Psychologists’ Role In Torture Questioned

A rally was held outside the American Psychological Association’s annual convention yesterday, pressurising the organisations to disallow their members from being a part of military interrogations and torture, which is actually a component of war on terrorism.

The rally comprised of about 100 people holding slogans that read “Do no harm” and “Abolish torture”. A resolution concerning the same is being considered by the organization’s 148,000 members. The topic has generated a lot of discussions at this year’s meeting held at Boston Exhibition and Convention Center. The members will vote on the issue this month.

The hype surrounding the whole issue is because of the fact that psychologists are involved in Bush administration’s interrogation policies in detention centres worldwide. There has been a lot of resistance from the general public after this information was made known to all.

Steven Reisner, a New York psychologist, who is also in the running for the president of the association, said in the rally, “We need to make policy changes to ensure that this never happens again.” He added that the involvement of psychologists in the interrogations that include prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, or sensory overload actually contradict and violate the main responsibility of all medical personnel to do no harm.

But many people are against this move. Their argument is that the resolution passed by the group last year that forbids taking part in specific acts of torture is more than enough. Stephen Behnke, who directs the association’s ethics office said, “Torture and abuse are always unethical and prohibited.”

Under the association’s ethics code, psychologists may “serve in consultative roles to interrogation and information-gathering processes for national-security related purposes” as long as they don’t include the 19 prohibited torture acts. These acts include mock execution, rape, use of drugs and exposure to extreme temperatures etc.

The head of ‘Physicians for Human Rights’ (a Washington-based group), Leonard Rubenstein, said that all the psychologists must follow the American Medical Association and accept the policy which prohibits them from getting involved with interrogations and verifying a prisoner’s health so that torture can begin or continue.