Showing papers on "Torture published in 1992"

Torture and its consequences: Current treatment approaches.

Abstract: Introduction M. Basoglu Part I. Torture and its Consequences: 1. The prevention of torture and the clinical care of survivors: a field in need of a new science R. Mollica 2. The physical sequelae of torture G. Skylv 3. Psychosocial consequences of torture: current knowledge and evidence F. Somnier, P. Vesti, M. Kastrup and I. K. Genefke 4. Psychological effects of torture: an empirical study of tortured and non-tortured non-political prisoners M. Paker, O. Paker and S. Yuksel 5. Psychosocial consequences for tortured refugees seeking asylum and refugee status in Europe R. Baker 6. Long-term effects of torture in former prisoners of war T. W. Miller 7. The Holocaust: survivors and their children N. Solkoff Part II. Theory: 8. Psychobiological consequences of severe trauma J. A. Saporta and B. A. Van der Kolk 9. The role of uncontrollable and unpredictable stress in post-traumatic stress responses in torture survivors M. Basoglu and S. Mineka Part III. Assessment, Diagnosis, and Classification: 10. Psychopathology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): boundaries of the syndrome R. McNally 11. Overview: the assessment and diagnosis of torture events and symptoms R. Mollica and Y. Caspi-Yavin Part IV. Rehabilitation Programmes for Torture Survivors: 12. Organization of care and rehabilitation services for victims of torture and other forms of organized violence: a review of current issues L. H. M. van Willigen 13. Multidisciplinary approach in the treatment of torture survivors S. Bojholm and P. Vesti 14. Sexual torture and the treatment of its consequences I. Lunde and J. Ortmann Part V. Psychotherapy: 15. Psychodynamic approaches in the treatment of torture survivors E. Bustos 16. Psychotherapy for torture survivors P. Vesti and M. Kastrup 17. Current trends in the treatment of post-traumatic stress symptoms T. M. Keane, A. M. Albano and D. D. Blake 18. Behavioural and cognitive approach in the treatment of torture-related psychological problems M. Basoglu Part VI. Torture in Particular Countries: Experience with Survivors of Torture in their Home country: 19. Torture in Argentina D. Kordon, L. Edelman, D. Lagos, E. Nicoletti, D. Kersner and M. Groshaus 20. Torture and the helping professions in South Africa T. Dowdall 21. Torture in Pakistan M. Mehdi 22. Rehabilitation of survivors of torture and political violence under a continuing stress situation: the Philippine experience A. A. Parong, E. Protacio-Marcelino, S. Estrado-Claudio, J. Pagaduan-Lopez and M. V. Cabildo Part VII. Modern Ethics and International Law: 23. Modern ethics and international law B. Sorensen.

Vigilantism and the State in Modern Latin America: Essays on Extralegal Violence

Abstract: Preface Introduction: Vigilantism and the State: A Look South and North Mob Lynching, Popular Violence, and Justiceiros Lynchings--Life by a Thread: Street Justice in Brazil Popular Responses and Urban Violence: Lynching in Brazil Police, People, and Preemption in Argentina Authoritarian Society: Breeding Ground for Justiceiros Paramilitary and Parapolice Death Squads Guatemala: The Recourse of Fear All the Minister's Men: Paramilitary Activity in Peru Institutional Crisis, Parainstitutionality, and Regime Flexibility in Colombia: The Place of Narcotraffic and Counterinsurgency The Discourse about Violence How Not to Think about Torture: Violence, Theory, and the Problems of Explanation Legislation and National Security in Latin America Extralegal Police Violence "Extraordinary" Police Operations in Venezuela Police and Political Crisis: The Case of the Military Police Police Deadly Force as Social Control: Jamaica, Brazil, and Argentina U.S.-Supported State Terror: A History of Police Training in Latin America Select Bibliography Index

From coercion to deception: the changing nature of police interrogation in America

Abstract: Our police, with no legal sanction whatever, employ duress, threat, bullying, a vast amount of moderate physical abuse and a certain degree of outright torture; and their inquisitions customarily begin with the demand: “If you know what's good for you, you'll confess. (Ernest Jerome Hopkins, 1931)1

Working with refugee survivors of torture.

Abstract: Numerous factors must be taken into account to best provide for the health and well-being of refugee patients in developed countries. One issue that is rarely considered is the awful and not uncommon occurrence of political torture. Large numbers of refugees and other displaced persons are survivors of political torture, and health care professionals must be prepared for this possibility when treating refugee patients. The effects of torture are pervasive, and we provide some practical considerations for health professionals who care for survivors of torture. Specific challenges include problems relating to exile and resettlement, somatic symptoms and pain, and the "medicalization" of torture sequelae. Language: en

Counselling and therapy with refugees: Psychological problems of victims of war, torture and repression.

Abstract: Part 1 Refugees and their problems: the experiences of refugees traumatization and uprooting - five theoretical approaches diagnostic appraisal. Part 2 The use of psychotherapeutic techniques: providing assistance to refugees - overcoming cultural differences treatment goals and the therapeutic relationship treatment techniques aimed at limited goals therapeutic techniques aimed at less limited goals the use of psychotropic medication. Part 3 Special groups and special problems: the risk of suicide among refugees seeking asylum the children of refugees adolescents and young adults victims of sexual violence the consequences of working with refugees for the helping professional.

Cultural influences in psychotherapy with refugee survivors of torture and trauma.

Abstract: A selective review of the literature describing treatment of refugee survivors of torture and trauma revealed that approaches to psychotherapy used in treating South American patients differed from those used in treating Indochinese patients. South American patients were receptive to psychodynamic psychotherapeutic approaches that focused on detailed recollection of past trauma. Indochinese patients responded to a broader-based rehabilitation approach that could include psychotropic medication, supportive psychotherapy, and assistance in meeting practical needs. The authors suggest that many of the differences in treatment of the two groups may be attributed to cultural factors, with South American patients reflecting an affinity for the Western philosophical assumptions in which psychodynamic therapy is rooted and Indochinese patients reflecting a cultural background that values responsibility to the group, deference to authority, and restrained modes of emotional expression. Language: en

Intersections of Western biomedical ethics and world culture: problematic and possibility.

Abstract: ... What emerges from the intersection of systems of medical ethics across cultural lines is a recognition of the need for and the possibility of some form of metacultural ethic that can ameliorate cultural relativism. In medical ethics, all ethical positions are not of equal moral status -- regardless of how tightly bound they may be to a particular culture; for example, consider the nearly universal approbation for cooperative efforts of physicians who oppose the use of nuclear weapons and the condemnation of physicians who torture or experiment with prisoners of war. Even if violations of patient rights are tolerated in certain social and cultural settings, they are not tolerable in any common ethic of medicine. Growing recognition of the moral rights of patients, their special vulnerability as sick persons, and their dependency on the physician's knowledge constitute the empirical foundation of a morally defensible ethic of medicine. Those cultural systems that violate such norms cannot be given equal moral standing with systems that respect these norms, not because the cultural systems that support human and patients' rights are per se superior but because the protection of human rights is grounded in something more fundamental than culture -- the deference owed to all human beings qua human beings. This is a norm by which every culture may be judged....

The Applicability of Human Rights Conventions to Israel and to the Occupied Territories

Abstract: The recent ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Israeli Government is part of a welcome effort to ratify multilateral conventions dealing with human rights, some of which Israel had signed long ago. In addition to this Convention, the Israeli Government ratified, during the summer of 1991, the 1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1966 Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the 1984 Convention Against Torture. On the occasion of the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, this article discusses the legal implications of the ratification of human rights conventions to the Israeli legal system and to the legal systems in the occupied territories.

The ethics of deceptive interrogation

Abstract: I Introduction As David Rothman and Aryeh Neier have recently reported, "third degree" police practices--torture and severe beatings--remain commonplace in India, the world's largest democracy.[1] Police brutality during interrogation flourishes because it is widely accepted by the middle classes.[2] Although this may seem uncivilized to most Americans, it was not so long ago that American police routinely used physical violence to extract admissions from criminal suspects.[3] Since the 1960s, and especially since Miranda, police brutality during interrogation has virtually disappeared in America. Although one occasionally reads about or hears reports of physical violence during custodial questioning,[4] police observers and critics agree that the use of physical coercion during interrogation is now exceptional. This transformation occurred partly in response to the influential Wickersham report,[5] which disclosed widespread police brutality in the United States during the 1920s; partly in response to a thoughtful and well-intentioned police professionalism, as exemplified by Fred Inbau and his associates; and partly in response to changes in the law which forbade police to "coerce" confessions but allowed them to elicit admissions by deceiving suspects who have waived their right to remain silent. Thus, over the last fifty to sixty years, the methods, strategies, and consciousness of American police interrogators have been transformed: psychological persuasion and manipulation have replaced physical coercion as the most salient and defining features of contemporary police interrogation. Contemporary police interrogation is routinely deceptive.[6] As it is taught and practiced today, interrogation is shot through with deception. Police are instructed to, are authorized to--and do--trick, lie, and cajole to elicit so-called "voluntary" confessions. Police deception, however, is more subtle, complex, and morally puzzling than physical coercion. Although we share a common moral sense in the West that police torture of criminal suspects is so offensive as to be impermissible--a sentiment recently reaffirmed by the violent images of the Rodney King beating--the propriety of deception by police is not nearly so clear. The law reflects this ambiguity by being inconsistent, even confusing. Police are permitted to pose as drug dealers, but not to use deceptive tactics to gain entry without a search warrant; nor are they permitted to falsify and affidavit to obtain a search warrant. The acceptability of deception seems to vary inversely with the level of the criminal process. Cops are permitted to, and do, lie routinely during investigation of crime, especially when, working as "undercovers," they pretend to have a different identity.[7] Sometimes they may, and sometimes may not, lie when conducting custodial interrogations. Investigative and interrogatory lying are each justified on utilitarian crime control grounds. But police are never supposed to lie as witnesses in the courtroom, although they may lie for utilitarian reasons similar to those permitting deception at earlier stages.[8] In this article, we focus on the interrogatory stage of police investigation, considering (1) how and why the rather muddled legal theory authorizing deceptive interrogation developed; (2) what deceptive interrogation practices police, in fact, engage in; and--a far more difficult question--(3) whether police should ever employ trickery and deception during interrogation in a democratic society valuing fairness in its judicial processes. II The Jurisprudence of Police Interrogation The law of confessions is regulated by the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Historically, the courts have been concerned almost exclusively with the use of coercion during interrogation. Although a coerced confession has been in admissible in federal cases since the late nineteenth century, the Supreme Court did not proscribe physically coercive practices in state cases until 1936. …

Torture: psychiatric sequelae and phenomenology.

Abstract: Torture has been defined by the United Nations (declaration of December 9, 1975) as "every act by which a public functionary (or another person at his instigation) intentionally inflicts on another person serious pain or suffering, ...physical or mental, with the object of obtaining information or of punishing him...or of intimidating that person or others." In Chile, from the 1973 military coup d'Etat up to the 1988 plebiscite, torture was practiced in a systematic way, as a method of interrogation and as a means of intimidation of detainees and, indirectly, of the population at large. In the beginning, torture was applied in military station units and in police stations, in the facilities of sport fields and prisoners' camps; but above all, in clandestine detention centers and prisons belonging to the secret police (Amnesty International 1977, 1983; CODEPU 1984, 1985, 1986; Lira and Weinstein 1987; Munoz 1986; Rodriguez de Ruiz-Tagle 1978). In spite of the bloodshed of the 1973 coup d'Etat, the phenomenon of torture came as a total surprise for the detainees, who had very often voluntarily surrendered themselves to the new authorities, and who, given the civil traditions of the country, expected treatment in accordance with a society subject to the law. The military government regularly denied having undertaken the practice of torture. According to Lira and Weinstein (20), this denial of such an extreme experience or horror made it even more difficult to overcome the trauma and fostered the development of chronic psychiatric pathology.

Trent 1475: Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial

Abstract: On Easter Sunday, 1475, the dead body of a two-year-old boy named Simon was found in the cellar of a Jewish family's house in Trent, Italy. Town magistrates arrested all eighteen Jewish men and one Jewish woman living in Trent on the charge of ritual murder - the killing of a Christian child in order to use his blood in Jewish religious rites. Under judicial torture and imprisonment, the men confessed and were condemned to death; their women-folk, who had been kept under house arrest with their children, denounced the men under torture and eventually converted to Christianity. A papal hearing in Rome about possible judicial misconduct in Trent made the trial widely known and led to a wave of anti-Jewish propaganda and other accusations of ritual murder against the Jews. In this engrossing book, R. Pochia Hsia reconstructs the events of this tragic persecution, drawing principally on the Yeshiva Manuscript, a detailed trial record made by authorities in Trent to justify their execution of the Jews and to bolster the case for the canonization of "little Martyr Simon." Hsia depicts the Jewish victims (whose testimonies contain fragmentary stories of their tragic lives as well as forced confessions of kidnap, torture, and murder), the prosecuting magistrates, the hostile witnesses, and the few Christian neighbors who tried in vain to help the Jews. Setting the trial and its documents in the historical context of medieval blood libel, Hsia vividly portrays how fact and fiction can be blurred, how judicial torture can be couched in icy orderliness and impersonality, and how religious rites can be interpreted as ceremonies of barbarism.

Counselling and Therapy with Refugees and Victims of Trauma: Psychological Problems of Victims of War, Torture and Repression

Abstract: The Experiences of Refugees Traumatization and Uprooting: Theoretical Views Diagnostic Appraisal Working with Cultural Differences Treatment Goals and the Therapeutic Relationship Treatment of Crises and Symptoms Restoring Emotional Stability Victims of Sexual Violence Children and Adolescents Specific Issues in Working with Refugees References Indexes

Violence and Health: Preliminary Elements for Thought and Action:

Abstract: Violence is one of the most serious problems that society, and the public health sector in particular, has to deal with today. This article begins with a discussion of the concept of violence itself, bringing out its historical and cultural dimensions and emphasizing its essential relationship to the exercise of force in the interest of power under conditions of inequality. Violence must be seen as a process that includes its origins, the conditions that allow it to happen, its different forms of expression, and its individual and collective consequences. The violence–health relationship is seen as having different levels: violence threatens or denies not only health but the entire vital human process. The author analyzes the different forms of violence: violence that impairs health (torture, disappearances, rape, child abuse, elderly abuse) and violence that kills (suicide, homicide, war). Recent data show that the problem is on the increase and pervades everyday life. The author then examines the mechan...

Women and political torture: Work with refugee survivors in exile.

Abstract: Although women and children represent 80% of persons who flee their countries for reasons of persecution as refugees, scant attention has been given women in the literature describing severe human rights abuses, including torture. Torture is an extreme form of trauma that involves the strategic destruction of the human being. The torturer uses every aspect of the person's being. In the case of women, their own femaleness is used as a weapon. This paper focuses on special issues faced by women who are survivors of torture. The author directed the first center in the United States providing a multidisciplinary care for survivors of political torture.

Helping victims of violence in Uganda

Abstract: We report on a project to assist victims of war and violence in Uganda. The original aim of this project, set up by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, was to establish a centre for the assessment and treatment of torture victims who had suffered during previous regimes in that country. We found, however, that a specialist centre was not the most appropriate response in a country like Uganda. We argue for the need to respect local initiatives and systems of support and against the notion that there is a single model of care which is universally relevant. Following much investigation and involvement with local personnel, we have developed a programme of training and discussion for health workers, and a service to reach the many women who have suffered rape, and whose suffering has continued, largely ignored.

Blueprint for Space : Science Fiction to Science Fact

Abstract: of scientific investigation or artistic pursuit? One has only to think of Galileo's confrontation with the Church to realize how futile is the act of suppressing "bad questions." By the same token, the ludicrous experiments with photogenic masochism and sadism, as found in Mapplethorpe, and the horrors unleashed by value-free modem science, as in Bhopal and Love Canal, make one wish impossibly for an all-knowing, benign and all-powerful institution that could curb the most pernicious aspects of human inventiveness. But then, the Churchmen must have believed that they represented just such an institution when they showed Galileo the instruments of torture.

Verbal Violence in Contemporary Drama: From Handke to Shepard

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Language torture: on Peter Handke's Kaspar 3. Gagged by language: verbal domination and subjugation 4. Language as a prison: verbal debris and deprivation 5. Wrestling with language: 'head to head' 6. Conclusion Notes Index.

Psychoanalysis and state terror in Argentina

Abstract: Latin Americans live in a world that has inherited a centuries-long legacy of expropriation of its natural resources by the industrialized world and the imposition of political structures that ensure relations of domination/subordination between self-serving privileged elites and disenfranchised popular masses. Whenever these class relations are successfully challenged, and institutional and ideological control no longer suffice to contain social discontent, the elites turn to coersion--brutal military and paramilitary strategies-to reestablish the status quo. Countless examples from most Latin American countries could be given to illustrate the activities of the terrorist state, which targets a population it defines as the enemy of law and order, for kidnapping, imprisonment, torture, forced exile, and murder. The function, purpose, and strategies of the terrorist state in Latin America, as well as the nature of its deeply traumatic impact, have been analyzed by many psychoanalysts and other mental health professionals aligned with the struggle to end this contemporary holocaust. In an effort to bring into focus this important phenomenon, I examine the specific experience of the Argentine military's "Dirty War" against its own citizens and I explore the fate of psychoanalysis under state terror.

Lynching as Ritual in the American South

Abstract: Leucadia (1963:213). The victim was thrown from a cliff into the sea, where a flotilla of fishing boats waited to rescue him and convey him to a distant shore. Frazer believes that the ritual is a survival from an earlier, more barbarous age, when the criminal was cast to his death; the episode stands on the same page as the torture and burning of scapegoats in Asia Minor, and below accounts of human sacrifice in ancient Athenian festivals. In this

The Christian church in the Cold War

Abstract: Part One EASTERN EUROPE: The Beginnings of the Cold War The Russian Conquests. Reconstruction. The Morality of Tyrannicide. The Federal Republic of Germany. Christianity and the Holocaust. Pope Plus XII and Communism. The Attack upon Christianity in Eastern Europe The Secular Rites. Monks and Nuns. The State Control of the Churches. The Christian Co-operators. Violence Albania. The 'Destruction' of the Uniats. Show Trials Tiso in Slovakia. Stepinac in Yugoslavia. Mndszenty in Hungary. The effects of the Marxist Attack Acts of Aggression. Opinion Polls. Christianity and the History of the Nations. Division in the East European Churches. Orthodox Church Leaders in Eastern Europe. Catholic Church Leaders in Eastern Europe. Part Two WESTERN EUROPE: The West and Marxism The Second Vatican Council and the Cold War. Religious Liberty. The Council and Communism. The Way of Worship The Language of the liturgy. New Forms of Prayer. Charisma The Charismatics. Pilgrimages. Saints. The Ministry married Priests? The Ordination of Women. Retirement for Age. Monks and Nuns Historic Orders. Mount Athos. Other Greek Monasteries and Nunneries. Protestant Monks and Nuns. Taize. Ethics Divorce. Contraception. Abortion. Torture. Church and State in Western Europe Constitutions. Taxes. The Head of the State. Movements to Separate Church and State. Spain. Greece Germany. Switzerland. Perestroika The Election of Pope john Paul I in 1978. The Election o f Pope John Paul 11 in 1978. Gorbachev. Suggestions for Further Reading.

Part II: The treatment of torture survivors: a review of the literature.

Abstract: Various treatment modalities have been proposed for working with survivors of torture. In this article, treatment aimed at both the individual and community is discussed. The role of nurses in preserving human rights and healing the victims of human rights' violations is also outlined.

Medical Ethics and Human Rights Violations: The Iraqi Occupation of Kuwait and Its Aftermath

Abstract: Immediately after the liberation of Kuwait by a coalition of allied forces in March 1991, representatives of Physicians for Human Rights traveled to Kuwait and conducted an inquiry into human rights violations allegedly perpetrated by Iraqi forces. The inquiry focused on the abuses that were said to have occurred in health care institutions. Human rights abuses by the Iraqis in Kuwaiti hospitals were documented, but certain allegations proved to be unfounded. However, Kuwaiti abuses of those accused of collaborating with the Iraqi invaders, in particular Palestinian citizens of Kuwait, were also observed. The trip and inquiry generated questions about the scope and applicability of medical ethical principles to physicians in different cultures and in situations unlike those in which medicine is normally practiced. In light of the Kuwait experience, Physicians for Human Rights has drawn tentative conclusions about the universal nature of medical ethics.