American Psychological Association supported CIA torture: Report

The American Psychological Association clandestinely worked with the administration of former US president George W. Bush to justify torture of possibly thousands of prisoners picked up by the CIA, according to a report.

The report, released on Thursday, has been written by a group of human rights activists and health professionals in the US, according to The New York Times.

The prestigious APA is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in not only the United States but Canada as well.

The report, according to the Times, also revealed “the APA secretly coordinated with officials from the CIA, White House and the Department of Defense to create an APA ethics policy on national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the CIA torture program.”

This is significant because the revelation shows that the APA, along with several government agencies, collaborated in convincing, not only one another, but the entire American public and the world that mistreatment of possibly innocent civilians accused of terrorism did not represent torture.

The American Psychological Association has denied the report. An APA spokeswoman said in defense after the report surfaced, that there “has never been any coordination between APA and the Bush administration on how APA responded to the controversies about the role of psychologists in the interrogations program.”

The six human rights activists and medical professionals that wrote the report about APA analyzed over 600 e-mails they maintain shows exactly how the association covered up the and warranted the government’s illegal torture program.

Although the interrogation program founded by George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks has been shut down in recent years, the new revelation is potentially another black mark for the US human rights record.

In 2014, the US Senate intelligence Committee, after investigating years of torture under the Bush administration, found that the program was “ineffective and abusive.”

The report is a declassified 525-page summary of a 6,000-page Senate document that has yet to be disclosed.

President Barack Obama ended the torture techniques including weatherboarding in 2009 shortly after becoming president, but he has failed to close the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison even though he promised to do so during his campaign.

Torture, according to many experts in the US, is still occurring in some places, through actions like the force feeding of inmates in Guantanamo Bay.

Many prisoners under the CIA’s torture methods suffered from insomnia, hallucinations, and paranoia. Some of them tried to mutilate themselves.

Top UN officials have repeatedly said all American officials who were involved in torture must be prosecuted for violating the UN Convention Against Torture that was ratified by the United Nations in 1994.

HDS/HRJ

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk