Docs call on Obama to close torture loopholes

On January 22, President Obama issued an executive order intended to ensure that intelligence gathering by U.S. agents complies with the Geneva Conventions. The order also revoked various Bush policies that allowed the use of harsher interrogation techniques.

This was a positive step forward, of course.

However, the nonprofit group Physicians for Human Rights is calling attention to "a little-reported section of the Army’s Field Manual on Interrogation that they say still allows the use of tactics that can constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under U.S. and international law."

In a recent article for the Inter-Press Service (IPS), my friend and fellow journalist, Bill Fisher, explains:

While applauding President Barack Obama's recent executive orders banning torture and other harsh interrogation practices, medical authorities are calling attention to a little-reported section of the Army's Field Manual on Interrogation that they say still allows the use of tactics that can constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under U.S. and international law.

The suspect section of the Manual is known as Annex M, which allows the use of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and isolation, termed "separation" in the Manual. Obama's executive orders directed all government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to follow the manual for interrogations.

But Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a Nobel laureate not-for-profit organisation, is calling on the task force appointed by the president to review U.S. interrogation and transfer policies to revoke the Appendix and consult with human rights organisations as part of the review process.

John Bradshaw, director of PHR's office in Washington, told IPS, "The technique of separation allowed by Appendix M sounds innocuous, but in reality it allows the use of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and isolation."

"Particularly when used in combination, these techniques amount to psychological torture. The Obama administration must close this loophole in the Army Field Manual by eliminating Appendix M, which leaves the door open to torture," he said.

Legal experts agree. Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told IPS, "President Obama's announcement that the United States will not engage in torture is commendable. But cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment also violate U.S. law, as specified by three treaties we have ratified."

"The new administration should not use the Army Field Manual as the gold standard for interrogations since Appendix M sanctions techniques, including isolation and prolonged sleep deprivation, that amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," she said.

PHR also called on President Obama and Congress to "immediately authorise a non-partisan commission to investigate the authorisation, legal justification, and implementation of the Bush administration's regime of psychological and physical torture."

It added that "any accountability mechanism must include a subgroup tasked with investigating the participation of health professionals in detainee abuse."

Indeed.

If the U.S. is to truly mend its image in the world, we must do so through full respect for human rights. No loopholes.

And no impunity for past offenders or present ones.

>> Read Bill Fisher's full article.