In its place, the council had approved a resolution prohibiting psychologists from direct or indirect participation in 19 “unethical” interrogation techniques and called on the U.S. government to ban their use.
The list includes mock executions, simulated drowning or suffocation, sexual humiliation, exploitation of phobias, exposure to extreme heat or cold and isolation or sleep deprivation “that represents significant pain or suffering, or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm.”
The resolution left what Pipher sees as loopholes on such techniques as sensory and sleep deprivation, which cause people to fall apart very quickly. And it stopped far short of banning psychologists from participating in the interrogations of prisoners at the military sites, she said.
The vote upset Pipher, who has worked with victims of torture and has seen the lifelong harm it can inflict.
It is to be hoped that other prominent psychologists will join Dr. Pipher in her efforts to restore ethics and integrity to the profession of psychology, and to end the US regime of abuse and torture of detainees.
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