The national TV and radio program Democracy Now! featured the work of The Center for Victims of Torture during an interview with executive director Douglas A. Johnson and board member Steven Miles, M.D.
You can read a transcript of the interview with Johnson and Miles or watch it online.
Both discussed U.S. policies that allow torture and cruel treatment and the lasting harm caused by psychological torture. Miles, author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War on Terror, pointed out that when we send the message that the U.S. can chose when to follow international law and treaty commitments, we send a message to other countries that they can do the same.
Responding to a report on the repression in Burma, Miles said, "He [Burmese human rights leader] was talking about the use of dogs, close confinement in crowded cells, meal deprivation. All of these are techniques which are currently approved against the use of prisoners that we're holding....And it is very difficult for us to say to Burma, 'Don't do these techniques,' when we have set as a matter of national policy that in national emergency, given national sovereignty, that we can embark on torture."
View this special program of Democracy Now!
Source: CVT
