APA Ethics Policy-Maker Endorses Torture « Psychologists for Social Responsibility Blog.

Those of us who fought so hard against the Bush torture regime must now turn to the task of dismantling the many facets of abuse in our society. Psychologists can and should help transform a culture tolerant of abuse to one where abuse is unacceptable. 

OpEdNews » Psychologists Reject the Dark Side: American Psychological Association Members Reject Participation in Bush Detention Ce

Psychologists Vote to End Interrogation Consultations – NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — The petition resolution stating that psychologists may not work in settings where “persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights” was approved by a vote of the APA membership.  The final vote tally was 8,792 voting in favor of the resolution; 6,157 voting against the resolution.  To become policy, a petition resolution needs to be approved by a majority of those members voting.

Per the Association’s Rules and Bylaws, the resolution will become official APA policy as of the Association’s next annual meeting, which will take place in August 2009.  At that time, the APA Council of Representatives will also determine what further action may be necessary to implement the policy.

The approval of the petition resolution represents a significant change in APA’s policy regarding the involvement of psychologists in interrogations.  The petition resolution limits the roles of psychologists in certain defined settings where persons are detained to working directly for detainees or for an independent third party to protect human rights, or to providing treatment to other military personnel. 

This new petition resolution expands on the 2007 APA resolution, which called on the U.S. government to ban at least 19 specific abusive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, that are regarded as torture by international standards.  The 2007 resolution also recognized that “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment can result not only from the behavior of individuals, but also from the conditions of confinement,” and expressed “grave concern over settings in which detainees are deprived of adequate protection of their human rights.” 

APA will continue to call upon the Department of Defense and Congress to safeguard the welfare and human rights of detainees held outside of the United States and to investigate their treatment to ensure the highest ethical standards are being upheld. 

Guantanamo-style interrogation is hard to square with the psychological association’s ethics code: “Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm.”

In the coming weeks, association members will vote on new leadership, and one candidate for president wants psychologists banned from participating in interrogations at US detention centers that violate human rights and do not adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Members are also voting on a resolution banning psychologists from working in such facilities “unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights.”

These votes are providing association members with a chance to end any ambiguity about their profession’s abhorrence of abusive techniques. Many came out of the playbook of totalitarian states and could easily be used against US personnel in future clashes. Psychologists should leave no doubt they are opponents, and not enablers, of these methods.

This is the third consecutive annual convention in which APA has presented new reasons for refusing to explicitly state that psychologists are not to participate in detention centers where torture is being used. In 2006 we were told, among many things, that torture was not occurring, and that it was sufficient for APA to reiterate its 1986 resolution “opposing torture.” Last year we were told that psychologists’ presence at the detention centers was actually necessary to prevent the torture whose very existence these same APA officials denied the previous year. Bizarrely, APA outlawed nineteen specific forms of torture, as if in some way the large number of proscribed techniques would cripple torture efforts.

More>> Psyche, Science, and Society » Bryant Welch on the APA referendum

Posted by: “Dennis Fox” 

Tue Aug 5, 2008 7:46 am (PDT)