We recover a piece by originally appeared in in November 2012 on the responsibilities held by US health professionals (specially psychiatrists but also nurses and medical doctors) in military interrogations which could be considered under universal standards as torture.We inserted further hyperlinks and embedded a November 2013 Democracy Now video on the issue and a trailer for the Doctors of the dark side a documentary by Martha Davis . As usual we have added some background and updated info from this blog, our twitter (@onadaexpansiva) and external sources.
A teenager tortured at Guantanamo, and the stalled legislation to ensure clinicians "first, do no harm"
On December 25, 2003, Mohammed Jawad, an Afghani teenager held in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, repeatedly banged his head against the metal
structures of his cell
in an effort to kill himself. The dull echoes of the blows attracted
the prison's guards. As they reached the cell, Jawad struck the solid
surface once
again. Even though suicide is prohibited in Islam, Jawad, a devout
Muslim, thought that perhaps he could be forgiven in this case. The
situation had
slipped beyond his control, he told his attorney Eric Montalvo years
later.
