CIA doctors face human experimentation claims
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- Written by Ed Pilkington in New York Ed Pilkington in New York
- Published: 02 September 2009 02 September 2009
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Medical ethics group says physicians monitored 'enhanced interrogation techniques' and studied their effectiveness
A US flag at Camp Delta in Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images
Doctors and psychologists the CIA employed to monitor its "enhanced interrogation" of terror suspects came close to, and may even have committed, unlawful human experimentation, a medical ethics watchdog has alleged.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a not-for-profit group that has investigated the role of medical personnel in alleged incidents of torture at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other US detention sites, accuses doctors of being far more involved than hitherto understood.
PHR says health professionals participated at every stage in the development, implementation and legal justification of what it calls the CIA's secret "torture programme".
The American Medical Association, the largest body of physicians in the US, said it was in open dialogue with the Obama administration and other government agencies over the role of doctors. "The participation of physicians in torture and interrogation is a violation of core ethical values," it said.
The most incendiary accusation of PHR's latest report, Aiding Torture, is that doctors actively monitored the CIA's interrogation techniques with a view to determining their effectiveness, using detainees as human subjects without their consent. The report concludes that such data gathering was "a practice that approaches unlawful experimentation".
Human experimentation without consent has been prohibited in any setting since 1947, when the Nuremberg Code, which resulted from the prosecution of Nazi doctors, set down 10 sacrosanct principles. The code states that voluntary consent of subjects is essential and that all unnecessary physical and mental suffering should be avoided.
The Geneva conventions also ban medical experiments on prisoners and prisoners of war, which they describe as "grave breaches". Under CIA guidelines, doctors and psychologists were required to be present during the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques on detainees.
In April, a leaked report from the International Committee of the Red Cross found that medical staff employed by the CIA had been present during waterboarding, and had even used what appeared to be a pulse oxymeter, placed on the prisoner's finger to monitor his oxygen saturation during the procedure. The Red Cross condemned such activities as a "gross breach of medical ethics". PHR has based its accusation of possible experimentation on the 2004 report of the CIA's own inspector general into the agency's interrogation methods, which was finally published two weeks ago after pressure from the courts.
An appendix to the report, marked "top secret", provides guidelines to employees of the CIA's internal Office of Medical Services "supporting the detention of terrorists turned over to the CIA for interrogation".
Medical workers are given the task of "assessing and monitoring the health of all agency detainees" subjected to enhanced techniques. These techniques include facial slaps, sleep deprivation, walling – where their padded heads are banged against walls – confinement in boxes, and waterboarding or simulated drowning.
The guidelines instruct doctors to carry out regular medical checks of detainees. They must ensure that prisoners receive enough food, though diet "need not be palatable", and monitor their body temperature when placed in "uncomfortably cool environments, ranging from hours to days".
The most controversial guideline refers to waterboarding, the technique where prisoners are made to feel as though they are drowning by having water poured over a cloth across their face. The guidelines stress that the method carries physical risks, particularly "by days three to five of an aggressive programme".
PHR is calling for an official investigation into the role of doctors in the CIA's now widely discredited programme. It wants to know exactly how many doctors participated, what they did, what records they kept and the science that they applied.
• Physicians for Human Rights is a not-for-profit group
West Bank Segregated Roads
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- Written by Fred Schlomka Fred Schlomka
- Published: 01 September 2009 01 September 2009
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The original version of this article was published in the Los Angeles Jewish Observer
Despite the new White House administration’s adamant refusal to accept any more settlement construction President Obama has allowed USAID to continue funding the segregated road network that links the settlements to Israel. This continues to be a major impediment to any meaningful progress towards a Palestinian State.
Both ‘Israeli’ only and ‘Palestinian only’ roads are growing throughout the West Bank , restricting Palestinians to ever smaller transportation options while allowing greater freedom for settlers throughout the Occupied Territories.
The Israeli-only roads facilitate high-speed transit from the settlements into Israel proper, enhancing the Israeli economy with the speedy passage of commercial products to market, and commuters to their jobs. Most settlers work inside Israel, and many ‘made in Israel’ export products are either manufactured or have value added, in settlement industrial zones and agricultural areas.
Israeli government policies are aimed at segregating Arab and Jewish traffic throughout most of the Occupied Territories and to create four Israeli-only highways cutting east/west and north/south corridors through the West Bank. The east/west annexed strips were on the Camp David 2000 maps that President Arafat rejected. Route 1 from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea is already complete. It will become segregated when the adjacent Arab road is completed through the E1 Zone between Jerusalem and the luxurious Central West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim (pop. 35,000).
Hanan Ashrawi First Woman in PLO Executive Committee
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- Written by MIFTAH MIFTAH
- Published: 31 August 2009 31 August 2009
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In the first time in PLO history, the Palestine National Council voted in the Executive Committee’s first woman, Hanan Ashrawi on August 27. Ashrawi, a PLC member and former minister, was voted into the PLO’s highest decision making body along with four others including ousted Fateh Central Committee member Ahmad Qurei.
“The era of done deals that exclude women is over,” said Ashrawi, who won 182 votes. The elections, which were also a first for the Executive Committee, came after a tumultuous Fateh Conference that saw a lot of bruised egos of longtime Fateh members who were voted out of the movement’s decision making bodies and hoped to win a chair in the PLO.
The PNC, which held a special session on August 26 and 27 under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas also decided that should reconciliation talks fail with Hamas, the Palestinians would still go to elections on the scheduled date. Conciliation talks have not moved forward unfortunately. On August 22, the dialogue in Cairo was officially postponed until after the PNC session was over. So far, a new date has not been set.
On August 25, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad unveiled his program for establishing a Palestinian state by 2011 and ending the Israeli occupation. According to the plan, the Palestinians will declare their state in two years regardless of the outcome of negotiations with Israel. “It is possible and necessary to establish a state in two years,” Fayyad said during his press conference in Ramallah. Part of his plan, which is based on Palestinian institution-building regardless of the occupation, includes building a railroad through the Palestinian territories and an airport in the Jordan Valley.
The plan, which may not have been welcomed by Hamas, was met warmly by the European Union. On August 26, European Commission representative Christian Berger said the EU supported Fayyad’s plan.
"The European Commission welcomes Prime Minister Fayyad's government program and we are looking forward to further discussions with our Palestinian partners on how we can best support it," he said in a statement.
Another two-year marker is that of US President Barack Obama, who insists that this goal is realistic despite the impasses he has met with Israel on settlement construction. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman scoffed at the plan on August 23, saying it was unrealistic. “In the 16 years since the Oslo Accords, we haven't managed to bring peace to the region, and I'm willing to bet that there won't be peace in another 16 years, either. Certainly not on the basis of the two-state solution," he said.
Two states is already a far-fetched plan what with Israel’s continued settlement construction. While Jerusalem, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is off limits, reports have been circulating of a US-Israel agreement on a temporary settlement freeze in the West Bank. Nothing yet has been confirmed but reports are talking about an Israeli freeze of up to 12 months in settlements excluding east Jerusalem and the 2,400 homes already under construction.
It is going to be difficult, given Netanyahu’s intransigence. On August 25, Netanyahu said he would refuse to freeze settlement construction in east Jerusalem. “Jews have been building in Jerusalem for 3000 years,” he said, not believing there is any reason to stop now. He also said he would only agree to a Palestinian state if it were demilitarized, if the right of return was off the table and there was an end to claims.
Also, there have been reports about the United States agreeing to exclude east Jerusalem from their demand on an Israeli settlement freeze. However, on August 28, US officials denied any such report, saying Washington has not made any final agreement and that its position has remained unchanged. One State Department spokesman did say however, that “The Obama administration will be flexible on pre-conditions for all parties involved in Middle East peace negotiations.”
Palestinians and Arabs are having nothing of it. On August 28, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit insisted that Jerusalem must be included in any Israeli settlement freeze before peace talks could resume, reiterating the Palestinian and Arab stance that Jerusalem was an “Arab capital.”
Jewish settlers are obviously trying their best to foil any attempts at stunting their growth. On August 23, the Jewish settlement group, Elad announced its intentions to erect a new settlement in Ras Al Amoud, which they would name Maaleh David. The plan includes the construction of 104 new housing units for Israeli Jews in the heart of this east Jerusalem neighborhood.
Israel was also scrutinized by The Elders, a group of foreign dignitaries aimed at bringing peace to the region which was established by former South African President Nelson Mandela. The delegation, whose mission ended on August 26 includes former US President Jimmy Carter, South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and former Irish President Mary Robinson. During a visit to the separation wall and protests in Bilin, Carter said all Israeli settlements should be dismantled. “Settlements built on Palestinian land must be removed so that justice will prevail and so that peace will prevail in the region,” he said.
Desmund Tutu had a word or two to say to the Israelis as well. On August 27, Tutu told the Israeli daily Haaretz, “The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns".
"In South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected.” He also said that the Palestinians were wrongfully paying the price of the Holocaust.
In an interview with the Palestinian news agency Maan on August 26, Archbishop Tutu said Israel and other parties would have to sooner or later talk to Hamas.
"You don't make peace with friends," he said. "You negotiate with those who are regarded as pariahs.”
In Bilin on August 28 as the elders visited, Israeli army soldiers attacked protesters injuring six including nine-year old Usama Breijiyeh.
Also on August 28, three Palestinian men, all from the Lahham family, were killed and another injured when a tunnel collapsed in the southern Gaza Strip. Furthermore, 25-year old fisherman Mohammed Attar was killed the same day in an Israeli navy shelling off of Gaza’s shore.
On August 25, two others, Mansur and Nael Batneeji were also killed in an Israeli raid on the tunnels in Rafah. Ten others were injured.
Then on August 24, 20-year old Ata Hasumi was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in Beit Lahyia.
Finally, on August 23, notices went up in girls’ schools across Gaza telling students that they must wear the jilbab and hijab (full Islamic dress) if they were to remain in school. Furthermore, the Hamas run education ministry announced that it was “feminizing” the schools by banning all male teachers from teaching in girls’ schools. Director of education in the education ministry Mahmoud Abu Haseera denied that the de facto government had issued orders forcing the girls into the jilbab but did say the “feminization” of schools was in line with Islamic society.
Fifteen minutes of hate in Silwan
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- Written by Meron Rapoport Meron Rapoport
- Published: 31 August 2009 31 August 2009
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The vicious anti-Arab sentiments flowing through the streets of this Jerusalem neighbourhood are a shock to the senses
It's searing hot, but there's some pleasantness about the stone-flagged path rising from the centre of Silwan, Jerusalem. Maybe it's the breeze, or the stone houses oozing coolness into the air, or maybe it's the wide-open mountain landscape. There are three of us – Ilan, the director, Michael, the cameraman and me, the interviewee. We're making a film on the blatant institutional discrimination against the residents of this Palestinian east-Jerusalem neighbourhood; authorities favour the Jewish settlers who are not hiding their desire to Judaise the neighbourhood, to void it of its Palestinian character.
Even before we position the camera, a group of orthodox Jewish girls, aged about eight to 10, come walking up the path in their ankle-long skirts, pretty, chattering, carefree. One of them slows down beside us, and pleasantly asks us if we want to film her. What would you like to tell us, we ask. I want to say that Jerusalem belongs to us Jews, she says as she walks on, only it's a pity there are Arabs here. The messiah will only come when there isn't a single Arab left here. She walks on, and her girlfriends giggle and rejoin her.
Egypt: Israel must halt building in East Jerusalem before talks, US denies backing down on freeze
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- Written by Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent, and The Associated Press Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent, and The Associated Press
- Published: 28 August 2009 28 August 2009
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Ahmed Aboul-Gheit told reporters in Stockholm on Friday that Jerusalem is Arab "and it will continue to be so."
He said the Arab world expects the area to be included in a moratorium on Israeli settlements.
The Obama administration has hinted it may be backing down on its insistence that Israel halt all settlement activity as a condition for restarting peace talks with the Palestinians.
U.S. officials have denied Israeli media reports that Washington has agreed to leave East Jerusalem out of the agreement and settle for a nine- to 12-month freeze in the West Bank.
A State Department spokesman said on Friday that the Obama administration will be flexible on pre-conditions for all parties involved in Middle East peace negotiations.
"We put forward our ideas, publicly and privately, about what it will take for negotiations to be restarted, but ultimately it'll be up to the parties themselves, with our help, to determine whether that threshold has been met," spokesman P.J. Crowley said, adding that the U.S. position on an Israeli settlement freeze remains unchanged.
"Ultimately," he added, "this is not a process by which the United States will impose conditions on Israel, on the Palestinian Authority, on other countries.
"We're asking them to meet their commitments under the Roadmap, but most importantly, we're asking them what they're prepared to do and to demonstrate the steps that that they are prepared to take that allow us to have confidence that these negotiations can be restarted," he said.
The White House said Thursday it had nothing to add to Crowley's comments.
The administration's special Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has been pressing Israel, the Palestinians and neighboring Arab nations to take specific confidence-building measures to lay the groundwork for a resumption in peace negotiations. The administration wants to have President Barack Obama announce a breakthrough in the third week of September at or on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Getting Arab buy-in on such a deal will be difficult, particularly since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to resume negotiations with Israel until there is a full freeze on settlements. U.S. officials said Thursday that they will continue to press Israel for as broad a suspension as possible.
But they also acknowledged that a compromise from the previous hard stance on settlements laid out by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton may be necessary due to the equally firm line taken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent talks with Mitchell.
Clinton said in May that Israel needed to apply a freeze on all new settlement construction, including so-called natural growth in existing projects in the West Bank. It would also apply to activity in east Jerusalem, notably the eviction of Palestinian families and demolition of Palestinian homes.
Mitchell met Netanyahu in London on Wednesday for talks that both sides said made unspecified good progress but did not produce an agreement on a freeze. Mitchell will hold follow-up talks next week with an Israeli delegation in the United States, although officials downplayed chances for a breakthrough.
Crowley and other U.S. officials denied Israeli media reports that Mitchell had agreed to leave East Jerusalem out of the agreement and settle for a nine- to 12-month freeze in the West Bank only that would also allow the completion of projects already under construction.
However, diplomats familiar with talks say that the administration has signaled it might be able to accept an understanding on East Jerusalem that would entail an Israeli promise not to take any provocative actions there.