[Infowarrior] - Psychologists Scrap Interrogation Ban

[Richard Forno]

Psychologists Scrap Interrogation Ban
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Torture-Psychology.html?pagewanted=pri
nt

Filed at 10:13 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The nation's largest group of psychologists scrapped a
measure Sunday that would have prohibited members from assisting
interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. military detention centers.

The American Psychological Association's policy-making council voted against
a proposal to ban psychologists from taking part in any interrogations at
U.S. military prisons ''in which detainees are deprived of adequate
protection of their human rights.''

Instead, the group approved a resolution that reaffirmed the association's
opposition to torture and restricted members from taking part in
interrogations that involved any of more than a dozen specific practices,
including sleep deprivation and forced nakedness. Violators could be
expelled and lose their state licenses to practice.

Critics of the proposed ban who spoke before the vote at the 148,000-member
organization's annual meeting said the presence of psychologists would help
insure interrogators did not abuse prisoners.

''If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to
die,'' said Army Col. Larry James, who serves as a psychologist at
Guantanamo Bay.

Supporters argued that psychologists should not be working at detention
centers where prisoners are detained indefinitely without being charged.

''If psychologists have to be there so detainees don't get killed, those
conditions are so horrendous that the only moral and ethical thing is to
leave,'' said Laurie Wagner, a psychologist from Dallas.

The association's vote follows reports that mental health specialists were
involved in prisoner abuse scandals at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq.