Occupy Oakland Participant
Could Face Deportation
Another emergency deportation appeal, I’m afraid. I just received the following notice from the folks at Presente (substantially edited):
“Occupy Oakland participant Francisco ‘Pancho’ Ramos-Stierle was arrested on Monday as he was sitting in silent, non-violent protest against the deep inequality that pervades our society and affects so many Latinos and immigrants…Pancho was arrested during an early morning raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment on November 14th. Although local courts dropped the charges against Pancho, his fingerprints were forwarded to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as soon as he was in custody, under the Secure Communities Program. He is presently under immigration “hold” and could be deported…
“Before his arrest, Pancho was pursuing a PhD in astrophysics at UC Berkeley but resigned from the program when he learned that his work would be used to promote “safer nuclear weapons.” His service to community took many forms – whether promoting community gardens or working with youth in Oakland.”
You can Join the petition against Ramos-Stierle’s deportation at the Presente website. According to this article at ColorLines, Ramos-Stierle, who is from Mexico, was without immigration status because of having overstayed his student visa — possibly because of having dropped out of the UC Berkeley grad program. Deportation could also be based on his arrest, even though the case was dropped by the Oakland authorities. As I’ve written previously regarding the deportation threat to Shamir Amirali Ali, despite new promises by the administration, Obama’s supposedly more rational and humane deportation policy is still being inconsistently enforced. (Regarding the apparent resolution of the Shamir Ali case, see here.)
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A Torture Trifecta at the New York Times
“There are few issues that more clearly define a candidate’s national security policy in the 21st century than a position on torture,” says the New York Times in its Monday editorial on the Republican Presidential race, The Torture Candidates. “Three of the contenders for the party’s nomination have now come out in favor of the torture known as waterboarding.”
Both Herman Cain and Michelle Bachman announced their support for the technique during last Saturday’s Republican debate. Mitt Romney kept strategically mum during the debate but on 
Monday his campaign office confirmed that he does not consider waterboarding to be torture, and that he would not reveal which “enhanced interrogation techniques” he would authorize as president.
Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman – neither of whom appears to have much chance of becoming the party’s nominee – each denounced the use of waterboarding as, to his credit, did former candidate John McCain. McCain tweeted that he was “very disappointed” by the statements of his party’s candidates. “Waterboarding,” he said, “is torture.”
Op-ed columnist Frank Bruni’s Torture & Exceptionalism leads with this: “If we truly believe ourselves to be exceptional, a model for all the world and an example for all of history, then why would we practice torture?”
In his column, It’s Spelled T-O-R-T-U-R-E, Andrew Rosenthal quotes Huntsman’s statement: “We diminish our standing in the world, and the values that we project, which include liberty, democracy, human rights and open markets, when we torture.” I’m not sure what open markets are doing in there, but otherwise it was a pretty bold statement for a Republican these days – no doubt one of the reasons he doesn’t have a shot at the nomination.
Rosenthal’s column was also notable for an admirably terse but accurate 11-word paragraph: “Pretty much everything Mr. Cain and Ms. Bachman said was nonsense.”
Note: picture above is from a Life Magazine cover of 1902, during our war in the Philippines. Of that conflict, Lieutenant Grover Flint was quoted as saying: “A man suffers tremendously, there is no doubt about it. His sufferings must be that of a man who is drowning but cannot drown.”
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An Underground Childhood
Actor and playwright Carmen Aguirre has written a memoir of her childhood and coming of age as the daughter of a Chilean resistance member and international activist. 
She is interviewed by Patrick Barkham in The Guardian has an intriguing interview, “A Childhood on the Run.”
Alternately living in exile, underground, or on the run with their mother, Aguirre and her younger sister were expected to be “brave and mature and revolutionary,” but also learned other ways to cope with their fear: “When I was young I thought that if you were not screaming and running around pulling your hair out you weren’t terrified,” she says in her interview with Barkham, “but so often terror is more about disassociation, about leaving your body and becoming numb.”
One day when Carmen Aguirre was five, the pictures on the walls of her home in Chile started to sway. The china in the cupboards danced. It was not an earthquake: military jeeps were roaring up, surrounding the house. Her parents were out and Carmen, her younger sister, Ale, and their babysitter were confronted by soldiers loyal to the new dictator, General Pinochet. The house was ransacked. The soldiers laughed. “Oh, well,” said one. “I guess it’s the firing squad for you two.”
The little girls were made to face the wall. Shouting at them to hold up their hands, the soldiers raised their rifles. Quaking in the mud, Carmen heard them shout, “Ready. Aim. Fire.” And then the soldiers drove away. This is the first moment Carmen remembers a feeling of disassociation, a sense of her spirit fleeing her body. It was a sensation she felt throughout her childhood and early adulthood…
— From Patrick Barkham’s Guardian interview
Something Fierce: Memoir of a Revolutionary Daughter has been published by Granta/Portobello Books in England. It apparently will not be available in the United States until early spring. I’ll be watching for it.
Ten-Year-Olds Imprisoned as Criminals
Defense for Children International announces the release of a new documentary on the incarceration of young children in four African countries: Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Tanzania. Produced in collaboration with Miran Films and other organizations, the video is called “10,” it says, because “whilst not officially recognized, many African countries regard children of 10 years old as having achieved the age of criminal responsibility.”
The documentary witnesses the difficult conditions in which children in some of the world’s harshest prison systems are forced to exist, which frequently are in flagrant contravention of internationally recognized human rights instruments and which leave them vulnerable to severe physical and psychological damage.
Children frequently find themselves incarcerated for months on end, often without trial or effective legal representation. Imprisoned children experience extremely cramped and overcrowded conditions, sharing cells with hardened adult criminals; are subjected to physical or sexual abuse; and are often recruited into violent street gangs on the inside, which increase the chances of recidivism and a life of criminality and repeated incarceration in the future.
For a chilling, firsthand story on this issue, see John Carlin’s piece in The Independent (UK), A Boy Named Abdul: Sierra Leone’s Child. (photo above from The Independent.)
Voices from East Jerusalem
Defense for Children’s Palestine Section has recently released Voices from East Jerusalem, a report on the situation of Palestinian children under occupation. The report is accompanied by a disturbing short video on the situation (also on YouTube.)
Israel’s Child Detainees
The Middle East Children’s Alliance reports that, despite the recent exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, more than 160 Palestinian children remain behind bars – none were included in the much-publicized swap. It cites a recent opinion piece by Dana Halawa, an American-Palestinian medical student writing on the website, The Electronic Intifada.
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Some Good News & More Bad News
on Immigration Enforcement
So, let’s at least start with the good news: In late October, I sent out an appeal via this blog, via my newsletter, and to personal contacts, asking you all to sign online petitions in support of Shamir Amirali Ali, who was facing immediate deportation after being picked up in a workplace raid (actually aimed at someone else.) It seemed like an early and upsetting signal that President Obama’s promise of a more rational and humane immigration enforcement policy might be just words.
Thanks to a national outpouring of support, the good news is that Shamir Ali has been freed, and will be allowed to stay in the U.S. under an “order of supervision,” which will enable him to apply for a work permit. That, in turn, will allow him to get a driver’s license and attend state college at resident’s rates. According to Julia Preston’s article in today’s New York Times, Shamir is grateful for the reprieve, but wonders, “If I didn’t have all that support, what would have happened to me?”
Good question! Which leads me to the bad news: According to the same article, the new enforcement policy, in its execution, continues to be just as inconsistent and maddeningly irrational as we have feared.
Since June, when the policy was unveiled, frustrated lawyers and advocates have seen a steady march of deportations of immigrants with no criminal record and with extensive roots in the United States, who seemed to fit the administration’s profile of those who should be allowed to remain…
In a report released Wednesday, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council collected 252 cases from lawyers across the country who had asked Mr. Morton’s agency, known as ICE, to exercise prosecutorial discretion to spare immigrants from deportation. “The overwhelming conclusion is that most ICE offices have not changed their practices since the issuance of these new directives,” the report found.
“This is a classic example of leadership saying one thing and the rank and file doing another,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the lawyers association.
— Julia Preston, New York Times
[A press release on the findings of the AILA/AIC survey is available here, including contact information for further details.]
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Report Claims Israeli Physicians Fail to
Observe International Human Rights Norms
According to a report released by Israel’s Public Committee Against Torture, together with the Israel branch of Physicians for Human Rights, Israeli medical professionals have been complicit in the abuse of prisoners by security personnel. This post is based on advance press coverage, but the full report, Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim, has now been released and is available online.
According to Harriet Sherwood, reporting from Jerusalem for The Guardian (UK), the report is based on the cases of 100 Palestinian detainees brought to PCAT since 2007. It alleges that medical staff are failing to document and report injuries caused by ill-treatment and torture by security personnel; and that staff do not report suspicions of such treatment, return detainees to their interrogators after medical treatment, and pass medical information to interrogators – all in violation of their ethical codes. Quoting from the document:
“This report reveals significant evidence arousing the suspicion that many doctors ignore the complaints of their patients; that they allow Israeli Security Agency interrogators to use torture, approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total immunity for the torturers.”
The report alleges that abusive treatments include beatings, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and threats, and that doctors fail to keep proper medical records of the injuries caused by these treatments.
Agence France Press quotes government spokesman Mark Regev as saying, “Guidelines have been passed to the relevant authorities. If years ago the guidelines were not clear, they are today. And if there are allegations of wrongdoing against people in custody, they are investigated thoroughly.”
Illustrations from Physicians for Human Rights, Israel (above)
and Public Committee Against Torture (at right.)
Our Nation’s Poet Shares Occupy Wall Street’s Message
Okay, I realize I’m probably drifting off topic again, but I really had to pass on this quote from the New York Times’ recent interview with our poet laureate, 83-year-old Philip Levine.
You’ve written that as a kid, you had such hostility for the upper class that you fantasized about firing a gun at every Cadillac you saw. Still hate the rich?
I don’t, because I’ve met them now under silly circumstances, and they seem like hopeless jerks to me, for the most part. There’s a kind of Protestant ethic that believes that if you’re really a good person, God will reward you with a full table and a garage full of automobiles and a beautiful husband or wife — that we should be judged by what the world has delivered to us. I think if we started making radical changes in the way wealth is distributed in this country, it would be a hell of a lot better.
The working man’s bard doesn’t mention the Occupy movement, but he’s clearly on board with their sensibility. He has some harsh words for the President who appointed him as well. Check it out.
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“Handbook & Guide for Journalists”
Offers Worthwhile Suggestions
Written by Miron Varouhakis, then a PhD candidate at Michigan State University, Interviewing Victims of Torture (2008) is meant as a “field guide” for journalists. It’s a product of the school’s Victims and the Media Program whose purpose, as described on its website, is to “assist journalism students in reporting on victims of violence and catastrophe with the sensitivity, dignity and respect that they deserve.”
“This handbook and guide for interviewing victims of torture is a product of many years of experience in interviewing and interacting with torture survivors and health professionals who work in the area of torture rehabilitation…The unique horror of torture clearly set these victims apart from all others. It was these personal experiences and my exposure to the work of health professionals who are working in the rehabilitation of torture survivors that allowed me to develop guidelines, in the hope they would provide an ethical and sensitive way to report on victims of torture. We hope that you find this guide useful and that you share it with your colleagues in the newsroom.”
– Notes by the author, February, 2008
In good journalistic style, the Handbook is brief and to-the-point. I thought its two pages of “Do’s and Don’ts” suggestions were well-stated and appropriate, and consistent with my own experiences in interviewing survivors for our documentary, Refuge: Caring for Survivors of Torture – although I would welcome any comments or further suggestions from readers of this blog.
The booklet should be required reading for journalists of the “gotcha” school, but they’re probably not interested. It includes a discussion of who torture survivors are – again, brief but thoughtful, some FAQs about torture, and a comprehensive listing of torture treatment programs and other resources (at least one of which, sadly, has gone out of business for lack of funding since the handbook was written. [NOTE: Varouhakis is currently teaching courses on public affairs reporting and reporting on the military at the University of South Carolina. Photograph above shows Project Director Ben Achtenberg conducting an interview for our film Refuge.]
Study Compares Men Who
Buy Sex and Those Who Don’t
In July, as previously reported, I had the opportunity to present excerpts from our documentary-in-progress, Refuge: Caring for Survivors of Torture, at the annual meeting of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. While there, I had the opportunity to meet Melissa Farley, the founder of Prostitution Research & Education, and attended a discussion of PRE’s newly-released study, Comparing Sex Buyers with Men Who Don’t Buy Sex, which you can download here.
I’ve been surprised – though maybe I shouldn’t be – that I haven’t seen any reporting on this study in the press, even in Boston, where the interviews were conducted. (Former Ambassador Swanee Hunt, whose Hunt Alternatives Fund supported the survey, did publish a powerful Boston Globe op-ed piece supporting Massachusetts legislation that would prosecute traffickers, hold sex-buyers accountable, and support survivors.)
The PRE researchers, some of whom participated in the PsySR panel, did extensive, structured interviews with 201 Boston men, 101 of whom were self-reported “johns,” and 100 of whom were not. The following are just a few of the study’s significant findings:
- Sex buyers engaged in significantly more criminal activity than non-buyers, including drug abuse, assaults, and other offenses that were not necessarily against women;
- Sex buyers acknowledge committing more sexually coercive acts against women, including non-prostitutes;
- Sex buyers showed less empathy toward women, were more likely to deny prostitution’s negative effects on women, and reported being more drawn to sadomasochistic sex over time.
“Women and girls selling their bodies almost never do so freely. Poverty, abuse, and a chaotic upbringing create a context where they can’t even begin to make a rational choice. The average age at which a female in the United States enters prostitution is thirteen. If a girl is sold to ten men a night, six nights a week, she’s statutorily raped 15,000 times by her 18th birthday, when she suddenly ‘consents.’ A buyer may say he has never purchased a child, buy how would he know?”
— Swanee Hunt, Buyers of Sex Must be Held Accountable
New Research Documents Trafficking
of Native American Women
Prostitution Research & Education has also just released a new study, Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota, co-authored with the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition.
“Since Native women are at exceptionally high risk for poverty, homelessness, and sexual violence, which are elements in the trafficking of women, and because the needs of Native women are generally not being met, and because prostituted women are at extremely high risk for violence and emotional trauma, our goal was to assess the life circumstances of Native women in prostitution in Minnesota, a group of women not previously studied in research such as this.”
— from the Executive Summary of Garden of Truth
The 105 women interviewed were involved in prostitution, and roughly half of them met what the study calls “a conservative legal definition of sex trafficking,” meaning that they were under the third-party control of pimps or traffickers. Among other findings:
- 79% had been sexually abused as children, by an average of 4 perpetrators;
- 84% had been physically assaulted while in prostitution, and 72% suffered traumatic brain injuries as a result;
- 52% had PTSD at the time of the interviews – a rate, the authors point out, that is comparable to the range among combat veterans.
Some Other Related Resources
In a Vietnamese Village, Stitching the Wounds of Human Trafficking: Julie Cohn’s New York Times column tells the story of a Vietnamese Hmong village in which several young women who were rescued from traffickers were scorned and disowned by their families, and forced to live outside the town. A village women, Vang Thi Mai, took them into her home and into the textile cooperative she had founded – giving them stability, an income, a role in the community, and ultimately acceptance.
Katya’s Story: Trafficked to the UK, Sent Home to Torture: “British immigration officials knew that Katya, a vulnerable 18-year-old from Moldova, had been trafficked and forced into prostitution, but ruled that she would face no real danger if she was sent back.” Amelia Gentleman’s story in the Guardian (UK), recounts the horrendous consequences of that decision, as well as the legal fight that ended with the UK government awarding her substantial damages – although her traffickers have not been brought to justice.
Ending Rape in War: Laura Carlson covers a Quebec conference at which more than a hundred women from around the world met to confront this issue. “The plan isn’t to change the world. Just the most violent and despicable parts, parts that many of them – too many – have experienced firsthand. They carry with them experiences they seek to erase from memory.”
Regaining Trafficking Victim’s Trust, One Interview at a Time: NBC News producer Sandra Lilly reports on an Atlanta, Georgia, organization called Tapestri, which helps victims of trafficking. NOTE: this article mentions the availability of special T-Visas, which may enable foreign victims of trafficking to stay in the U.S. As we reported in late June (near the bottom of the post), this is a vastly underused resource. Last year, 5,000 of these special visas were available, but fewer than 500 were issued.
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More Than One in Four Were Exposed to
Some Form of Violence Between Their Parents
Released in October by the Department of Justice, a new study by the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes against Children Research Center reveals that more than 1 in 4 children in the U.S. have been exposed to physical violence between their parents at some time, 1 in 9 of them during the past year. Ninety percent of the children directly witnessed at least one such incident (others may have heard it, been told about it, or witnessed the consequences.) Sixty-nine percent of the incidents involved violence by male parents or caregivers, and 23 percent involved female parent figures. Conducted in 2008, the study interviewed both children and caregivers; the sample included over 4,500 children from ages 0-18.
“Not surprisingly, given this high rate of eyewitness exposure, children had strong reactions to the exposure. Almost half yelled at their parents to stop, more than 2 in 5 tried to get away from the fight, and nearly 1 in 4 called for help,” said UNH Crimes against Children Research Center research associate Sherry Hamby, lead author of the study.
“We want people to recognize that children’s exposure to violence in the family is not limited to fights between parents. They also see parents physically assault siblings and teens or adults physically assault other relatives,” Hamby said.
— Quotes from UNH news release
The study’s other authors are David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against Children Research Center, and Professors Heather Turner and Richard Ormrod. The full study report is available online. The Center also offers free access to its Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire and instructions on how to use it. (Image source: .)
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The United States Knew About Extensive
Torture in US-Funded Afghan Prison
“Across the street from U.S. military headquarters in Kabul, shrouded from view by concrete walls, the Afghan intelligence agency runs a detention facility…known as Department 124. So much torture took place inside, one detainee told the United Nations, that it has earned another name: ‘People call it Hell.’” And, despite denials, United States agencies and officials were well aware of what was going on there, according to yesterday’s Washington Post story by reporters Joshua Partlow and Julie Tate.
This situation was first revealed in a United Nations study which I commented on in a previous post, Even Stones Confess Here. At the time, denials by coalition forces that they were aware of the situation were widely accepted, at least by the domestic media. According to the Post story, however, “Long before the world body publicly revealed “systematic torture” in Afghan intelligence agency detention centers, top officials from the State Department, the CIA and the U.S. military received multiple warnings about abuses at Department 124 and other Afghan facilities, according to Afghan and Western officials with knowledge of the situation…Even as other countries stopped handing over detainees to problematic facilities, the U.S. government did not.”
According to the Post, the International Committee of the Red Cross had expressed concerns about Department 124 even before the U.N. report. As a matter of policy, the ICRC does not comment on its confidential meetings, but Partlow and Tate quote anonymous sources as saying that the Committee expressed “its concerns about detainee abuse.”
“In Afghanistan, the ICRC shared observations and recommendations with the detaining authorities and with others who were mentoring and training them,” said ICRC spokesman Simon Schorno. “It did so on numerous occasions during confidential, bilateral meetings.” Schorno said the “public silence of the ICRC on its visits should never be interpreted to mean that there are no prevailing concerns to be addressed by the authorities in charge.”
The Post reporters also quote “current and former Afghan intelligence officials” as saying that their CIA “partners were totally aware” of the abusive treatment of prisoners and, in fact, said that the UN report was “underestimating what’s going on.”
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United States Ranks near Bottom for
Social Justice Among 31 OECD Nations
“We are slowly — and painfully — being forced to realize that we are no longer the America of our imaginations,” writes Charles M. Blow, New York Times op-ed columnist. “We sold ourselves a pipe dream that everyone could get rich and no one would get hurt.”
Today we’re facing the brutal reality that, while a few have gotten very rich, most of the rest of us are feeling the pain — and some have been hurt very badly indeed. Blow cites a recent report of the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation which rates member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development on eight measures of social justice and economic equality (see graph): poverty among children, seniors, and overall poverty; measures to prevent poverty; equality or inequality of income; expenditures on primary education; healthcare inclusiveness, defined as the disparity of quality and outcomes between the highest and lowest-income citizens; and “intergenerational justice.”
On four of the OECD measures (and in the overall rating), the United States ranked in the bottom five out of 31 countries. On three measures we ranked in the bottom ten, and on one measure, in the bottom fifteen. On no measure of social justice did we rank even in the top half of the OECD member countries. We are fifth from the bottom overall.
“Intergenerational justice,” the one measure on which the U.S. managed to almost make it to the middle of the pack, is defined in the report as follows: “Includes family and pension policies, environmental policies, and assessment of political-economic well-being established for future generations.” I assume these data were compiled before the right wing began to slice away at our social safety net, not to mention the belief we used to have that we would be able to pass on a better life to our children.
“We have not taken care of the least among us. We have allowed a revolting level of income inequality to develop. We have watched as millions of our fellow countrymen have fallen into poverty. And we have done a poor job of educating our children and now threaten to leave them a country that is a shell of its former self. We should be ashamed.”
— Charles M. Blow, New York Times
(Illustration from Bertelsmann website.)
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An End to Impunity
in the Southern Cone?
“A wave against impunity by dictatorships of decades is sweeping Latin America’s southern Cone.” That’s the lead sentence of a Miami Herald article by Frances Robles and Kyle Younker, one of the few sources in the U.S. press to put together the pieces and recognize the potentially profound significance of recent decisions in Latin America.
- Twelve Argentine ex-military officers, including Alfredo Astiz, often referred to as the “blond angel of death” (photo below), were sentenced to life in prison for “disappearing” thousand of citizens during the country’s “dirty war.”
- Uruguay’s Congress voted to cancel the amnesty law which, until now, has prevented prosecutions for crimes under its military dictatorship.
- Brazil’s Senate created a truth commission to look into the crimes of its military dictatorship of 1964-1985. A similar bill has already been approved by its lower house (although the country’s Supreme Court has so far ruled in favor of amnesty.)
In each case, dictators and military leaders responsible for murder, torture and other crimes had demanded – and won – impunity from prosecution and punishment as the price of relinquishing power without further bloodshed. Many people may, at the time, have considered this a price worth paying in order to “move on” (to use our own President Obama’s phrase when declining to pursue prosecutions against members of the Bush administration.)
The social consequences of this “culture of impunity,” however, have been tragic, particularly for victims and their families. We have read and been told many stories of people encountering their own torturers in the street, or the former police officers they saw take their teenaged children away, never to be seen again. Impunity has vastly complicated efforts to account for victims of the dictatorships, to recover bodies for burial, and in other ways to come to peace with the past. It has interfered with efforts to identify children who were stolen as babies and adopted by military families – something particularly associated with the Argentine “dirty war,” but that also occurred in Uruguay and elsewhere.
“It gives me happiness and peace to know that justice has been served,” said Pedro Sandoval, 33, who five years ago learned that he was the child of “disappeared” leftists. Captive pregnant mothers were sometimes kept alive only until they gave birth and their children could be placed with military families.
“My grandparents have been fighting for this for a long time,’’ Sandoval said. His true identity was confirmed through a DNA database trying to match the babies stolen from places like the Mechanics School to their real families. Raised by a military officer, Sandoval stopped using the name he had all his life: Alejandro Adrián Rei.
— quote from the Miami Herald article
Perhaps most importantly, the culture of impunity has made it difficult or impossible for many in these societies – including those too young to have experienced the dictatorship – to believe in their power to prevent such atrocities in the future: if no one ever has to pay a price for their crimes, who’s to say it won’t happen again.
The Miami Herald article credits the new moves, in part, to a new generation of leaders who were themselves the victims of the dictatorial regimes. For example, President José Mujica of Uruguay was held in solitary confinement for years, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was imprisoned and tortured.
Argentina, where some of the worst abuses occurred, has been in the lead in confronting its past. It repealed its amnesty law in 2005 and, since then, has convicted 262 people (including the recent 12) and charged over 800 more. Fourteen more cases are currently being tried and 10 more are scheduled.
“When we went to see the prosecutors after the amnesty laws were passed [in the 1980s], they told us that no ex-members of the military junta would go to trial. Now look at us. Who’s not going to trial now?” said Rosa Roisinblit, vice-president of the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayor Association. “It gives me great satisfaction that those who committed crimes are finally paying for them.”
— Miami Herald
[Note on photos above: among other crimes, Alfredo Astiz, the "blond angel of death, specialized in infiltrating human rights NGOs, and was accused of kidnapping the founder of the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo," which fought for many years — and is still fighting — to recover information about the fates of their children and grandchildren.]
For further information:
Argentina ‘Angel of Death’ Alfredo Astiz Convicted BBC News
Life sentence for Argentine “Blond Angel of Death” Reuters Africa
Uruguay Lawmakers Revoke Amnesty… Washington Post
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Helping Survivors Overcome
Mental Health Barriers
Writing on the website of Minnesota Public Radio, Andrea Northwood argues for a more collaborative approach to helping refugees – survivors of torture in particular – to deal with the consequences of their traumatic experiences. Northwood is the Director of Client Services at the Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Her state, she notes, is home to more than 70,000 refugees, many of them survivors of torture and other traumatic experiences.
“Resettlement programs seek to integrate refugees into our communities and to help them achieve economic self-sufficiency. But unless we address their traumatic experiences, we condemn many to live in silence with undiagnosed and misunderstood symptoms of major depression and post traumatic stress disorder. The real tragedy is that their symptoms are treatable.
“Refugees arriving in the United States typically receive a health exam to identify physical problems, but they are not screened systematically for mental health problems…The Center for Victims of Torture often receives referrals of refugees who are torture survivors after an eight- to 10-year period of difficult resettlement due to undiagnosed and untreated mental health symptoms. Those symptoms make it difficult for refugees to learn English, adjust to community life, learn a new culture and support their families.
“Health clinics often tell us they know how to treat trauma, but they lack the language and cultural knowledge. Refugee leaders and groups often tell us they have the cultural knowledge but don’t know how to treat trauma. It is time we learn to work together.
Working with the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Health and four refugee groups, CVT is developing a multilingual, culturally appropriate screening tool, which Northwood suggests could be a national model. Through its Healing in Partnership project, it trains local refugee leaders to lead support and education groups for community members using culturally adapted materials. Northwood also advocates engaging bicultural and bilingual community health workers in the screening process. “Refugees should not be forced to suffer years in silence,” Northwood argues. “If we can identify those in need of care, we can help refugees build successful lives and have a lasting impact on the communities they now call home.” (Photo of Andrea Northwood, from CVT.)
World Without Torture:
a new blog from the IRCT
Check out the new “World Without Torture” blog from the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. Articles and information are posted each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Today’s post (Wednesday, October 26, 2011) leads with updates on the rapidly deteriorating situation in Syria, where there are multiple reports of torture of protesters being carried out in state-run hospitals, even – according to a new Amnesty International Report – being perpetrated by medical personnel:
“It is deeply alarming that the Syrian authorities seem to have given the security forces a free rein in hospitals and that in many cases hospital staff appear to have taken part in torture and ill treatment of the very people they are supposed to care for.
“Given the scale and seriousness of the injuries being sustained by people across the country, it is disturbing to find that many consider it safer to risk not having major wounds treated rather than going to proper medical facilities.”
(The full Amnesty report, Health Crisis: Syrian Government Targets the Wounded and Health Workers, is available online. Accompanying photos by Tim Simpson, under Creative Commons license, via IRCT.)
Among the IRCT staff or volunteer-written articles in this edition of the blog are posts on the experiences of a Syrian human rights defender who was detained, tortured, and forced to flee for his life, an investigation of the torture of children in the Philippines, and other news from the field.
IRCT Report Documents
Global Fight Against Torture
In its just-released Global Report, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) documents the vital work of more than 80 organizations, on every continent except Antarctica. The organization takes this “snapshot” of worldwide anti-torture work as of June 26th each year, celebrated worldwide as the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
“We fundamentally believe that a crucial part of the struggle against torture must be through local, community-based initiatives, such as the on-the-ground work of our 140 member centers across the globe. But together, 
we can also speak with one voice. Every year, 26 June becomes an event where we break down the isolation of a local struggle and speak together to decry the crimes of torture, abuse, and inhumane treatment. Because in isolation, torture can become difficult to fight…
“From India to Bosnia, the Philippines to Germany, victims of torture, their families, and supporters gathered to highlight these crimes – and point out a way forward.”
International Ethics Standards for Healthcare Professionals
This one’s not so new, but… Summer Volkmer, who wrote the paper on national medical associations’ actions to discipline healthcare professionals for involvement in torture (cited in a recent post), has also written an article concisely summarizing the ethics codes promulgated by international bodies such as the World Medical Association, the International Union of Psychological Sciences, and the World Health Organization. She concludes, in part:
Whether addressing the horrors of World War II, the abuses of South America’s dictatorial regimes, or the controversies of today’s “War on Terror,” authoritative organizations such as the WMA, the IUPsyS and the UN have consistently maintained that universal ethical standards forbid health professionals from any involvement in torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The codes make clear that members of the healing professions have a special duty to refrain from complicity or participation in harm and have a duty to report violations in some circumstances.
However, these international ethical codes depend on domestic organizations for their enforcement. Whether and how psychological organizations and licensing boards in the United States will seek to enforce these international ethical standards against members alleged to have participated in interrogations of detainees remains an open question.
Volkmer’s paper is dated June, 2010. A year-and-a-half later, despite the efforts of many groups such as the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, it seems increasingly clear that neither the U.S. government nor the American Psychological Association are prepared to enforce recognized international standards.
Discrepancies in Traumatic Memories
In a recent post, I recounted the vividly different memories which my wife and several friends retained after being robbed at knifepoint. I advanced this as anecdotal evidence that discrepancies in the traumatic memories of asylum applicants should not automatically be taken as disqualifying signs of dishonesty. Dr. Stuart Turner, of the Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law, wrote in response to remind us of the extensive empirical research which his organization has produced supporting this same point of view: for example, Should Discrepant Accounts Given by Asylum Seekers be Taken as Proof of Deceit?, published in 2006 in the journal Torture. [Note: some articles listed on the CSEL site require payment or a subscription or membership. Torture is a free publication of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.]
All illustrations in this post courtesy of the International
Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT).
ACTION ALERT: Dream Act Student
Faces Immediate Deportation
This is happening now! President Obama promised to order Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop automatic deportation of students who revealed their undocumented status during the campaign for the Dream Act. Apparently, however, that directive has not yet taken effect. In the meantime, Shamir Amirali Ali has been picked up in a workplace raid and faces deportation to Bangladesh today! He’s now sitting in an ICE detention facility awaiting his fate.
My wife and I have met and talked to a number of the brave young people involved in this campaign and yesterday, at the Occupy Boston site, heard a friend of Shamir’s describe his situation – the situation many of them could face in coming months if ICE will not respect the spirit of Obama’s promise. Like many of us you’re probably inundated with petition requests, but please consider joining in this petition campaign RIGHT NOW.
College Counselors Pledge Support
for Students Regardless of Status
In the meantime, although the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors is holding its scheduled meeting in Arizona despite that state’s adoption of punitive and discriminatory anti-immigrant legislation, its member counseling directors have now issued a statement pledging support for all students at the colleges they serve, regardless of immigration status. The statement says, in part:
“Our organization declares our support for, and intention to promote compassion and inclusion for all who live within the borders of the United States, in our communities and on our campuses. Our work shows that students thrive and achieve their maximum potential in a climate where all can feel safe, valued and respected. As mental health professionals in higher education, we strive to build healthy and inclusive campus and community climates. Our compassion has no borders. We advocate for students who are misunderstood, marginalized, or unfairly devalued despite their efforts to be educated and productive members of our communities.”
Disciplining Physicians for Complicity in Torture:
The Historical Record is Not Encouraging
Following up on my post regarding the complicity of South African medical professionals in torture during apartheid (courtesy of guest blogger Margaret Green), I’ve come across an excellent article by UC Berkeley law student Summer Volkmer. In Sanctions for Torture: Domestic Medical Associations Take Action (June, 2010), Volkmer first notes that neither the Obama administration nor the American Psychological Association has taken any steps to discipline psychologists involved in the mistreatment and outright torture of U.S. detainees in the so-called war on terror.
Looking at this issue internationally, she finds only a few exceptions to this pattern, but the exceptions are enlightening:
Although most medical associations endorse codes forbidding their members from complicity with torture, relatively few have taken steps to enforce these standards. However, beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, in the midst of (and after) authoritarian dictatorships in Latin America and the Apartheid regime in South Africa, medical associations in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and South Africa took steps to hold doctors accountable for their roles in torture and other human rights abuses.
In Brazil, despite the military dictatorship’s passage of an amnesty law protecting physicians and other human rights abusers, the country’s Regional Medical Councils have nonetheless taken action against a number of healthcare professionals. For example, in 1988, a Regional Council struck Psychiatrist Amilcar Lobo off its register for having participated in torture. Lobo had acknowledged preparing detainees for torture, “testing their physical capacity for interrogation, and reviving them when they became unconscious. The Federal Council affirmed the decision…”
Despite resistance and harassment, Brazil’s councils, working with the human rights organization Tortura Nunca Mais (Torture Never Again), “have continued to pursue accountability for doctors who participated in torture during the military regime.” By Volkmer’s count, the groups have brought complaints against more than 200 physicians resulting, so far, in disciplinary proceedings against at least 40 of them.
Under Chile’s Pinochet dictatorship, from 1973 to 1981, the military junta appointed the leadership of the Chilean Medical Association, which consequently was silent about the widespread involvement of military physicians in torture. In 1981, the junta allowed the CMA to again elect its own leaders, but at the same time took away its licensing authority. Nonetheless – and, as the author notes, “often at great personal and professional risk” – its ethics department investigated and suspended or expelled a number of members, even though it could not prevent them from continuing to practice.
One of these was army physician Carlos Hérnan Pérez Castrol, “for falsely certifying that a prisoner was in good physical condition…after being blindfolded, physically beaten, burned with cigarette butts, and subjected to electric shocks. The CMA was not persuaded by Dr. Perez’s defense that he was present at the torture sessions to help, rather than harm, patients.” [NOTE: See the end of this post for an explanation of the illustration above.]
In South Africa under apartheid: In contrast to the Latin American cases, under apartheid “the South African Medical and Dental Council did not fully investigate doctors complicit in prisoner abuses until a court ordered it to do so.” That included surgeons Ivor Lang and Benjamin Tucker, who failed to report or treat the fatal head injuries inflicted on Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve Biko during police interrogation. Despite “visible injuries, strange movements, and slurred speech,” as well as findings of blood in Biko’s brain fluid, Tucker allowed Biko to be shipped out to another facility 750 miles away – where he was pronounced dead.
An “inquiry committee of SAMDC, which did have licensing authority, dismissed a claim against the doctors for lack of evidence, a finding which was later addoped by the full Council. However, in response to a petition by several doctors, the Pretoria Supreme Court ruled that there was prima facie evidence of misconduct and ordered SAMDC to investigate further. Only then did the organization find the doctors guilty of improper (and in Tucker’s case of “disgraceful”) conduct.
The associations did not always act swiftly or decisively, or as in the case of South Africa, even voluntarily. However, through their actions, the organizations sent a message that the profession would not tolerate complicity in human rights abuses by their members. In each instance individuals, either from inside or outside a professional organization’s institutional framework, worked through professional associations to hold physicians accountable for human rights abuses, and in the words of the Chilean Medical Association, to “preserve the dignity of the medical profession.”
[NOTE: Volkmer also discusses the case of Uruguay, which I have omitted here.]
The image accompanying the section above about Chile is an Arpillera, an embroidered indictment of torture under the Pinochet dictatorship. I found it on a post by Hannah Bullivant for the Craftivist Collective blog (“Craft+Activism=Craftivism.”) Developed by Chilean women, these Arpilleras expressed resistance to the regime – and were sometimes a means of smuggling messages from prison. See Bullivant’s post for other examples and descriptions, and for more information about this art/protest form, see Kristen Walker’s article on the site of COHA, the Council of Hemispheric Affairs.
Petition to the American Psychological Association
Calls for Renunciation of Abusive Interrogations
I won’t get into a long re-hash of past conflicts and debates; you can read about them at the links below. What you need to know is that the American Psychological Association, in contrast to the American Psychiatric Association and most other professional organizations in the mental health and healthcare 
fields, has continually refused to take a strong and unequivocal stand against the involvement of its members in potentially abusive interrogations.
In a new (and perhaps last-ditch?) attempt to bring their organization into line with their colleagues in other healthcare professions – and with the worldwide movement for human rights – the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, including many APA members, former members, and professionals in medicine, law, the military and intelligence are calling on the organization to annul its 2005 “Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security,” referred to as the PENS Report. You can read and consider joining in the petition campaign at the organization’s website.
“Over the decade since the horrendous attacks of 9/11, the world has been shocked by the specter of abusive interrogations and the torture of national security prisoners by agents of the United States government. Although psychologists in the U.S. have made significant contributions to societal welfare on many fronts during this period, the profession tragically has also witnessed psychologists acting as planners, consultants, researchers, and overseers to these abusive interrogations. Moreover, in the guise of keeping interrogations “safe, legal, ethical and effective,” psychologists were used to provide legal protection for otherwise illegal treatment of prisoners.
“…Despite evidence that psychologists were involved in abusive interrogations, the PENS Task Force concluded that psychologists play a critical role in keeping interrogations ‘safe, legal, ethical and effective.’ With this stance, the APA, the largest association of psychologists worldwide, became the sole major professional healthcare organization to support practices contrary to the international human rights standards that ought to be the benchmark against which professional codes of ethics are judged.”
The petitioners note that the Department of Defense uses the report in recruiting and training psychologists, and treats it as a “foundational ethics document” for psychologists in their service.
Organizational signers of the petition include the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Center for Constitutional Rights, Center for Justice and Accountability, International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, Massachusetts Campaign Against Torture, Network of Spiritual Progressives, Physicians for Human Rights, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Veterans for Peace, and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. The listing of individual signers is impressive and growing daily. A detailed background statement on the controversy is available on the group’s website. (Image above by Troy Page/Truthout)
Calls for Arrest of Bush and al-Bashir for War Crimes
Amnesty International has called on Canadian authorities to arrest and prosecute former U.S. President George W. Bush for crimes against international law, because of his direct responsibility for the carrying out of torture during his administration. Bush is scheduled to attend an economic summit in British Columbia on October 20th. Canada’s failure to act, AI spokesman Susan Lee says, “would violate the UN Convention Against Torture and demonstrate contempt for fundamental human 
rights.” An Agence France-Presse story quotes Canada’s Immigration Minister as criticizing the internationally-respected human rights organization for “cherry picking cases to publicize, based on ideology.”
As Amnesty’s statement notes, it’s clear that the current U.S. administration will not act to bring those responsible for Bush-era torture policies to account, and the group is therefore trying to bring international condemnation to bear. While actual prosecutions may be too much to hope for, such efforts might at least give Bush, Cheney, et al, a few moments of embarrassment – and maybe even some sleepless nights. The AFP story noted that Bush did cancel a visit to Switzerland in February “after facing similar public calls for his arrest.”
In the meantime, Amnesty has also called for Malawi to arrest Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, and surrender him to the International Criminal Court on outstanding ICC arrest warrants charging genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed in the Darfur conflict. Like Bush, al-Bashir was traveling abroad to attend an economic summit.
Nice company! Maybe we need to be paying some attention to the organizations who invite international war criminals to participate in their deliberations.
On the Consequences of Bullying
New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow writes: “I have watched with a heavy heart these last few years as one child after another has committed suicide because he or she was bullied. I know that pain. I, too, was bullied as a child. And I, too, considered taking my life. I was eight years old.” Check out his piece, The Bleakness of the Bullied.
“Children can’t see their budding lives through the long lens of wisdom,” he writes, quoting an earlier blog post. “For them, the weight of ridicule and ostracism can feel crushing and without the possibility of reprieve. And, in that dark and lonely place, desperate and confused, they can make horrible decisions that can’t be undone.”
Torture in Health Care
A project of the Open Society Foundations, Stop Torture in Health Care currently has three international advocacy campaigns: ending forced sterilization of racial and ethnic minority women, poor women, women living with HIV, and women with disabilities; denial of pain relief due to ideologically-based or financial restrictions on appropriate medication; and the use of forcible detention as treatment for medical conditions such as drug addiction, mental disability, or tuberculosis.
Confronting Abuse by Priests
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests describes itself as “the largest, oldest and most active support group for women and men wounded by religious authority figures (priests, ministers, bishops, deacons, nuns and others)…Our website exists to provide support and knowledge to all victims of clergy abuse, to help educate the public, and to help ensure that, in future generations, children will be safe.”
A recent BBC news item quoted on the organization’s website reports that Father Laurence Soper, 80, the former abbot of the Britain’s Ealing Abbey from 1991 to 2000, has apparently jumped bail, failing to show up in London to answer charges of child abuse dating back 20 years to when he taught at a Catholic private school in London.
TORTURE: Latest Issue of IRCT Journal Now Available
TORTURE: Volume 21, Number 3, 2011, the journal of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, is now available for free download. You can sign up for email notification of future issues at the IRCT website , or can request a printed copy by mail.
“While there are some examples of legal cases which have resulted in the prosecution of perpetrators and successful reparation for survivors, in countries such as Iran, such due procedure is close to impossible, since torture is practiced by state officials mostly based on religious codes, and the legal system is controlled by practices that makes it close to impossible to achieve justice. This article discusses the implications of such a situation…”
— from How to combat torture if perpetrators are supported
by a religious “justification,” a case study by Siroos Mirzaei,
Lilla Hardi, Thomas Wenzel in TORTURE
Health Promotion for
Torture and Trauma Survivors
The National Partnership for Community Training is offering a new web-based training seminar featuring Dr. Richard Mollica, director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma. “This webinar helps participants to understand how health promotion can help our clients…learn how to educate clients about healthy lifestyles including how to talk with their doctors about their concerns.” From the Partnership’s website, you can stream or download the audio recording, as well as download a PDF file of the presentation slides.
Dr. Mollica and the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma are featured in our forthcoming documentary film, Refuge: Caring for Survivors of Torture.
Recent Research on Chronic Pain in Torture Survivors
A press release following the conclusion of September’s EFIC “Pain in Europe VII” Congress reports on two recent studies dealing with chronic pain in survivors of torture. An Israeli study comparing former prisoners of war to controls found that the POWs experienced greater chronic pain, PTSD, and other pain and anxiety-related symptoms more than 35 years after their captivity. Dr. Ruth Defrin concluded that “it appears that war captivity and torture inflict a long term dysfunction of pain inhibitory pathways. This dysfunction along with the emotional consequences might underlie the high rates of severe chronic pain among torture survivors.”
A study from Sweden examined ways to improve treatment options for torture survivors – most of them from Iraq – experiencing long-standing pain. According to Dr. Gunilla Brodda Jansen, “Torture survivors score very high regarding depression, anxiety, catastrophic thoughts, and they have low quality of life…The pain class was very much appreciated and reduced suffering. Anxiety decreased slightly, but not depression. In total, life satisfaction of our patients increased. Education, talking and understanding have shown to be a good medicine.”
EFIC, the European Federation of IASP chapters is a professional organization of physicians, researchers, nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists and other healthcare professionals involved in pain research and management in 35 European countries. IASP is the International Association for the Study of Pain.
Domestic Violence No Longer
a Crime in Topeka, Kansas
Topeka/Shawnee County Safe Streets motto:
“Making Our Neighborhoods Safe for Peaceful Living”
This item may seem a little off-topic, but the City Council of Topeka, Kansas, has just decriminalized domestic violence. Right, you got it: the capital city of the Sunflower state (motto: Through hardship to the stars) will no longer prosecute those who assault or otherwise harm their children, spouses, and elders. Turns out it was just getting to be too much of a hardship to protect domestic violence victims.
According to a New York Times article of yesterday, the District Attorney of Shawnee County, where Topeka is located, has responded to recent budget cuts by refusing to prosecute domestic violence cases – leaving it to the City to handle them. The decriminalization move is the city’s response. The councilors argue that this will force the DA to act, since such cases remain (so far?) a crime under state law.
Maybe so, but the Times reports that 18 people arrested for domestic violence since September have been released without charges “because no agency is accepting new cases.” Joyce Grover, of the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, says, “To have public officials pointing fingers while victims of domestic violence are trying to figure out who will protect them is just stunning.”
Why am I including this story here? Whether we’re talking about torture and disappearances, domestic violence, or schoolyard bullying, perpetrators do what they do, in part, because they face no consequences. That’s the definition of a culture of impunity — offenders can do as they please. It’s the responsibility of a humane society to make sure there are consequences, but both the Kansas Capital and its surrounding County are saying that’s just too expensive.
