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Alumna Grapples with the Depths of Human Cruelty
Farnoosh Hashemian was in the room as one former detainee after another described the abuse inflicted upon them by U.S. personnel during their detention in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The men, who were all eventually released without ever being charged, recounted stories of intimidation and humiliation, and in some cases the most degrading forms of sexual abuse. Hashemian, a 2005 graduate of the Yale School of Public Health and a human rights investigator for the Cambridge, Mass.–based Physicians for Humans Rights (PHR), used the rigorous, in–depth clinical evaluations as the core of a 130–page report that the organization released this summer. The report provides evidence of officially sanctioned or unsanctioned abuse and accuses the United States of committing war crimes for deliberately torturing detainees in its custody. The PHR report has since received widespread attention in the media, in Congress, and among policy–makers in U.S. Department of Defense and has humanized the national debate on detainee interrogation and treatment policies, and for that Hashemian, the report’s lead author, is pleased. The experience of compiling the report, meanwhile, has left the 30–year–old alumna struggling to understand the darker side of human nature and has reinforced her commitment to prevent it from happening again. “It was very intense work. You listen while a middle–aged man sobs uncontrollably describing the brutality that became normalized in Abu Ghraib. Others tell you that to this day they suffer from the pain and the shame of sexual humiliations. Their families have been broken and their lives have been shattered,” said Hashemian. “You stare at this abyss of unimaginable human cruelty, you witness their agony, immerse yourself in their suffering, and their harrowing stories haunt you at night. We were asking people to go back to dark times. It is really, really hard to hear these stories, but it is grueling to have lived them.”
The report, Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact, provides a detailed and graphic account of how 11 former detainees of the United States (seven of whom were held in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison; the other four were arrested in Afghanistan and eventually ended up at Guantánamo Bay) were treated before they were summarily released without being charged. Each former detainee underwent a two–day clinical interview that included diagnostic testing and in two cases a review of medical records. While the report cites testimony from 11 men, PHR contends that extensive congressional and human rights investigations demonstrate that the number of people mistreated is almost certainly much higher and that the abuse of detainees had been approved at the highest levels of government. In addition to the conduct of military personnel, the report also documents the participation of medical professionals in the interrogations and their failure to stop the abuse or to provide medical assistance to the detainees. Medical personnel have a professional obligation to stop mistreatment and/or report such abuse, she said. Since the report’s release, Hashemian and colleagues have met with staff members of various U.S. senators and are working with policy makers to formulate recommendations for the next administration. In addition to new legislation that would prevent such abuses in the future, PHR also calls for anyone involved in detainee abuse to be held accountable and for reparations to be paid to the victims. Prior to joining PHR, Hashemian was a researcher at Yale, conducting epidemiological studies in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas and writing policy papers on the global governance of health. For her thesis, Hashemian, who grew up during the Iran–Iraq war, traveled to the Middle East and interviewed Kurdish survivors of the war and the poison gas attacks. Through this experience, Hashemian gained an appreciation for using the tools of public health to document and expose serious human rights violations. Hashemian is now planning to take a few months off and travel to Syria to study Arabic. After that she wants to attend law school in order to become a more effective advocate for otherwise powerless individuals who are caught up in large–scale conflicts. ~ Story by Michael Greenwood |
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