Doctors and Human Rights Violation (Ann Mumo)

    
The medical profession has a long tradition of respect for human rights. However a small number of doctors and health professional have betrayed ethical norms and insisted in abuses against detainees and prisoners. AL medical groups in many countries around the world campaign for an end of medical participation in human rights violations. In countries where human rights violations are widely spread, medical personnel can have access to prisoners in circumstances where the prisoner is denied other protective contact such as with legal counsel or with family. For these reasons, doctor's role "I'm safeguarding the health and security of the prisoner" is of considerable importance. Where human rights violations are not systematic or not even a major concern, the doctors can still play a protective role. But in many countries this role of protection is negated by the failure of medical personnel to adhere to basic tenets of medical ethics.

It is not possible to determine the number of individual abuses involving doctors nor the number of doctors involved in human rights violations around the world. The definition of what constitutes medical involvements is not clear. The number of doctors consciously and deliberately engaging in torture and other cruel inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment represent a tiny proportion of profession. The number of those who are aware of abuses carried out against prisoners by police, security or prisoners officer is much more substantial. Medical involvement in torture ranges from the inflection of torture by the doctors themselves, through acting  as an adviser or medical supervisors of torture to the false certification of health or of death after torture has been afflicted. In many case's, the behaviors of the doctors encompasses more than one of these roles.

The role of doctors in torture stem from his medical expertise. The doctors appear to play the role of advisory during torture rather than inflicting torture personally. However, there is a fine line between inflicting torture and assisting others to carry it out, and doctors who are present during torture can easily slip from one role to the other. In some cases, a medical activity such as administering medication by intravenous injection may appear to the prisoner to be threatening or even a form of torture. When doctors administer substances in the absence of therapeutic need and with the intention to cause suffering they become torturous. Moreover, the vulnerability of the prisoners and the sense of betrayed which he or she experiences when confronted by a doctor who is working with torture can itself amplify the suffering.

AL have received evidence and numerous testimonies from prisoners. In Morocco, a prisoner alleged in 1986 that a medical person was involved in the torture. Doctors may be present during torture to prevent the death of the prisoner or to ensure that the prisoner leaves no mark. The torture were highly trained in methods of exacting the maximum pain without leaving any significant physical traces. AL has received reports of medical examination being genuine just prior to the appearance in court. It has also documented the use of medical certificates to falsely indicate that the prisoner has been released from custody. In some cases it is not clear whether certificates have been deliberately falsified or are incompetently prepared. Pressure is sometimes applied to medical personnel to withhold or to falsify evidence. 

The participation of doctors in such punishment has been documented. Powerful antipsychotic drugs have in the past been regularly administered to prisoners. Medical personnel have also failed to protect patients from arbitrary violence inflicted by nurse or guards. There has been a long tradition of medical attendance at executions in Europe. The presence of doctors in the execution chamber could result in their having to participate in the execution process even where the method is not at all.Some doctors have placed the interest of security forces of the prisoners. Over two thousands years after Hippocrates, it is surely that all medical practitioners must observe the dictum "Above all, do no harm". 

Notes
Primum non nocere (Classical Latin: [ˈpriːmũː noːn nɔˈkeːrɛ]) is a Latin phrase that means "first, do no harm". The phrase is sometimes recorded as primum nil nocere.

Non-maleficence, which is derived from the maxim, is one of the principal precepts of bioethics that all students in healthcare are taught in school and is a fundamental principle throughout the world. Another way to state it is that, "given an existing problem, it may be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, than to risk causing more harm than good." It reminds healthcare personnel to consider the possible harm that any intervention might do. It is invoked when debating the use of an intervention that carries an obvious risk of harm but a less certain chance of benefit.

Non-maleficence is often contrasted with its corollary, beneficence.
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