Name(s):
Association of doctors with torture
Nature
Health personnel have been known to assist in the interrogation or punishment of prisoners in a way that adversely affects their health. Involvement of doctors in torture, floggings, amputations and executions is not rare in countries where torture is practised. Doctors have been involved in declaring tortured prisoners fit for further interrogation or for other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. They have also amputated limbs by way of punishment; been present at executions by lethal injection; and signed false death certificates. Psychiatrists and psychologists have participated in the torture process by injecting drugs or certifying dissidents as insane. Medical researchers and pharmacologist have developed drugs and sensory deprivation and saturation technologies to encourage victims to give information, experience pain or become disoriented. Such participation, complicity, incitement or attempts to commit torture are a gross contravention of medical ethics.