Click here to sign the petition and view its signatories. Excerpts:
The June 7,
2006 New York Times brings news that the United States Department of
Defense has decided to give preference to using psychologists over
psychiatrists as advisers to its interrogation teams at Guantánamo and
other unnamed locations based on ‘a recognition of differing positions
taken by their respective professional groups.’ More specifically, The
American Psychiatric Association unequivocally has adopted a policy
stating that its members should not be part of these interrogation
teams. The American Psychological Association has adopted a far weaker
policy that, in practice, puts no constraints upon its members
participating in interrogation, stating only that members consulting on
national security interrogations should be “mindful of factors unique
to these roles and contexts that require special ethical
consideration.” This position is taken in spite of considerable
pressure from many members desiring the Association to state
unequivocally that members should not participate in these
interrogation teams in any capacity.
nature of this involvement of psychologists and psychiatrists has been
documented in several sources. For example, an article in the July 7,
2005 New England Journal of Medicine states: ‘Psychiatrists and
psychologists have been part of a strategy that employs extreme stress,
combined with behavior-shaping rewards, to extract actionable
intelligence from resistant captives.’ Further, as is documented in an
official U.S. Southern Command policy statement, health professionals,
including psychologists and psychiatrists working at Guantánamo, were
for a while explicitly instructed to violate commonly-accepted canons
of confidentiality and concern for patients’ welfare that date back
eons. There still remains ambiguity around safeguards for detainees’
confidentiality at this facility.
We
psychologists wish to unequivocally state our rejection of
participation by psychologists in the interrogation process at
Guantánamo or similar, still secret, facilities. A profession aiming at
human betterment and built upon a respect for the dignity of the
individual should never be perverted to further illegal abusive
treatment or torture. We call upon the American Psychological
Association to loudly and unequivocally insist that members desist from
collaborating indirectly through educating, training and advising
others or participating directly in the interrogations at Guantánamo or
other such detention facilities. We will not stand by and remain silent
while our profession throws overboard its concern for human dignity by
becoming complicit in inhumane institutions.