe.

For both men and women in the UK, the probability of depression peaked at around the age of 44. In the US, men were most likely to be unhappiest at 50, while for women the age was 40.

Andrew Oswald, from the University of Warwick, and David Blanchflower, from Dartmouth College in the US, led a study of more than 2 million people from 80 countries to find if happiness was related to age.

They found that the signs of mid-life depression were consistent across many groups of people, irrespective of socio-economic status, whether they had children in the house, were divorced, or were facing changes in jobs or income.

“Some people suffer more than others but in our data the average effect is large,” said Oswald.

“What causes this apparently U-shaped curve, and its similar shape in different parts of the developed and even often developing world, is unknown.

“However, one possibility is that individuals learn to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses, and in mid-life quell their infeasible aspirations. Another possibility is that cheerful people live systematically longer.”

A third possibility is that older people might compare their lives with their peers’. Seeing their friends die could mean people value their remaining years more highly.

Oswald added: “It looks from the data like something happens deep inside humans. For the average person in the modern world, the dip in mental health and happiness comes on slowly, not suddenly in a single year.

“Only in their 50s do most people emerge from the low period. But encouragingly, by the time you are 70, if you are still physically fit then on average you are as happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year-old. Perhaps realising that such feelings are completely normal in mid-life might even help individuals survive this phase better.”

A total of 72 countries were found to follow the U-shaped pattern of happiness. In the eight countries that did not seem to follow the pattern - mostly developing countries - Oswald said that the available data had been less robust, so discerning patterns had been difficult. He added that shorter lifespans might skew the results of a country.

Add comment January 29th, 2008

Guantanamo: Lying to mental health staff to avoid worse conditions?

According to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Guantanamo prisoners lie to mental health professional (the article refers to “psychologists,” “psychiatrists,” and “psychtechs” so it is hard to know who is really involved), in order to avoid receiving worse treatment:

Gulf News UAE:Prisoners forced to lie to doctors

by Habib Toumi

Manama: Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are invariably telling psychologists that they were fine in order to avoid stricter detention conditions, Juma Al Dossary, Bahrain’s most famous inmate at the US centre, has said.

Quoted by his lawyer Joshua Bryan-Colangelo, Al Dossary said that he and the other detainees were providing positive answers to weekly questions by psychologists about their mental condition.

“Al Dossary said that all detainees have learned to report that they are fine because otherwise they will be held under even stricter conditions,” said Bryan-Colangelo who visited his client last month.

“Two psychiatrists visit Al Dossary once a week to spend a few minutes with him and ask the same questions about his condition,” the lawyer said, raising doubts about the ‘mental health care’. He said that the ‘psychtech’ saw him every day and asked the same questions: “Are you eating well?, Are you sleeping well?, Do you think about hurting yourself? and, Do you think about hurting others?”

The lawyer charged that the attention that his client was receiving at Guantanamo was ‘inadequate’.

Add comment January 23rd, 2008

American and California Psychological Associations move to gut bill on interrogations

I have written recently about efforts in the California legislature to get health professionals, psychologists included, out of interrogation of enemy combatants. Senator Ridley-Thomas has introduced a resolution that would request the military and CIA to remove all California licenses health providers from involvement in interrogations. [For arguments in favor of the Resolution, see the Physicians for Human Rights letter to the Senate committee.] There was a hearing on Monday (January 14) at which proponents of the Resolution spoke. At this hearing the California Psychological Association (CPA) and the American Psychological Association (APA) together proposed a revised resolution. While appearing to be a slight modification, the APA-CPA revisions would completely gut the Resolution.

In particular, by inserting three words [bolded below], the APA/CPA entirely change the meaning of the critical Resolved clause. Rather than follow the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association and state that involvement in interrogations is in conflict with the ethics of a health profession, they would turn this into another vacuous statement against torture, as if everyone, even those who order it, doesn’t claim to be against torture:

Resolved, That the Legislature hereby requests the United States Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency to remove all California-licensed health professionals, including, but not limited to, physicians and psychologists, from participating in any way in prisoner and detainee interrogations that involve torture, in view of their respective ethical obligations, the record of abusive interrogation practices, and the Legislature’s interest in protecting California health professionals from the risk of criminal liability; and be it further

The APA-CPA revision would make this Resolution even weaker than APA resolutions, which condemn not only torture, but the similar but legally distinct “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Notice also that, in order to make this change palatable, they totally distort the fundamental guidelines of the World Medical Association, as you can see from the language they want remove, here indicated by strikeout:

WHEREAS, The World Medical Association (WMA) issued guidelines stating that physicians shall not use nor allow to be used their medical knowledge or skills, or health information specific to individuals, to facilitate or otherwise aid any interrogation, legal or illegal; and

WHEREAS, The guidelines issued by the WMA also state that physicians shall not participate in or facilitate torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading procedures of prisoners or detainees in any situations;

In the category of the humorous, if it wasn’t an indicator of how closely allied with the military the APA is, is that they remove the word “military” from a phrase pointing to the clear record that psychologists participated in abuse

WHEREAS, Evidence in the public record indicates that certain military psychologists, working on behalf of the United States government, participated in the design and implementation of psychologically abusive interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq, and elsewhere, including sleep deprivation, long-term isolation, sexual and cultural humiliation, forced nudity, induced hypothermia and other temperature extremes, stress positions, sensory bombardment, manipulation of phobias, force-feeding hunger strikers, and more.

Also in the category of macabre humor is the APA’s wish to revise history and strike “psychologists” from the list of professionals reported to have participated in abuse:

WHEREAS, in 2002, for the first time in American history, the Bush administration initiated a radical new policy allowing the torture of prisoners of war and other captives with confirmed reports from the International Red Cross, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet (British medical journal), military records and first-person accounts stating that California licensed physicians, psychologists, and nurses have participated in torture or its cover up against detainees in U.S. custody

They are correct, of course, that it was not only military psychologists who participated in abuse, as CIA and CIA consultants are also known to have participated in torture and abuse. Yet they add the word military when they suggest adding a largely false statement [only one psychologist, Michael Gelles, is clearly documented to have objected to abuse, and Gelles was a civilian, not a "military" psychologist at the time] about psychologists objecting to abuse:

while evidence in the public record also indicates that certain military psychologists objected to the use of such methods

Here is the entire revised CPA-APA draft of the Resolution. Language they want removed is indicated with strikeout, while that they added is bolded:

RESOLUTION: MILITARY TORTURE AND HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
(Draft: 1-3-08)

WHEREAS, the citizens of the United States of America and the residents of the State of California acknowledge January 15th as the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and mark the third Monday in January as a federal and state holiday to commemorate his life work as a Civil Rights leader, activist and an internationally acclaimed proponent of human rights who warned: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it,” and

WHEREAS, in 2002, for the first time in American history, the Bush administration initiated a radical new policy allowing the torture of prisoners of war and other captives with confirmed reports from the International Red Cross, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet (British medical journal), military records and first-person accounts stating that California licensed physicians, psychologists, and nurses have participated in torture or its cover up against detainees in U.S. custody; and

WHEREAS, in honor of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a broad coalition of medical, human rights and legal organizations are petitioning the State of California to warn its medical licensees of the legal prohibitions against torture and the risks of prosecution, and are demanding that the U.S. Government remove California doctors and psychologists from interrogation and torture of detainees; and

WHEREAS, Dr. King challenged Americans to remain true to their most basic values, stating: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy,” and

WHEREAS, Californians to Stop Medical Torture are carrying petition signatures to the California State Senate, asking that the Senate warn California licensed physicians, psychologists, nurses and other health care workers of possible future prosecution for participation in torture — cruel and degrading practices that have become a national shame;

WHEREAS, Health professionals licensed in California, including, but not limited to physicians, osteopaths, naturopaths, psychologists, psychiatric workers, and nurses, have and continue serve nobly and honorably in the armed services of the United States; and

WHEREAS, United States Army regulations and the War Crimes Act, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, state in Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions and in the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) require that all military personnel report and not engage in acts of abuse or torture; and

WHEREAS, the CAT defines the term torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”; and

WHEREAS, in 2002, the United States Department of Justice reinterpreted national and international law related to the treatment of prisoners of war in a manner that purported to justify long-prohibited interrogation methods and treatment of detainees; and

WHEREAS, Physicians and other medical personnel and psychologists serving in noncombatant roles are bound by international law and professional ethics to care for enemy prisoners and to report any evidence of coercion, or abuse of detainees; and

WHEREAS, The World Medical Association (WMA) issued guidelines stating that physicians shall not use nor allow to be used their medical knowledge or skills, or health information specific to individuals, to facilitate or otherwise aid any interrogation, legal or illegal; and

WHEREAS, The guidelines issued by the WMA also state that physicians shall not participate in or facilitate torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading procedures of prisoners or detainees in any situations; and

WHEREAS, The ethical policy of the American Medical Association (AMA) prohibits physicians from conducting or directly participating in an interrogation or monitoring interrogations with the intention of intervening; and

WHEREAS, AMA policy also states that “[t]orture refers to the deliberate, systematic or wanton administration of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatments or punishments during imprisonment or detainment. Physicians must oppose and must not participate in torture for any reason … Physicians should help provide support for victims of torture and, whenever possible, strive to change the situation in which torture is practiced or the potential for torture is great”; and

WHEREAS, United States Code section 2340 states that (1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control; (2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from: (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and

WHEREAS, In May 2006, the American Psychiatric Association stated that psychiatrists should not “participate directly in the interrogation of persons held in custody by military or civilian investigative or law enforcement authorities, whether in the United States or elsewhere,” and that “psychiatrists should not participate in, or otherwise assist or facilitate, the commission of torture of any person. Psychiatrists who become aware that torture has occurred, is occurring, or has been planned must report it promptly to a person or persons in a position to take corrective action”; and

WHEREAS, In August 2006, the American Psychological Association stated that “psychologists shall not knowingly participate in any procedure in which torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment is used or threatened” and that “should torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment evolve during a procedure where a psychologist is present, the psychologist shall attempt to intervene to stop such behavior, and failing that exit the procedure”; and

WHEREAS, In June 2005, the House of Delegates of the American Nurses Association issued a resolution stating all of the following: “prisoners and detainees have the right to health care and humane treatment”; “registered nurses shall not voluntarily participate in any deliberate infliction of physical or mental suffering”; “registered nurses who have knowledge of ill-treatment of any individuals including detainees and prisoners must take appropriate action to safeguard the rights of that individual”; “the American Nurses Association shall condemn interrogation procedures that are harmful to mental and physical health”; “the American Nurses Association shall advocate for nondiscriminatory access to health care for wounded military and paramilitary personnel and prisoners of war”; and “the American Nurses Association shall counsel and support nurses who speak out about acts of torture and abuse”; and

WHEREAS, In March 2005, the California Medical Association stated that it “condemns any participation in, cooperation with, or failure to report by physicians and other health professionals the mental or physical abuse, sexual degradation, or

WHEREAS, In November 2004, the American Public Health Association stated that it “condemns any participation in, cooperation with, or failure to report by health professionals the mental or physical abuse, sexual degradation, or torture of prisoners or detainees,” that it “urges health professionals to report abuse or torture of prisoners and detainees;’ and that it “supports the rights of health workers to be protected from retribution for refusing to participate or cooperate in abuse or torture in military settings”; and

WHEREAS, The United States military medical system in Guantanamo Bay,
Afghanistan, Iraq, and other United States operated foreign military prisons failed to protect detainees’ rights to medical treatment, failed to prevent disclosure of confidential medical information to interrogators and others, failed to promptly report injuries or deaths caused by beatings, failed to report acts of psychological and sexual degradation, and sometimes collaborated with abusive interrogators and guards; and

WHEREAS, Current United States Department of Defense guidelines authorize the participation of certain military health personnel, especially psychologists, in the interrogation of detainees as members of “Behavioral Science Consulting Teams” in violation of professional ethics. These guidelines also permit the use of confidential clinical information from medical records to aid in interrogations; and

WHEREAS, Evidence in the public record indicates that certain military psychologists, working on behalf of the United States government, participated in the design and implementation of psychologically abusive interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq, and elsewhere, including sleep deprivation, long-term isolation, sexual and cultural humiliation, forced nudity, induced hypothermia and other temperature extremes, stress positions, sensory bombardment, manipulation of phobias, force-feeding hunger strikers, and more, while evidence in the public record also indicates that certain military psychologists objected to the use of such methods; and

WHEREAS, Published reports indicate that the so-called “enhanced interrogation methods” of the Central Intelligence Agency reportedly include similar abusive methods and that agency psychologists may have assisted in their development; and

WHEREAS, in August 2007 the American Psychological Association prohibited psychologist participation in nineteen techniques associated with “enhanced” interrogation methods, also referred to as “no-touch torture” and “torture light”; and

WHEREAS, Medical and psychological studies and clinical experience show that these abuses can cause severe or serious mental pain and suffering in their victims, and therefore may violate the “torture” and “cruel and inhuman treatment” provisions of CAT and the United States War Crimes Act, as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2006; and

WHEREAS, The United States Department of Defense has failed to oversee the ethical conduct of California-licensed health professionals related to torture;

WHEREAS, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in.” Therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of California jointly that the Legislature hereby requests all relevant California agencies, including, but not limited to, the Board of Behavioral Sciences, the Dental Board of California, the Medical Board of California, the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, the Bureau of Naturopathic Medicine, the California State Board of Pharmacy, the Physician Assistant Committee of the Medical Board of California, the California Board of Podiatric Medicine, the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, the Board of Psychology, and the Board of Registered Nursing, to notify California-licensed health professionals via newsletter, email, and Web site about their professional obligations under international law, specifically Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the amended War Crimes Act, which prohibit the torture of and the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment of detainees in United States custody; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature hereby requests all relevant California agencies to notify health professionals licensed in California that those who participate in torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment may one day be subject to prosecution; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature hereby requests the United States Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency to remove all California-licensed health professionals, including, but not limited to, physicians and psychologists, from participating in any way in prisoner and detainee interrogations that involve torture, in view of their respective ethical obligations, the record of abusive interrogation practices, and the Legislature’s interest in protecting California health professionals from the risk of criminal liability; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the United States Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and all relevant California agencies, including, but not limited to, the Board of Behavioral Sciences, the Dental Board of California, the Medical Board of California the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, the Bureau of Naturopathic Medicine, the California State Board of Pharmacy, the Physician Assistant Committee of the Medical Board of California, the California Board of Podiatric Medicine, the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, the Board of Psychology, and the Board of Registered Nursing.

If this attempt to gut this important legislative initiative is to be stopped, California psychologists, other health providers, and all citizens concerned about human rights will have to organize a massive lobbying campaign. Letters, phone calls, and personal meetings with State Senators and Assembly members are critical. Remember to be polite and to focus upon why this matters to the citizens and government of California. The legislature is not interested in internal conflicts within the health professions. Many are not concerned about foreign affairs. But they are very interested in kinds of activities the health providers licensed by the state are engaged in.Remember also that they may know little or nothing about these issues. Explain succinctly and to the point.

3 comments January 16th, 2008

Physicians for Human Rights on California health provider interrogations bill

Physicians for Human Rights President Leonard Rubenstein has written a letter supporting the California bill that would try and get California licensed health providers out of any direct role aiding national security interrogations. [Available as pdf here.]:

January 11, 2007

Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas
State Capitol, Room 4061
Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: Support for Resolution on Health Professional Involvement in Torture

Dear Senator Ridley-Thomas:

I am writing on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), an organization that for 20 years has been engaged in mobilizing the health professions to advance human rights. We strongly support the resolution you have offered. It is a critical step toward restoring the integrity of the health professions in the context of national security policy and renewing public confidence in these professions.

For its entire history, PHR has been engaged in documenting torture throughout the world and ending medical complicity in it. We also led the process of establishing international standards for medical documentation of torture (the Istanbul Protocol), which were endorsed by the UN General Assembly. In 1997 Physicians for Human Rights shared in the Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the Steering Committee of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

In recent years, we have been actively engaged in stopping torture by the United States and any medical participation in it. We issued a seminal report on the use of psychological torture, Break Them Down, and a medico-legal analysis of “enhanced” interrogation techniques, Leave No Marks (available on our web site, www.physiciansforhumanrights.org.) PHR has been particularly concerned about the role of health professionals as designers, implementers, and supervisors of systematic torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees. This role is in direct contravention of the foundational tenets of medical ethics and domestic and international human rights law and significantly undermines the health professional’s role as healer. We and our advisers have written analyses of the problem for the Journal of the American Medical Association and other scientific and legal journals, provided op-ed articles for major newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, and provided testimony to the U.S. Congress. We have also played an active role in providing guidance and advice to professional associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association, in setting out the ethical standards applicable to the health profession in the context of interrogation.

It is this background that leads us to support the resolution you are offering. It states clearly that all health professionals should not participate in torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Moreover, it follows the approach the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association took after careful study, which holds that to be true to ethical commitments, physicians should not participate in the interrogation of individual detainees at all – even an interrogation that doesn’t involve torture or cruel treatment. These organizations adopted this stance in recognition that the traditional standard – no participation in torture and cruel treatment – is inadequate. I would like to review the reasons for this stance.

First, it is indisputable that even the most benign interrogation is designed to induce distress and anxiety. Interrogations conducted by the United States in the context of detention of terrorist suspects, significantly exacerbate this distress, and the potential for long-term harm, because they take place in a closed environment where human rights violations, including no due process and indefinite confinement, can easily occur. Engaging in any interrogation support in these circumstances, even where the interrogation is legal, is inconsistent with core ethical value of all the health professions in avoiding harm. This stance is similar to the ethical prohibition on physicians from participation in executions even in states where, as in California, capital punishment is legal.

Second, while it is often claimed that health professionals can play the role of a “safety officer” in interrogations, the investigations we and others have conducted have shown that the opposite is the case: in this role, health professionals in Behavioral Science Consultation Teams become the decision-makers in the calibration of the degree of pain and distress to be inflicted. This is shown in a forthright report issued by the Army Surgeon General in 2005, which on the one hand affirmed that health professionals act to assure that interrogations are safe, but expected them to advise interrogators when it was permissible to increase the distress and pain inflicted on a detainee.

Third, it is often argued that health professionals, particularly behavioral scientists, by sharing information and insights about individual detainees, can help establish rapport with a detainee and otherwise support non-coercive interrogations. But this role provides an invitation – which is embodied in current military rules – to share medical records and results of examinations with interrogators. The AMA and American Psychiatric Association have therefore come to the view that their members may train interrogators generally about human behavior and interrogation but not participate in individual interrogations.

Finally, there is a terrible slippery slope in engaging in interrogations that fall short of torture or cruel treatment. As we know, the interpretations of what amounts to torture and cruel treatment by the Justice Department, CIA and Department of Defense are ever-changing, and health professionals ought not to be in the position of being told that a certain interrogation method is acceptable because the lawyers have said so. They are not in a position, either from the point of view of legal knowledge of authority, to contest such determinations, and the prudent approach is to remove them from the situation where such choices must be made. The record of interrogations by the United States has indeed shown that psychologists and physicians have been reassured that the conduct involved does not involve torture and cruel treatment, when in fact it does. Whether serving as supposed “safety officers,” members of Behavioral Consultative Science Teams (BSCTs), or as advisors and implementers to interrogations, health professionals, especially psychologists and physicians, have had their medical expertise and prestige twisted to legitimate criminal treatment of suspected terrorists. The untenable position in which they have been placed can only be avoided by banning participation altogether.

We are aware that some health professionals and the American Psychological Association wish to continue a role for health professionals in interrogations, and thus urge adherence to the pre-9/11 standard, which only prohibits participation in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. But the experience of the past six years shows why that standard is unworkable and ineffective, and why both internationally – through the World Medical Association – and domestically, the majority approach since 9/11 has been to end the participation of members of health professions obligated to “do no harm” in interrogation altogether.

Because your resolution does precisely this approach we support it. It can help provide health professionals serving in national security environments the ethical and legal guidance they so desperately require to operate in US detention facilities in a manner that comports with their professional ethics and values. By passing this resolution, California will also send a strong message to national security agencies that there is no circumstance where a health professional should be allowed to participate in the willful infliction of harm, and that California will hold health professionals who engage in these activities accountable for their violation of their solemn duty to “do no harm”.

Sincerely,

Leonard S. Rubenstein
President

3 comments January 13th, 2008

Action Opportunity for California Residents: Get health professionals out of interrogations!

This is an urgent opportunity for action for residents of California who are concerned about the role of psychologists and other health professionals in torture and abuse of U.S. detainees.

A broad coalition of health, human rights, and legal organizations in California are working to encourage the State of California to:

Notify all state-licensed health professionals of their legal and professional obligations not to participate in torture.

Notify them that participants in torture may be subject to prosecution.

Request that the U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA remove all California-licensed health professionals, including psychologists, from participating in prisoner interrogations.

If you would like to know more about this initiative, or sign a related online petition, go to the following web page, posted by the American Friends Service Committee:

http://www.afsc-pswro.org/crm/licensingpetition.php?

The California State Senate will be holding a hearing on Monday afternoon, Jan. 14th, on a proposed resolution on this matter. Contact the California State Senate Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development, at 916-651-4104, for more information about that resolution and hearing.

Daily Kos blogger Valtin has more information on this. Go read his post. From it I reproduce the actual bill:

AUTHORS COPY
10/15/07 08:1OAM
58048 RN 07 29989 PAGE 1
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST
as introduced, Ridley-Thomas.

General Subject: Health professionals: torture.

This measure would request all relevant California agencies to notify
California-licensed health professionals about their professional obligations under international law relating to torture and the treatment of detainees, as specified, and to also notify those professionals that those who participate in torture, among other forms of treatment, may be subject to prosecution. In addition, the measure would request the United States Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency to remove all California-licensed health professionals from participating in prisoner and detainee interrogations

Fiscal committee: yes.

WHEREAS, Health professionals licensed in California, including, but not limited to, physicians, osteopaths, psychologists, psychiatric workers, and nurses, have and continue to serve nobly and honorably in the armed services of the United States; and

WHEREAS, United States Army regulations and the War Crimes Act and, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) require that all military personnel report and not engage in acts of abuse or torture; and

WHEREAS, CAT defines the term “torture” as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”; and

WHEREAS, In 2002, the United States Department of Justice reinterpreted national and international law related to the treatment of prisoners of war in a manner that purported to justify long-prohibited interrogation methods and treatment of detainees; and

WHEREAS, Physicians and other medical personnel and psychologists serving in noncombat roles are bound by international law and professional ethics to care for enemy prisoners and to report any evidence of coercion, or abuse of detainees; and

WHEREAS, The World Medical Association (WMA) issued guidelines stating that physicians shall not use nor allow to be used their medical knowledge or skills, or health information specific to individuals, to facilitate or otherwise aid any interrogation, legal or illegal; and

WHEREAS, The guidelines issued by the WMA also state that physicians shall not participate in or facilitate torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading procedures of prisoners or detainees in any situations; and

WHEREAS, The American Medical Association’s (AMA) ethical policy prohibits physicians from conducting or directly participating in an interrogation and from monitoring interrogations with the intention of intervening; and

WHEREAS, AMA policy also states that “(t)orture refers to the deliberate, systematic or wanton administration of cruel, inhumane > and degrading treatments or punishments during imprisonment or detainment. Physicians must oppose and must not participate in torture for any reason … Physicians should help provide support for victims of torture and, whenever possible, strive to change the situation in which torture is practiced or the potential for torture is great”; and

WHEREAS, In May 2006, the American Psychiatric Association stated that psychiatrists should not “participate directly in the interrogation of persons held in custody by military or civilian investigative or law enforcement authorities, whether in the United States or elsewhere,” and that “psychiatrists should not participate in, or otherwise assist or facilitate, the commission of torture of any person. Psychiatrists who become aware that torture has occurred, is occurring, or has been planned must report it promptly to a person or persons in a position to take corrective action”; and

WHEREAS, In August 2006, the American Psychological Association stated ___ that “psychologists shall not knowingly participate in any procedure in which torture ___ or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment is used or threatened” and that “should torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment evolve during a procedure where a psychologist is present, the psychologist shall attempt to intervene to stop such behavior, and failing that exit the procedure”; and

WHEREAS, In June 2005, the House of Delegates of the American Nurses Association issued a resolution stating all of the following: “prisoners and detainees have the right to health care and humane treatment”; “registered nurses shall not voluntarily participate in any deliberate infliction of physical or mental suffering”; “registered nurses who have knowledge of ill- treatment of any individuals including detainees and prisoners must take appropriate action to safeguard the rights of that individual”; “the American Nurses Association shall condemn interrogation procedures that are harmful to mental and physical health”; “the American Nurses Association shall advocate for nondiscriminatory access to health care for wounded military and paramilitary personnel and prisoners of war”; and “the American Nurses Association shall counsel and support nurses who speak out about acts of torture and abuse”; and

WHEREAS, In March 2005, the California Medical Association stated that it “condemns any participation in, cooperation with, or failure to report by physicians and other health professionals the mental or physical abuse, sexual degradation, or torture of prisoners or detainees”; and

WHEREAS, In November 2004, the American Public Health Association stated that it “condemns any participation in, cooperation with, or failure to report by health professionals the mental or physical abuse, sexual degradation, or torture of prisoners or detainees:’ that it “urges health professionals to report abuse or torture of prisoners and detainees;’ and that it “supports the rights of health workers to be protected from retribution for refusing to participate or cooperate in abuse or torture in military settings”; and

WHEREAS, The United States military medical system in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other United States operated foreign military prisons failed to protect detainees’ rights to medical treatment, failed to prevent disclosure of confidential medical information to interrogators and others, failed to promptly report injuries or deaths caused by beatings, failed to report acts of psychological and sexual degradation, and sometimes collaborated with abusive interrogators and guards; and

WHEREAS, Current United States Department of Defense guidelines authorize the participation of certain military health personnel, especially psychologists, in the interrogation of detainees as members of “Behavioral Science Consulting Teams” in violation of professional ethics. These guidelines also permit the use of confidential clinical information from medical records to aid in interrogations and

WHEREAS, Evidence in the public record indicates that military psychologists participated in the design and implementation of psychologically abusive interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq, and elsewhere, including sleep deprivation, long-term isolation, sexual and cultural humiliation, forced nudity, induced hypothermia and other temperature extremes, stress positions, sensory bombardment, manipulation of phobias, force-feeding hunger strikers, and more; and

WHEREAS, Published reports indicate that the so-called “enhanced interrogation methods” of the Central Intelligence Agency reportedly include similar abusive methods and that agency psychologists may have assisted in their development; and

WHEREAS, Medical and psychological studies and clinical experience show that these abuses can cause severe or serious mental pain and suffering in their victims, and therefore may violate the “torture” and “cruel and inhuman treatment” provisions of CAT and the United States War Crimes Act, as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2006; and

WHEREAS, The United States Department of Defense has failed to oversee the ethical conduct of California-licensed health professionals related to torture; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature hereby requests all relevant California agencies, including, but not limited to, the Board of Behavioral Sciences, the Dental Board of California, the Medical Board of California, the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, the California State Board of Pharmacy, the Physician Assistant Committee of the Medical Board of California, the California Board of Pediatric Medicine, the Board of vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, the Board of Psychology, and the Board of Registered Nursing, to notify California-licensed health professionals via newsletter, email, and Web site about their professional obligations under international law, specifically Common Article HI of the Geneva Conventions, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the amended War Crimes Act, which prohibit the torture of and the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment of detainees in United States custody; and be it further __

Resolved, That the Legislature hereby requests all relevant California agencies ___ to notify health professionals licensed in California that those who participate in torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment may one day be subject to prosecution; and be it further

Resolved. That the Legislature hereby requests the United States Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency to remove all California-licensed health professionals, including, but not limited to, physicians and psychologists, from participating in any way in prisoner and detainee interrogations, in view of their respective ethical obligations, the record of abusive interrogation practices, and the Legislature’s interest in protecting California health professionals from the risk of criminal liability; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the United States Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and all relevant California agencies, including, but not limited to, the Board of Behavioral Sciences, the Dental Board of California. the Medical Board of California, the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, the California State Board of Pharmacy, the Physician Assistant Committee of the Medical Board of California, the California Board of Pediatric Medicine, the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, the Board of Psychology, and the Board of Registered Nursing.

The American Psychological Association is working to weaken this bill to meaninglessness. It is up to concerned health providers in California to organize to see that doesn’t happen.

3 comments January 10th, 2008

Iraqi Kurdish women attempting suicide at alarming rate

In the Kurdish north, the peaceful corner of Iraq, rapid social change is pushing increasing numbers of women to suicide, the Dallas Morning News reports. Since the war, one women a day sets herself alight.

Alas, the article doesn’t really give an explanation for this epidemic of female suicide. There are hints about rapid change, poverty and family tensions. But no insight is provided as to how these are combining to cause the rash of suicides:

Northern Iraqi women increasingly attempting suicide

by Cheryl Diaz Meyer

ERBIL, Iraq – Iman Eaziden Bakr raised her chin, her eyes glistening in the dim light.

“I thought, ‘This is my death,’ ” she said. “I felt like a chicken being roasted. I will never forget the torture of my skin. It was so painful, as if my insides were being exposed.”

Her tea had long gone cold as she recounted Jan. 14, the day she poured kerosene on her body and set herself on fire.

Despite the economic boom in Iraqi Kurdistan, Ms. Bakr and her family are among the majority of Kurds who live in poverty. Eight people live together in one room.

“I started feeling hopeless about life, and I couldn’t bear their fighting anymore,” she said. “So I sacrificed myself for my family. But it was useless.”

When she returned home from the hospital, it was worse.

As new social and economic pressures collide with old traditions in the newly prosperous region of northern Iraq, Kurdish women still exert little control over their lives, health experts say. They struggle to describe a mental malaise that women and girls experience in the patriarchal culture, where women see little hope for their future and find themselves driven to kill themselves at unprecedented levels.

Since 2003, an average of one female sets herself on fire each day in Iraqi Kurdistan, according to Khasro Omar, head nurse of the Emergency Management Centre in Erbil. The center is the premier hospital for burn patients in the area.

Ms. Bakr, 17, said she was diagnosed with depression. But her mother refused to buy the prescribed medicine, fearful that people would think their family was crazy.

“Anyone could see that I was not normal,” she said. “I heard voices telling me to kill myself, but my mother thought I was just being melodramatic.”

Most of the women and girls say they immolated themselves because of unresolved problems with their families. Some had issues in their marriages, while others alleged they were burned by accident as they worked in the kitchen, their long dresses a danger near the flames.

For many of these women, ordinary problems seem magnified. That was the case for 19-year-old Qumri Kaifi.

“I was washing the floor, and my sister kept walking over it, making me upset,” she said. After months of strife between her and her new stepmother, this was the final straw. She went into the kitchen and set herself on fire with her 10-year-old sister watching.

Those who survive suffer estrangement from their families and society. Married women who cannot work because of their injuries are often divorced by their husbands. No organizations in the region have long-term programs to help these women.

In the far end of the Erbil ward lies Aveen Bayz, 13, her brow furrowed in pain and her eyes dark and woeful. She resembles a mummy, almost completely covered in gauze to protect her burns, which cover 70 percent of her skin.

Ms. Bayz said she immolated herself because her younger sister was jealous of her and harassed her for not doing the house chores correctly. She has survived eight days after immolating herself. Even the staff won’t venture to guess if she will live or die.

Nearby, her anguished mother wipes away tears.

“I would do anything for my daughter, if only she’d stay alive,” said Sameera Mohammad. “I wish to hear her voice every morning.”

Nine months have passed since Ms. Bakr’s attempt to kill herself. She still emanates the acrid smell of burned skin, and her scars itch as they crack open and heal.

“I do feel that they love me,” Ms. Bakr said of her family. “But even if I wasn’t making good choices – why didn’t they stop me? I don’t understand their love.”

She still sees little promise for the future.

“I gradually feel myself becoming hopeless again,” she said. “So, I probably will one day succeed in killing myself.”

Add comment December 30th, 2007

CIA torture victim Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah talks to Democracy Now!

Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah is the only victim of the CIA’s rendition and the “black sites” to be released and be free to speak to the press. The other day we had Mark Benjamin’s account of Bashmilah’s life inside the black sites. Amy Goodman has now interviewed Bashmilah on Democracy Now! You can watch or listen to the interview here. And here is the transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: Today, a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive. A victim of the CIA rendition program—kidnapped, held in secret jails and tortured—speaks out in his own words. His name is Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, one of hundreds of men to have passed through the CIA’s so-called “black sites.” Today, he tells his story.

A citizen of Yemen, Mohamed came to Jordan with his wife in the fall of 2003 to arrange surgery for his ailing mother. He was living in Indonesia at the time. Jordanian authorities took him into custody shortly after seizing his passport. There, he says he was tortured, threatened and forced to sign a false confession. He was turned over to the CIA within days and flown to a secret prison he later found out was in Kabul, Afghanistan.

In CIA custody, Mohamed says he was held in a freezing-cold cell, interrogated, shackled, force-fed, subjected to sleep deprivation and loud music for days. He attempted suicide at least three times. He talks about his interrogators and the American psychiatrists or psychologists who also played a role.

Mohamed has brought a lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary accused of abetting his kidnapping. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Jeppesen Dataplan on behalf of Mohamed and four other victims of CIA kidnapping and torture. The lawsuit accuses Jeppesen of providing direct logistical support for the CIA flights.

Yesterday, I spoke to Mohamed Bashmilah on the phone from his home in Yemen, in his first broadcast interview. We’re going to play that interview in a moment, but first I want to turn to Meg Satterthwaite. She is director of the International Human Rights Clinic at New York University Law School. She’s Mohamed Bashmilah’s attorney, joining us from Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Meg Satterthwaite.

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of what Mohamed Bashmilah describes happened to him.
MEG SATTERTHWAITE: So, one of the reasons that Mohamed Bashmilah’s story is so important is that he is one of a very small number of individuals to have actually come out of the so-called “high-value detainee” program. This is a program that targeted individuals who were suspected of being quote/unquote “high-level al-Qaeda” members or had associations with such members. Mohamed is one of very few people who was later released from that program, rather than being sent to Guantanamo. And for that reason, he is able to tell about some of the black sites that, really, we haven’t heard much about from any perspective outside of the US government perspective.
AMY GOODMAN: He was never charged and then ultimately released, after being—
MEG SATTERTHWAITE: That’s correct.
AMY GOODMAN: —held in—the last jail was in Yemen for ten months, he says, at the behest of the Americans.
MEG SATTERTHWAITE: Right. So he was never charged by the Americans in any way. In fact, he still doesn’t know to this day why the Americans picked him up and why they requested his transfer from Jordan. He was charged finally by the Yemeni government. When he was transferred to Yemen, the Yemeni government has said that they were told to hold him on behalf of the US government. They later received a file from the US government, and essentially they felt that they didn’t have any evidence that he was a terrorist, so they interviewed him and they found that he admitted to using a false identity document at one point when he was in Indonesia, and they charged him with forgery. They then sentenced him to time served, and they counted the time that he spent in secret prisons abroad.
AMY GOODMAN: Meg Satterthwaite, why is he and the other men who you’re representing suing this Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen?
MEG SATTERTHWAITE: So the Jeppesen suit, which was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, is a suit that challenges corporate complicity in the rendition and secret detention program. And the point here is to show and to try to stop the complicity of regular corporations in the secret detention and forced disappearance program.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Meg Satterthwaite, director of International Human Rights Clinic at New York University Law School. And what is the Boeing subsidiary’s response—Jeppesen?
MEG SATTERTHWAITE: Well, we actually haven’t had a response from the defendant, Jeppesen, in this case. What has happened instead is that the US government has made a motion to intervene, and they’ve also at the same time made a motion to dismiss the lawsuit or to get a summary judgment granted in their favor on the basis of the state secrets doctrine. So the idea is the US government needs to come in and say, “Wait, we can’t forward with this case. We can’t even go forward to have a response from the defendant, because the issues in the case are so linked to national security that the entire case must be dismissed on the basis of state secrets.”
AMY GOODMAN: Meg Satterthwaite, we’d like you to stay with us. We’re going to turn now to the interview that I did with Mohamed Bashmilah. Fuad Yahya provided the translation. I spoke to Mohamed at his home in Yemen. He began by talking about his initial capture in Jordan before he was turned over to the CIA.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] It was approximately six days, but what I endured there is worth years. They took me there, and in the evening they started their interrogations process. They started putting some psychological pressure on me. They wanted me to confess to having some connections to some individuals of al-Qaeda. They tried several times to get me to confess, and every time I said no, I would get either a kick, a slap or a curse. Then they said that if I did not confess, they will bring my wife and rape her in front of me. And out of fear for what would happen to my family, I screamed and I fainted. After I came to, I told them that, “Please, don’t do anything to my family. I would cooperate with you in any way you want.”

AMY GOODMAN: CIA torture and rendition victim, Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah. He was speaking to me yesterday from his home in Yemen. We’ll come back to this interview in a moment.[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We return now to this broadcast exclusive, the interview with CIA torture and rendition victim, Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah. I spoke to him at his home in Yemen late yesterday and asked him to talk about his transfer to CIA custody after his detention in Jordan.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] They took me at 1:30 in the morning out of the detention facility. I was told that I was being released. I was cautiously optimistic, because how could someone be released at 1:30 in the morning?
They took me to the room where I deposited my belongings. And my belongings consisted of my passport, $200, an ID card and my wedding ring. I signed receipt of these items, but they were not given to me. They were put inside an envelope. In addition, they put also the paper that I had signed, the confession, which was essentially a false confession.
While we were walking out, I asked one of the guards where I was being taken and where is my family? At that time, my heart was in distress. I felt there was something wrong, there was some kind of a conspiracy regarding my fate.
At that time, the guard lifted the blindfold partially so that I would speak to the interrogator, and I saw another man who had a Western look. He was white and somewhat overweight and had dark glasses on. I realized then that they were probably handing me over to some other agency, because during the interrogations I had with the Jordanians, one of the threats was that if I did not confess, they will hand me over to American intelligence. At that time, I did not take that threat seriously, because they had threatened me before that they would rape my wife, so I thought this was just psychological pressure. But at this moment, I realized I was being handed over to some other parties.
When we left the building and we got into the vehicle and the vehicle started to move, so I realized if the vehicle turned left and then turned right, that would mean that I was being taken to the airport, and that could mean that I would be handed over to some other parties. On the other hand, if the vehicle turned left and then turned left again, then that would mean that we were going to the city center, and that could mean that I was being released. I could not see or hear, but I could feel the movement, and the vehicle went into the direction toward the airport. I became increasingly afraid, increasingly worried, because I was being handed over to some other parties, and I didn’t understand why.
When we arrived at the airport, they took me to a hall. And without any precautions or anything, I felt that I was being pulled violently by some other people. They took me to another room. They started tearing down my clothes, from above all the way down. And I was being stripped completely naked. They started taking pictures from all directions. And they also started to beat me on my sides and also my feet. And then they put me in a position similar to the position of prostration in Muslim prayer, which is similar to the fetal position. And in that position, one of them inserted his finger in my anus very violently. I was in terrible pain, and I started to scream. When they started taking pictures, I could see that they were people who were masked. They were dressed in black from head to toe, and they were also wearing surgical gloves.
And then, they started in the process of preparing me for travel, and that consisted of putting a diaper on me. And then they put pants, which went down to below the knee, and a top with the sleeve to the middle of the forearm. And then, they also put some gauze on my eyes. And then they put what looked like headphones on my ears—sorry, these were not headphones; they were like little plugs inside the ears, plastic. And then they put gauze on that, on the ears. And then they taped that with very strong adhesive tape. And then they put a hood over my head. And then, on top of that, they put a headphone. This is as far as the top of my body was. And then they handcuffed me with a chain, and also they chained my ankles. Then they put a belt above the pants, and then they tied the hands and the ankles to that belt. This was after being slapped and kicked until I almost fainted.
And then they took me into an aircraft, and they had me lie down on the floor of the airplane. Then they strapped my legs at my chest so that I wouldn’t move right or left. The aircraft flew for about two-and-a-half to three hours. And I was in such a terrible psychological state, only God could determine. There was a lot of physical pain because of what I had endured, and also all the thoughts regarding what might happen to my wife and my mother. This is knowing that my mother was seriously ill, and my wife could not speak Arabic very well so she could be of much help to my mother. And so, throughout this flight, I was in some kind of a coma, and I would come to and I would faint and come to. And so, during those times when I was thinking of my wife and mother, I would be distracted from the pain, and then the pain would distract me from the thoughts to my wife and mother.
About three hours later, we landed somewhere. And then some [inaudible], and they handled me very roughly. They took me to a detention center. I was in a very poor psychological state. Then they took me to a room where they took my weight, and they examined my eyes and my ears. Then they put me in a solitary cell.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you beaten in this place?
MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] In this place, I was not beaten. They did not seem to have anything that indicated that I should be treated that way. In addition to that, they could see that I was in a terrible psychological state. It did not make any sense to pressure me in interrogations.
I was terribly agitated, and I was crying inconsolably, thinking of my mother and my wife. Also, I was thinking what they were thinking—why would they take me from one detention center to another? And I remained in this cell for three months, during which I had no relief at all, despite the fact that they brought a number of psychiatrists, in addition to the general practice physician there.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed, who were you being held by here?
MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Based on what the Jordanians had told me, that they would hand me to American intelligence, in addition to the interrogators in this place who came to see me with interpreters, I realized quite certainly that I was being held by American intelligence.
AMY GOODMAN: What clues did you have? Why did you think American?
MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Some of the interrogators would come to me and interrogate me in the interrogation room, and they would tell me, “You should calm down and be comforted, because we’ll send all this information to Washington.” And they would say that in Washington, they will determine whether my answers are truthful or not.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, speaking to us from Yemen, CIA torture and rendition victim. We’ll come back to this conversation with him in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We return to the last part of my interview with Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, the CIA torture and rendition victim. In the previous excerpt, he described his ordeal while he was sent to the secret CIA prison in Afghanistan. I asked him to talk about the conditions at that prison.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] In the beginning, it was totally dark. It was as if you were inside a tomb. Then, after that, they would turn a light on. Above the door, there was a camera. And there was constant loud music.

AMY GOODMAN: What kind of music?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] It was loud Western music, and it was very noisy.

AMY GOODMAN: In English?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] After a while, they switched to Arabic music.

AMY GOODMAN: How loud was it?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] It was loud enough so that you could not hear what happens in the other cells when the doors opened and closed.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you hear other prisoners?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Yes, I heard other people very clearly, because sometimes there would be power outage, and during that time the music would stop and you could hear the other people.

AMY GOODMAN: What did you hear?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Sometimes I would hear a call for prayer, and sometimes I hear them conversing about this new person who has just arrived, and that’s me, because I didn’t talk. So I would hear them once in a while.

AMY GOODMAN: What language were your guards and the interrogators speaking?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] The guards would not speak a single word, but the interrogators spoke in English, and they had interpreters with them.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you try to hurt yourself in this cell?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] During these three months in this cell, I tried hurting myself three times, because I could not take it in that place, because I had not done nothing wrong.
The first time, I tried to pull some thread from the blanket, trying to fashion a rope to hang myself. I tied it to the window that was opposite to the door, where the sound of music would come. I think they saw me through the camera, so the guards came and stopped me.
After a while, I collected some of the medicine that they were giving to me every day. I kept a number of these pills, about twenty, and then I dissolved them in a cup of water. But it just happened that at that time, the guards came, and it was just the wrong time.
And the third time was, I tried to slash my veins with a piece of metal that I had. But this piece of metal was not sharp enough, so I injured myself, but the wound was not deep enough.
Because of the recurrence of these incidents, then they started having the psychiatrists see me. And what these psychiatrists did was just give me the opportunity to speak and express myself. And the therapy mainly consisted of trying to look at my thoughts and try to interpret them for me, and in addition to some tranquilizers whenever they thought I needed some.
There was one time also when I started beating my head against wall. And then what happened was, they brought me a helmet, similar to what people wear when they play golf. So all of my attempts were unsuccessful.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed, why did you try to commit suicide three times?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] The main thing was that I had not done anything that would call for being transferred from one prison to another and to endure such suffering. In addition to that, knowing that my mother was seriously ill, and she and my wife were in a foreign country—imagine any mother having her son snatched away from her and taken away, even for just one week. Imagine what this person would suffer and how the mother would suffer also. This made me want to have nothing to do with life anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: How long were you held in Yemen?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Ten months.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you tortured there?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I was not tortured. I was questioned about the places where I had been detained, which, of course, I didn’t know. There was no need to torture me or even ask me about anything else in terms of violations of the law or anything. My detention in Yemen, as far as I could determine from what was written in the press, was at the behest of the Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe finally being released to your family?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] My joy was indescribable. I could not believe that I was going to be released. As much as I was happy to be released and to be reunited with my wife and mother, I was also worried about what my wife and mother had endured during my absence. I did not tell them what I had suffered in Jordan or elsewhere.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have a message for the American people?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I believe that the American people are helpless during the administration of George Bush. When I was in detention, I would speak to the interrogators, and I told them that the policies of George Bush was wrong, especially sending American people to areas where they don’t belong. And I told them that it seems that the policy consisted of addressing wrongs with wrongs. I didn’t know that one day when I would be released, I would find out that there are American victims of this policy, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed, did they ever charged you with anything?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I was not charged with anything. This is what I have found. I was handed to Yemen, and they asked them to detain me.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you have any communication with your family?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] And there were no charges against me.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you have any communication with your family from Jordan to the time you were released?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I could not contact my family or any human rights organization or the Red Cross or any agency, other than my interrogators, the doctors and the psychiatrists.

AMY GOODMAN: Did the Red Cross ever visit you?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] They never did. I wished they did.

AMY GOODMAN: So you did not speak to your family, even when you were ten months in Yemen in jail?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] After a month and a half of being in Yemen, I was able to communicate with my family.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did the Yemen authorities hold you?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] They said this was at the behest of the US authorities.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have any message for other prisoners who are held at places like Guantanamo or the same prisons you were held in, who remain there?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I want to tell all prisoners in all places that one day truth and justice will prevail. They want to be released, but their jailers want to keep them, and God has a plan for them.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed, I want to thank you for taking this time to tell us your story.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] You’re welcome. It is my duty to sit here and express what has happened to me and also to hope that no one else will endure the same.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Bashmilah, he was a victim of CIA rendition, imprisoned at black sites run by the CIA. I spoke to him at his home in Yemen, telling his story for the first time in a broadcast interview. He was translated by Fuad Yahya.
Mohamed Bashmilah’s lawyer, Meg Satterthwaite, is still with us from Washington, D.C. You have brought a suit on his behalf. You are not, though, suing the US government. You are suing Jeppesen for being part of extraordinary rendition, is that right, Meg?

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: That’s right. First, I’d just like to clarify that the suit was actually brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, and I’m co-counsel in the case, representing Mohamed Bashmilah. The case is against Jeppesen Dataplan for its complicity and essentially for enabling some of the flights that were used to take individuals into the rendition and secret detention program. This is a program that could not exist without corporate complicity. Jeppesen is a crucial example here. The CIA used purportedly civilian planes to avoid certain procedures that they normally would need to use if they used, for example, military planes or official government planes. So the corporate complicity is actually a crucial part of the CIA program.

AMY GOODMAN: And why not the US government, as well, a suit against the government?

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: There has been, of course, several suits against the government for the rendition and secret detention program. The most recent one that viewers and listeners may be familiar with is the case of Khaled el-Masri, also a suit brought by the ACLU. In that suit, the suit was dismissed on the basis of the state secrets doctrine, essentially for the reason that—the CIA and the US government was able to forward the argument that the case was so sensitive it should be dismissed, because it had to do with state secrets.
The point in this case is to say the government has already acknowledged the program’s existence, the President and other high officials have given lots of details about the program when it suited them, so it can’t be that the very basis and fact of the program is still a state secret. It cannot be that that is enough to get rid of a lawsuit about basic human rights and the violation of those basic human rights.

AMY GOODMAN: Meg Satterthwaite, were the interrogations of Mohamed videotaped?

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: We don’t know. What we do know is that there were video cameras in his cells and also in interrogation rooms. I would like to know, of course, if my client was videotaped. We have filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all records, which would include videotapes, if they existed, or transcripts. And all we’ve gotten from the CIA is the claim that they can neither confirm nor deny having any records of my client.

AMY GOODMAN: Meg Satterthwaite, I want to thank you for being with us, director of the International Human Rights Clinic at New York University Law School.
MEG SATTERTHWAITE: Thank you very much.

Add comment December 20th, 2007

Army in denial about PT-drug abuse link?

Phillip Leveque, M.D., takes on the army’s denial or deceipt about the extent of PTSD-realted drug abuse in an article in the Salem-News:

PTSD and Psychosis Among Army Psychiatrists

Dr. Phillip Leveque Salem-News.com
Phillip Leveque has spent his life as a Combat Infantryman, Physician, Toxicologist and Pharmacologist.

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - I was a combat infantryman for about 18 months in WWII where things were really crazy with various levels of officers demanding of their underlings (anyone of lower rank) that such and such a military objective be taken even if it killed every attacking soldier.

If that isn’t psychosis, what is?

I was also stationed in General Eisenhower’s headquarters for about six months. Of about 15,000 personnel, half officers, half enlisted, they acted like there wasn’t a war.

If such a psychic denial isn’t psychosis, what is?

The current seeming denial of PTSD and drug use on the highest army medical levels MUST BE a further example of psychosis.

I was absolutely flabbergasted that on ABC News 20/20 Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the psychiatry consultant to the U.S. Army Surgeon General, implied that there is no battle-induced PTSD causing drug use by soldiers, but like all other people using drugs, there were other “reasons”.

I was reminded that in WWI the Army swept it under the rug too, naming PTSD as “homesickness” or saying that the soldiers “missed their mothers”. What comes to my mind is SNAFU, FUBAR and even JANFU.

The VA’s own information says up to half of all PTSD patients treated also have a substance abuse problem.

Colonel Ritchie would only say that PTSD is a “risk factor” for the abuse of drugs and alcohol, but that the Army has not been able to quantify how strongly the two are linked. She said she was unaware of cases of soldiers turning to drugs to cope with the trauma of their experiences in Iraq.

She said, “That has not been my experience. My psychiatrists and social workers who see soldiers report to me of their experiences with soldiers all the time, and none of them are seeing that particular explanation.”

The Army actually goes so far to say there has been NO increase in the rate of illegal drug use among soldiers since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Who do they think they’re fooling?

I presume Dr. Ritchie got her MD from a real medical school, but I have heard that the Armed Forces has its own medical school. I was embarrassed as a physician at her comments.

Was she lying to maintain her quest for one star, or was she really ignorant about PTSD? It’s hard to believe she got to where she is today without intelligence, so that leaves: CHOICE. She is choosing her future star over the welfare of our troops.

Even other army spokespersons and the VA people say to expect about 20% of battle veterans to have PTSD. Paul Sullivan, Gulf War veteran, a former project manager at VA who monitored the disability claim activity of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and now is the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense (VCS), said PTSD was a big problem. His reaction to the Army psychiatrist? “Shame on her!”

Some of the most pitiful comments were given by a woman described as the director of substance abuse programs, apparently with the U.S. Army. She spoke about their success. The 20/20 program didn’t indicate her rank, or even if she was a physician, but she obviously didn’t understand that a battle-scarred PTSD veteran will use anything he can get his hands on to remove the PTSD devils from his soul and mind, even if it is heroin, booze, or at the very least, cannabis.

Ten times the number of soldiers are using drugs now compared to when the Iraq war began. That’s the military’s number, a complete contradiction to what Col Richie said.

Hundreds of veterans have told me that cannabis works better than any prescription drug. It’s about time for a serious trial of cannabis for PTSD.

Some soldiers are breaking the rules and turning to drugs to give them relief from the consequences of trauma in war. We can help them seek the best treatment by not living in the psychosis of denial.

I have also heard that many VA psychologists are trying “fake battle sounds” as treatment. God preserve us.

We PTSD guys are trying to stay as far from that as possible.

5 comments December 16th, 2007

A glimpse inside CIA torture centers

Mark Benjamin, in Salon.com provides a view inside the CIA’s black sites, supplementing the description of life in these facilities provided last spring by the Council of Europe. He gives an account of an innocent man , Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, held for over 18 months in the torture center. Benjamin’s article gives a sense of the psychological torture inflicted in the tow CIA centers where he was held. In the first:

There was a foam mattress, one blanket, and a bucket for a toilet that was emptied once a day. A bare light bulb stayed on constantly. A camera was mounted above a solid metal door. For the first month, loud rap and Arabic music was piped into his cell, 24 hours a day, through a hole opposite the door. His leg shackles were chained to the wall. The guards would not let him sleep, forcing Bashmilah to raise his hand every half hour to prove he was still awake.

Cells were lined up next to each other with spaces in between. Higher above the low ceilings of the cells appeared to be another ceiling, as if the prison were inside an airplane hanger.

After three months the routine became unbearable. Bashmilah unsuccessfully tried to hang himself with his blanket and slashed his wrists. He slammed his head against the wall in an effort to lose consciousness. He was held in three separate but similar cells during his detention in Kabul. At one point, the cell across from him was being used for interrogations. “While I myself was not beaten in the torture and interrogation room, after a while I began to hear the screams of detainees being tortured there,” he wrote.

Then he was transferred to another torture facility where, after being photographed and examined by a doctor:

He was then thrown into a cold cell, left naked.

It was another tiny cell, new or refurbished with a stainless steel sink and toilet. Until clothes arrived several days later, Bashmilah huddled in a blanket. In this cell there were two video cameras, one mounted above the door and the other in a wall. Also above the door was a speaker. White noise, like static, was pumped in constantly, day and night. He spent the first month in handcuffs. In this cell his ankle was attached to a 110-link chain attached to a bolt on the floor.
The door had a small opening in the bottom through which food would appear: boiled rice, sliced meat and bread, triangles of cheese, boiled potato, slices of tomato and olives, served on a plastic plate.

Guards wore black pants with pockets, long-sleeved black shirts, rubber gloves or black gloves, and masks that covered the head and neck. The masks had tinted yellow plastic over the eyes. “I never heard the guards speak to each other and they never spoke to me.”

Especially interesting to me are the hints on the role of mental health professionals, including, possibly, psychologists, in the running of these torture centers”

On several occasions, when Bashmilah’s state of mind deteriorated dangerously, the CIA also did something else: They placed him in the care of mental health professionals. Bashmilah believes these were trained psychologists or psychiatrists. “What they were trying to do was to give me a sort of uplifting and to assure me,” Bashmilah said in a telephone interview, through an interpreter, speaking from his home country of Yemen. “One of the things they told me to do was to allow myself to cry, and to breathe.”…

It may seem bizarre for the agency to provide counseling to a prisoner while simultaneously cracking him mentally — as if revealing a humanitarian aspect to a program otherwise calibrated to exploit systematic psychological abuse. But it could also be that mental healthcare professionals were enlisted to help bring back from the edge prisoners who seemed precariously damaged, whose frayed minds were no longer as pliable for interrogation. “My understanding is that the purpose of having psychiatrists there is that if the prisoner feels better, then he would be able to talk more to the interrogators,” said Bashmilah.

Realistically, psychiatrists in such a setting could do little about the prisoners’ deeper suffering at the hands of the CIA. “They really had no authority to address these issues,” Bashmilah said about his mental anguish. He said the doctors told him to “hope that one day you will prove your innocence or that you will one day return to your family.” The psychiatrists also gave him some pills, likely tranquilizers. They analyzed his dreams. But there wasn’t much else they could do. “They also gave me a Rubik’s Cube so I could pass the time, and some jigsaw puzzles,” Bashmilah recalled.

Medical doctors were also involved. In the first facility where he was held:

The blindfold was removed, and Bashmilah was examined by an American doctor.

Similarly, at the second facility:

He was again examined by a doctor, who took notations on the diagram of the human body. (It was the same form from Afghanistan. Bashmilah saw his vaccination scar marked on the diagram.) The doctor looked in his eyes, ears, nose and throat.

Mr Bashmilah was apparently held for eight months after the CIA determined that he was innocent. Then he was unceremoniously dumped in Yemen, with no explanation, apology, or anything.

All health professionals should be outraged at having members of their professions collaborating with such evil. Health professional organizations, including the American Psychiatric, Medical, and Psychological Associations should express this outrage publicly. Further, these associations should join the call for investigations of the roles of health professionals in detainee abuse of all kinds, from abusive interrogations to collaboration in the criminal kidnapping and disappearances that undergird the CIA’s rendition and black site programs. Intensive efforts should be made to identify and bring ethics charges against these professionals. Even more important, however, is for these associations to do everything to bring public attention to the abuses committed by members of their professions.

Read the whole article.

1 comment December 15th, 2007

APA task force tackles corruption of drug company money

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article on an American Psychological Association panel on the role of external funding on psychological research, the Presidential Task Force on External Funding,created by former APA President Phillip Zimbardo:

American Psychological Association Panel Urges Curbs on Corporate Influence on the Discipline

by Peter Monaghan

The profession of psychology should become far more vigilant in repelling the influence of corporations, particularly pharmaceutical companies, suggests a report from the American Psychological Association’s Presidential Task Force on External Funding.

The committee has recommended that the association develop policies, training materials, and continuing-education programs that help to preserve the independence of psychological science, practice, and education.

In its report, which is scheduled to be issued today, the task force concludes that “strong measures” will be needed to keep at bay predatory, corrupt, or merely venal influences and practices that already are rife in many areas of medical and scientific research.

Most prominently, the report recommends that the association should require that all of its publications disclose any relationships between researchers and companies. The panel also called for the creation of a registry that would permit qualified researchers to review, after two or three years, all data used in the preparation of articles published in the association’s journals.

“When you make an agreement with human subjects to collect data from them, the subjects have an implicit, if not explicit, expectation that the data will be used to advance science,” said David O. Antonuccio, one member of the panel. Yet, he said, “there have been many examples of data being suppressed” through the malign influence of companies interested in the results, and “that is not acceptable anymore.”

Science organizations and some members of Congress, he said, increasingly object to the way that corporations influence science by such means as claiming ownership of data from research they sponsor.
Also common among corporations, he said, was hostile litigation and other actions geared to suppress unfavorable findings. Overwhelmingly, his committee found, data revealed that pharmaceutical-industry-financed researchers tend to produce results favorable to their sponsors.

“If raw data are accessible, any biases in the initial publications will emerge in subsequent analyses,” said Mr. Antonuccio, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Nevada School of Medicine who has long decried the way that suppression of unfavorable research has distorted claims about the effectiveness of antidepressants.

Focus on Pharmaceuticals

The APA panel focused on pharmaceutical-industry funding because it provides “a telling example of the distortions and unintended consequences that can occur when academic centers, scientists, and practitioners become overly dependent on for-profit industries,” says the report. The panel’s 23 unanimously approved recommendations are included in an article, “Corporate Funding and Conflicts of Interest: A Primer for Psychologists,” that is being published today in the December issue of American Psychologist. That periodical is the official journal of the American Psychological Association, which is the world’s largest organization of its kind and represents 148,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students.

The committee was set up as a direct result of the experience of one of its members, Philip G. Zimbardo, an emeritus professor of psychology at Stanford University. In 2002, when he was the president of the APA, he attended the annual convention of a counterpart and historically rival organization, the American Psychiatric Association. He was, he said in an interview, “stunned” at what he saw: huge, extravagant corporate exhibits decked with glitzy chill-out areas, aquariums, and the like where large teams of staffersa?”most of them attractive young womena ?”loudly touted companies’ drugs, handed out gifts, and even administered quasi-medical tests that appeared to be invalid.

“It was hard to believe,” Mr. Zimbardo said.

Dozens of the convention’s panels were sponsored by drug companies, he said, leaving him with the impression that those corporations were trying to control who would appear as speakers. “I found that outrageous,” said Mr. Zimbardo.

He said that the work of the American Psychological Association panel, which he initiated, was urgent because such practices increasingly threaten the practice of psychology, too. One potential incentive for the pharmaceutical industry to appeal to psychologists is the association’s initial success in lobbying states to grant to psychologists the right to prescribe medications. It has pursued that goal over the loud objections of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association, arguing that in many states, patients in remote areas have no access to psychiatrists, nor enough money to afford their services.

As state legislatures begin to grant prescribing rights to psychologists, said Mr. Zimbardo, “the pharmaceutical companies will be onto us.” Also at play, he and his fellow panelists said, was that corporate funding, particularly from the “enormously wealthy and politically influential” pharmaceutical industry, will increase as a result of such trends as the expanding markets for drugs treating mental- health problems.

His motivation in pressing for the formation of the panel was, he said, to determine what venues, activities, and actions of the American Psychological Association and its members “could be vulnerable to corruption, not only by pharmaceutical companies, but by publishers, the Defense Department, and others.”

Requiring researchers to make a statement of conflict of interest is not enough because often “people on the take don’t see it as being corruption,” Mr. Zimbardo said. He called the new report “consciousness raising. It’s really an alert, a call to ethical arms.”

Recommended Actions

The committee members, including two former presidents of the APA, a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and clinicians, made recommendations in several areas:

* Financial conflicts of interest should be disclosed for any psychology-sponsored publications, presentations, or electronic mailing lists, as well as any interaction with human research subjects and policy makers.

* Journals should carry disclaimers about the accuracy of claims in advertisements, while “perhaps 25 percent” of industry advertising revenue should be set aside to support professional and public discussion, at forums and in continuing-education courses, of research findings related to advertisements’ claims.”

* APA journals should publish findings only from trials that enroll in a public registry, ideally one set up by the APA, itself.

* The APA should find ways to inform its members of how industry “inducements” can bias continuing-education courses and other venues involving particular texts, psychological tests, or other commercial products.

One of two co-chairs of the APA group, Wendy S. Pachter, said that her fellow panelists varied in their opinion of how malevolent corporate forces were. Still, she said, psychologists undoubtedly do well when they inform themselves of how corporations may seek to influence them.
The report speaks of the need to “make certain that [psychologists] have adopted appropriate policies and procedures to help avoid the egregious mistakes of others.”

Ms. Pachter, a Washington, D.C., psychologist and lawyer with extensive experience in health-care research administration and policy formation, aid: “Our point is that similar tactics seem to be used across industries to make products look good and to discredit scientists who challenge that.” The report noted that not just pharmaceutical companies, but also others in the lead, plastics, and food industries had used such feints as front organizations to influence regulation and otherwise to advance their interests.

But “it’s not all dishonesty,” Ms. Pachter said. “These issues are tough for industry, too, if there’s no pushback?”if they just go in with money and no one is defending the store.”

Within psychology, and within the undertaking of science, more generally, the adoption of agreed-upon guidelines would be an ideal response to corporate pressures, she said. “It’d be preferable if the sciences pooled their resources and came up with some principles, because the inducements of short-term funding make it hard for one science to give up that funding”a?”or, for one institution to do so, she said.

Mr. Zimbardo agreed, and said it would now be up to the APA’s administration, board of directors, and constituent directorates and divisions to adopt the report and to develop policies based on it. Doing so would place the APA in a position of leadership in dealing with what virtually all fields of science now agree has become a serious problem, he said.

A few years ago, he said, he chaired the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, which represents 60 scientific federations and societies, at a time when it was considering what to do about the apparent crisis. But none of the organizations had developed a set of policies as comprehensive as those that the APA panel has now recommended.

“So,” said Mr. Zimbardo, “this really is a first.”

This effort is a laudable attempt to focus attention on the issues and come up with preventive approaches before the drug companies take over the profession. It is hard to believe that the relatively modest efforts under Recommended Action will have  much effect once the millions of dollars of drug company money starts pouring in to psychology. But, at least attention has focussed upon the issue before the profession is totally taken over.

While the article states that problems associated with Defense Department funding was considered by the task force, the emphasis appears to have been upon the drug companies. After all, the military and intelligence agencies have exerted strong influence on the profession of psychology, and on the APA and the American Psychological Society (APS) for decades, as can be seen with the APA’s policies on US government torture and abusive interrogations. There is no evidence that the profession is ready to deal with the military/intell establishment’s corrupting influence at this point.

Add comment December 10th, 2007