The Passing of Professor Emeritus Erik Kristian Holst

It with great sadness that I just heard the news that Professor Emeritus Erik Kristian Holst has died. Erik was a man of principle, and stretched those in his field to think differently and was an advocate for the mistreated, especially victims of torture. Erik made the world a better place for many. He was an example to us all. I got to know Erik through the ICAR Foundation in Bucharest, where he worked as a consultant. The Foundation have posted more information about Erik on their website, as well as online book of remembrance.

Psychologists, Ethics and Torture

Below is a live tweet record by @BrandonHamber of the panel discussion at the International Congress of Psychology 2012 in Cape Town.

The panel began with the screening of Doctors of the Dark Side followed by a discussion on the ethical issues facing psychologists given the controversy about psychologists involved in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, and the American Psychological Association (APA) stance on the issue.

On the panel Leslie London (South Africa), Stephen Behnke (APA Ethics), Paul Kimmel (USA), Mike Wessells (APA), Chair: Umesh Bawa (South Africa) and moderator Norman Duncan (South Africa)

@BrandonHamber Tweet Record 27 July 2012

10:04am
Just watched Doctors of the Dark Side. Films about role of physicians and psychologists in detainee torture ow.ly/cxoC9 #icp2102

10:05am
There is now a panel discussion on the issue of torture and psychologists role in allowing it to happen #icp2012

10:06am
Leslie London speaking first from South Africa #icp2012

10:07am
London notes the failure of accountability is striking for psychologists who oversaw torture in Guantanamo Bay #icp2012

10:08am
Failure to hold health professionals accountable will result in abuses in the future says London #icp2012

10:09am
London says at least 29 doctors reported for involvement in apartheid, only one ever investigate #icp2012

10:09am
Cannot have ethics without human rights says Leslie London #icp2012

10:11am
Stephen Behnke adresses accountability from APA perspective. Says we cannot do anything about non APA members #icp2012

10:11am
Stephen Behnke is the Director, APA Ethics Office #icp2012

10:12am
Behnke says organisations have a responsibility to offer support to psychologists in these difficult positions #icp2012

10:14am
APA made a list in 2007 of practices that are forbidden including water boarding. APA took to long to do that says Behnke #icp2012

10:15am
When to know when to pull out of a situation or not is a difficult issue says Behnke #icp2012

10:16am
Behnke uses the death penalty as an example. It is legal in US, APA has intervened to prevent it in some cases #icp2012

10:16am
But it is difficult to know if we should pull out entirely or if we should have intervened in some cases says Behnke #icp2012

10:18am
Discussion very polite so far, does not capture the massive tensions in the APA there have been over the years on this issue #ico2012

10:23am
Mike Wessells former Director of Psychologists for Social Responsibility now talking #icp2012

10:24am
Wessells says we need to think systemically because torture is an issue that is still not over, there are systemic pressures #icp2012

10:25am
After 9/11 in US a distortion of issues and psychologists were not immune from the images and manipulation of Bush administration #icp2012

10:26am
George Bush distorted the nature of law about torture #icp2012

10:27am
No laws should throw out human rights says Wessells. Human rights standards have to be above national law #icp2012

10:28am
Wessells says we need support for whistleblowers and accountability #icp2012

10:28am
Torture does not happen because of bad apples, systemic and enabling factors need to be addressed says Wessells #icp2012

10:29am
A coalition of all psychology associations is needed that rises above our own membership and offer moral guidance says Wessells #icp2012

10:34am
It was unethical for psychologists to be at Guatanamo Bay because it was decreed beyond international standards says Wessells #icp2012

10:35am
Floor getting heated, someone saying that surely we should have just been out of this altogether #icp2012

10:36am
Another person from the floor asks if the APA should apologise for any of its actions #icp2012

10:37am
Nora Soveass from UN Committee of Prevention of Torture raises the issue that convention also talks about prevention #icp2012

10:39am
If there are no rights in an area, like the ICR not being allowed into a place, we should no be there says Sveaass #icp2012

10:40am
Behnke now speaking. Says he agrees with Sveaass. There are no exceptional circumstances #icp2012

10:41am
Behnke says the Bush memos on torture were horrific #icp2012

10:42am
Behnke says APA was too slow, we took too long. But as we move forward, never again will US psychologist be involved in this #icp2012

10:45am
Wessells on again says Sveaass reminds us that the specificity of what was happening in Guantanamo was known #icp2012

10:46am
We need to do an honest retrospective and admit that big mistakes were made, we need a broader vision and not tinkering #icp2012

10:50am
Another question what is being done to prevent this from happening again #icp2012

10:47am
Behnke: APA is clear. No torture or involvement in this, and clear psychologists have to report torture if they're aware of issues #icp2012

10:57am
Behnke says he agrees with Wessells we need to think systemically #icp2012

10:57am
But Behnke says APA has not agreed about the issue of where we should be or not be, that is more controversial in the organisation #icp2012

10:58am
Leslie London says international human rights law is our benchmark, without that we end up asking how much torture is torture #icp2012

11:00am
Wessells says as long as we use language like do what is safe and legal its a problem, we need ethics that transcends national law #icp2102

11:05am
Paul Kimmel ends and says we don't need lawyers but we need to be humanists, and go back to that to prevent torture #icp2012

11:06am
Umesh Bawa, Chair from South Africa says we must remember we have said never again after Nuremberg and there was Rwanda etc. #icp2012

11:07am
Bawa notes that there is continuing torture around the globe and calls for us to remember that as it is going on #icp2012

11:07am
Bawa says we have to commit ourselves to defending human rights in all situations #icp2012

11:08am
Panel ends. Will it make a difference? I don't know? Better we have it, but so much to be done and is the system as Wessells notes #icp2012

11:14am
And here is a photo of the panel for good measure ow.ly/i/NMwJ #icp2012

11:30am
Here is a piece "The Ghost of Jeffrey Benzein Lives On" that I wrote about torture and professionals a while back, read here.

11:44am
The discussion on APA and torture still bouncing in my head #icp2012

11:45am
The more I think about it the more ridiculous the notion of lists of acceptable and unacceptable practices seem to me #icp2012

11:46am
The fact 'torture' lists are needed suggests a moral and ethical vacuum at the core of the APA and training of psychologists #icp2012

11:47am
Mike Wessells is correct there is a systematic problem in the profession and wider society #icp2012

Other resources:

Psychologists for Social Responsibility Documents on Torture

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology

10-Year "Psychology, Torture, and the APA" Timeline

Timeline of APA Policies and Actions

Torture at Abu Ghraib

The ghost of Jeffrey Benzien lives

One of the most chilling moments during the South African Truth and Reconciliation process was when Jeffrey Benzien, an apartheid era torturer, was asked by one of his victims to re-enact, without doing harm, the torture he had administered. The image of Benzien clutching a bag over the volunteer’s face while sitting on his back will stick in my mind forever.

Benzien, who eventually received amnesty, was the infamous master of the ‘wet bag’ torture technique. This form of torture involves placing a wet bag over a victim’s head, which results in suffocation and the sensation of drowning. Benzien claimed he could break most prisoners in 30 minutes.

Disturbingly, variations of this technique, euphemistically called ‘waterboarding’, have been used in Iraq and in Guantanamo Bay by the US military. It was, at least in part, the condemnation of the practice of waterboarding that led me to take part in my first protest on US soil.

In August, while at the American Psychological Association (APA) conference, in Boston, I joined fellow psychologists to protest against the APA’s current refusal to ban its members from participating in or observing interrogations in any capacity whatsoever.

So how does this relate to waterboarding?

To cut a long story short, two years ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross raised the alarm about the involvement of health professionals in US interrogations. The APA set up a committee to investigate this. The committee endorsed the use of psychologists “in consultative roles” in interrogation processes “for national security-related purposes”. It transpired that six of the nine members of the committee were military psychologists.

This caused an outcry. In late 2007, the APA issued a statement condemning the role of psychologists in torture and said it was unethical to participate in 19 coercive procedures, including waterboarding. However, the APA did not forbid psychologists from being involved in interrogations; rather it felt their presence could ensure ethical interrogations took place, safeguarding the welfare of detainees.

But is it possible to be an ethical observer in an interrogation? Why are ‘safety officers’ needed, in the first place? Clearly, there is a systematic problem in the US military if they are worried about potential torture.

Apathy clearly runs rife. At the APA protest, there were only 200 people out of the possible 14 000 delegates attending the conference. Most psychologists do not seem bothered that their profession is being associated with torture, or that individuals may be harmed.

This links to a second point: why and how certain sectors been vested with so much power? And why, when the mantra of national security or a threat against the country is touted, whether in the US or any country, for that matter, it seems that most of us just sit back and let governments do the thinking for us? Or we end up debating technicalities rather than taking action.

For example, in the APA case, is the bigger issue not the condemnation of centres such as Guantanamo Bay, not to mention the disciplining of psychologists who have participated in torture so far?

The sad truth is that torture and abuse are happening around us all the time, and should never be tolerated.

Every day, across Europe and Africa, immigrants are abused and robbed of rights, often detained in asylum centres, prisons or worse. Torture of criminal suspects still happens routinely in South Africa. So-called terrorists continue to be kept in hidden ‘black sites’ across the world by the US with the tacit agreement of other governments.

We all seem to have explanations for such abuses. After all, asylum seekers need to be properly vetted. Criminals and terrorists will ultimately reap what they sow. Or a psychologist being present during an interrogation is ethical. But these are fantasies, and each time we think such thoughts, another part of our humanity dies and with that another Jeffrey Benzien is born.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 5 September 2008 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Are we all torturers inside?

When I was flying from Johannesburg to Belfast recently, I was caught out by the new system some airlines have started of weighing bags before you check in. As a result, I was found to be carrying a 24-kg bag. I was subsequently reprimanded by an official, who claimed he was just doing his job and that I had to shed four kilos or pay for the extra weight. I removed two large books and a file from my bag, reducing the weight to 20 kg. I was then told I could carry the books on board in hand luggage. That said, I was lucky compared to the woman in front of me. Her bag weighed 26 kg and, when she pointed out she had no hand luggage, she was told by the same bureaucrat to “make some hand luggage” of precisely 6 kg of weight. She had to run around the airport trying to get a plastic bag so she could carry some of her clothes on to the plane. She then had to deal with other people “just doing their jobs” who refused to give her a large bag unless she made a large purchase. “I am just doing my job” has to be one of the most inane excuses in the world. It is a phrase that I most associate with bureaucracy and, at the risk of being melodramatic, Nazi Germany and other atrocities. Remember the case of the American soldiers who tortured Iraqi prisoners and then took photos of them – they, too, claimed they were just doing their jobs and carrying out orders.

Of course, the annoying airline bureaucrat who enjoyed bossing me and others around cannot be compared a torturer, but the process that led to his unquestioning rule enforcement has, at least to a degree, the same root cause. Like the American marine or ‘grunt’, as they are known, who tortures someone, our friend, the baggage-weighing man, also finds himself at the bottom of a heap of bureaucratic power. No doubt, he was ordered to ensure passengers’ bags do not exceed the weight limit. Whether people do this or not is irrelevant to him personally, but he feels the hand of the rational bureaucratic machine on his shoulders and that his competence will be measured by carrying out instructions. The result is an unwavering and illogical set of actions, because, in this case, extra weight would mean little (other than more profit for the airline), considering the aeroplane was half-full. But why are we, humans, so bad at resisting problematic orders? In the 1960s, Milgram carried out his famous experiment on obedience. He showed that, when people were ordered by an official-looking person to administer shocks to participants in a study (actors, who were not hurt) when they answered questions incorrectly, most people continued to ratchet up the power because they felt they needed to do what they were told. Over 60% of the volunteers obediently administered up to 450 V.

Despite Milgram’s highlighting our weaknesses over 40 years ago, people still carry out orders which are damaging. Soldiers who commit atrocities continue to use it as an unacceptable defence. It seems, as Milgram himself warned, that when individuals merge “into an organisational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of human inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority”. But Milgram teaches us more than the fact that people will follow problematic orders when instructed to do so. The real finding Milgram made was that most of us (okay, 65% of us) have a little torturer inside and, given the right conditions, we too might just “do our jobs”, no matter how unpalatable. So I forgive the baggage-weighing man in Johannesburg and his sardonic smile, because, apparently, there but for the grace of God go I.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 7 February 2007 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Psychologists and torture: War on Terror?

I was recently contacted by colleague and friend Brinton M. Lykes from the The Ignacio Martin-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights. She drew my attention to the fact that there is an increasing national concern in the US over the growing evidence that psychologists and other mental health workers have been directly involved in interrogations, and in some cases torture, of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere. In response a campaign has been launched against this.

She wrote: "In response to these realities of deep concern to many of us as psychologists and as US citizens, the Fund has launched a two-pronged petition campaign calling on both Congress and the American Psychological Association to commission independent investigations of this situation, and to take concrete action to put an end to these practices...We are seeking support not only from those who are professionally involved in mental health issues, but from everyone who is concerned about these issues. You need not be a psychologist or a member of the American Psychological Association to sign the APA petition, although if you are a member -- and want to let the APA know -- you can include this information in the "Affiliations" field of the response form.".

Both petitions are available from the Fund's home page: www.martinbarofund.org and from the petitions to the signature page.

Chile: Torture Was State Policy

A Chilean presidential commission has provided an overwhelming indictment of the military dictatorship’s systematic use of torture, Human Rights Watch said today. In a report released last night, the commission collected testimony from thousands of torture victims who had never previously reported the abuse they had suffered. "After years of denial, Chile has finally acknowledged its legacy of torture," said José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. "This presidential commission has upheld the right of thousands of victims to reparation and moral recognition." Among its dramatic findings, the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture appointed by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos found that 94 percent of the people detained in the aftermath of the coup reported having been tortured. One of the most common methods of torture, reported in more than a third of the cases, was the application of electrical shocks. To read the full statement, click here.

Chile Issues Report on Pinochet Torture

Chile took a key step Wednesday toward confronting the grim legacy of abuses under the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, completing a lengthy report on torture and political imprisonment with testimonies from some 35,000 victims. For more information, click here.

Zimbabwe's torture training camps

President Robert Mugabe's government has set up secret camps across the country in which thousands of youths are taught how to torture and kill, the BBC has learned. The Zimbabwean government says the camps are job training centres, but those who have escaped say they are part of a brutal plan to keep Mugabe in power. More...

Torture in Zimbabwe

Below I post a letter concerning torture in Zimbabwe Letter sent to the Chair, Vice-Chair, Members and Secretary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples, as I received it today and think it is important. All eyes on Iraq, while Zimbabwe burns.

Torture in Zimbabwe

Letter sent to the Chair, Vice-Chair, members and Secretary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

Dear Mr. Rezag-Bara, Mrs. Johm and members

We wish to bring to your attention the continuing and deepening human rights abuses being perpetrated in Zimbabwe, most notably the increasing use of torture and associated cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment. As you are well aware, in terms of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights - let alone other regional and international instruments - such practices are prohibited. Furthermore, such practices and the apparent silence of your Commission in condemning the same, make a mockery of the recent adoption by your Commission of The Robben Island Guidelines; the Guidelines and Measures for the Prohibition and Prevention of Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment IN AFRICA.

In this regard, we attach hereto statements from the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, the Zimbabwe Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, The Zimbabwe Legal Resources Foundation, and ex-Director of Amani Trust in Zimbabwe, concerning the flagrant recent instances of torture, notably on a prominent opposition MP and a young human rights lawyer (Gabriel Shumba),and threats of violence against civil society organisations.

It is indeed ironic and utterly incomprehensible and despicable that such abuses not only occur but do so in a country which has a government official as one of the nine other members of your Commission - namely, Mr Andrew Chigovera of Zimbabwe's Attorney General's Office. An added cruel irony is that another member of your Commission, Dr. Pityana, is actually a member of the academic staff at the University of South Africa in Pretoria - where Mr Shumba was, until a few weeks ago, a post graduate student in human rights!

For the dignity, soul and above all, the people, of Africa we call upon you to condemn such gross human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, to formally request Mr Chigovera to report to the commission on the same or else request that he relinquish his membership forthwith, and to immediately initiate a process to send an investigation mission to Zimbabwe.

Please be assured that we, and thousands of individuals and many organisations throughout Africa and the world, are recording and documenting in detail instances of torture and its perpetrators in Zimbabwe and elsewhere, and stand committed to cooperating with your Commission as you may require, and as requested by your Commission in terms of The Robben Island Guidelines. In this regard we are sure you will concur with us in welcoming the fact that today torturers, and those who abet torture, may hide but cannot run ..... witness Mengistu, Amin, Sharon .... and even when they hide the closing net of universal justice closes...witness Pinochet, Habre ... and international criminal tribunals prosecute .... witness Akayesu, Kambanda, Tadic, Milosevich.

We wish you continued progress in your endeavours.

Yours sincerely

H. Humamondira

Secretary AFRICARights (Association For Renaissance In the Countries of Africa Reborn)

Source

Please find above for your information, a letter sent to the Chair, Vice-Chair, members and Secretary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. For your future purposes, should you so require, the email addresses of the Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary of the Commission are respectively: mkrezagbara@hotmail.com or rezbakam@wissal.gm; fjohm@aviso.ci or jaijohm@hotmail.com; and secretary@achpr.gm or gerbaricako1@hotmail.com. Note this is also sent to selected international organisations and officials, but you are welcome - indeed encouraged - to forward it to whom you may consider appropriate. H. Humamondira (Secretary)