Torturous acts

The Australian Psychological Society (APS) recently announced its position on members’ involvement in the use, participation or provision of advice about torture and other injurious practices.  Unlike their American counterparts, Australian psychologists have rejected any involvement in torture or other forms of cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment.

The difference was seen in September 2007, when the former president of the American Psychological Association (APA), Professor Gerald Koocher, was invited to the APS Annual Conference to air the issue with Australian psychologists. Earlier, Professor Koocher had convened a panel of United States psychologists to develop their policy which was adopted by a majority of APA Members’ votes in 2005-6. Of course, the APA condemned torture, but its leadership refused to accept the rulings of International Law as to what constituted torturous acts. “We are not going to be subjected to rulings by foreign courts” said Professor Koocher when pressed about the issue at the APS Conference.

Due to this position taken by the APA, torturous practices such as those shown in the widely circulated pictures from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, are developed and supervised by some United States psychologists. Indeed, these specific pictures taken of "detainees" being interrogated by staff were directed by United States psychologists at the time.

Professor Koocher informed Australian Psychologists that APA Psychologists’ roles included advising interrogators to use "culturally appropriate" techniques to get the best information from their captives.

For example, homosexuality is widely condemned in Islam, so the APA advisors suggested using homophobia as an interrogation technique to maximise the "disintegration of self" through various techniques including sodomy and forced "mock" fellatio.

It would be fair to say that most Australian psychologists did not want to make waves with their US counterparts. However, despite this acquiescence, a social action campaign was implemented by several highly respected senior psychologists to obtain the strongest possible statement from the APS.

Due, at least in part to this campaign, a strongly worded position was then adopted by the APS Board so that, unlike their US counterparts, Australian psychologists would be subject to ethical sanctions if they engaged in techniques including induced hypothermia, forced nudity, simulated sexual practices, forced-standing, sensory deprivation and other injurious practices.

Michael Otterman, the author of American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (Melbourne University Press, 2007), is an expert on the history of torture and its current use today. He recently returned to Sydney from an international speaking tour sponsored by Amnesty International. According to Otterman:

Following the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association banned their members from participating in coercive interrogations in CIA and military prisons. The American Psychological Association did not follow suit.

The APA allows its members to assist in "national security" interrogations in CIA secret prisons and in military facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. Furthermore, APA psychologists are sanctioned to assist CIA interrogators in developing coercive detention regimes that incorporate the application of mind-altering substances, hooding, forced nakedness, stress positions, the use of dogs, physical assault including slapping or shaking, exposure to extreme heat or cold, threats of harm or death, sensory deprivation, over-stimulation and sleep deprivation. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, these methods are “tantamount to torture”.

United States interrogators rely on psychologists to supervise the application of these techniques. The American Psychological Association defines this supervisory role in terms of harm minimization. In their view, the psychologist's job is to prevent the level of coercion from reaching a point that can be considered 'torture' by United States’ courts. Crossing the hazy legal line from coercion to "torture" would place interrogators, and their superiors, in legal jeopardy.

It is for this reason why I fully endorse the APS resolution on torture. Australian psychologists should never be put into a similar position as their United States counterparts. This resolution ensures that this will not happen.

The Australian resolution has been widely acclaimed by many US, British, European, South African, South American and other nations’ psychologists. Prominent Australian Psychologist, Professor Paul Wilson, PhD, who was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his work in the area, describes the resolution as " … a rare example of members of an Australian professional society standing up to the pressure applied by the United States war machine". Richard Hil and Paul Wilson’s Dead bodies don’t count: Civilian casualties and the forgotten costs of the Iraq Conflict (Zeus Publications, 2007) provides a broader context to the APS Resolution on torture and these authors state “The Iraq war has led to a legacy of death and destruction - we can not let the de facto recognition of torture be yet another part of that legacy”.

APS Declaration on Torture

The Australian Psychological Society, as a member of the International Union of Psychological Science, fully endorses the United Nations Declaration and Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1997.

The Australian Psychological Society regards all forms of torture, as defined in Article 1 of the United Nations Declaration and Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1997, as breaches of the Society’s Code of Ethics (2003) General Principle III Propriety.

DECLARATION

Psychologists shall at all times comply with the Society’s Code of Ethics.

Psychologists shall not countenance, condone or participate in the practice of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading procedures, in any situation, including armed conflict and civil strife.

Psychologists shall not provide any premises, instruments, substances or knowledge to facilitate the practice of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or to diminish the ability of the victim to resist such treatment.

Psychologists shall not be present during any procedure in which torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is used or threatened.

Psychologists must have complete professional independence in deciding upon the care of a person for whom they are responsible.

Despite the acclaim, the APS resolution could have made its statement stronger had they adopted the point made by Professor David Thomas from Auckland University's Medical Faculty. Professor Thomas’s comment was made during the Public Forum of the APS Annual Conference, where the public and APS members learned that a representative senior psychologist from the Australian military (who had been listed as a participant on the conference program) had his permission to participate in the Public Forum revoked by his Commanding Officer. This suggests that Australian military psychologists could be silenced and ethically compromised by their commanding officers.

As no US psychologist involved in detention centres or military prisons has spoken out against such practices, this indicated to the senior psychologists involved with the social action campaign in Australia that the resolution should have included the following two clauses to close this "loophole":

• The signing of any code of secrecy or any statement which forbids disclosure of such acts without the approval of a superior shall not be a defense in relation to participation in or being present in settings where torture is used. It is a psychologist’s ethical duty to disclose the planning and/or perpetration of torture, especially when it takes place in settings where psychologists are present.
• If the psychologist does not subsequently disclose that torture took place in a setting where he or she was present then this non-disclosure shall be taken as a breach of the Code of Ethics.

Furthermore, to avoid any debate as to the meaning of the phrase "cruel, inhuman or degrading procedures" as was done in the United States, Michael Otterman has suggested that the following clause be added to provide the widest possible protection against abuses, whether physical or mental, including holding of a detained or imprisoned person in conditions which deprive him or her temporarily or permanently of the use of all natural senses, such as sight or hearing, or their awareness of place and the passing of time.

• For purposes of this Resolution, the phrase "cruel, inhuman or degrading procedures" should be interpreted in keeping with the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (Principle 7).

Other psychological professional bodies might consider including these additions to the APS Resolution in developing statements for their ethical guidelines. The matter will be brought forward to both the Australian Psychological Society and The International Congress of Psychology to be held in 2008 in Europe.