<div dir="ltr">Distributed by Amal Daoud, Palestine<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">
<div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt">World Psychiatric Association: Enabling Israeli Apartheid?<br><br><br>Occupied Ramallah, 18 July 2012<br>
<br><br>The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel<br>(PACBI) is deeply disturbed by the decision of the World Psychiatric<br>Association – Transcultural Psychiatry Section (WPA-TPS) to hold its 1st<br>
International Conference on Cultural Psychiatry in Mediterranean Countries<br>in Israel in November 2012 [1]. We urge the WPA-TPS to uphold its<br>commitment to ethical standards, dignity and human rights by relocating<br>
this conference to another country that does not embody injustice through<br>maintaining a regime of occupation, colonialism and apartheid [2], as<br>Israel does. We also appeal to all members of WPA-TPS to refrain from<br>
participating in the conference if it is to be convened in Israel.<br><br>As professionals, you are acutely aware
that Israel has flouted<br>international law for several decades. Since the hegemonic world powers<br>are actively complicit in enabling and perpetuating Israel’s colonial and<br>oppressive policies, we believe that the only avenue open to achieving<br>
justice and upholding international law is sustained work on the part of<br>Palestinian and international civil society to put pressure on Israel and<br>its complicit institutions to end this oppression.<br><br>We wish to stress that conferences of this kind are being used politically<br>
as an Israeli public relations tool against the global boycott,<br>divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. A mainstream Israeli news<br>source reported recently that many international professionals are staying<br>away from Israel for its violations of international law and out of their<br>
respect for the Palestinian boycott call [3]. Your participation in and<br>organization of this conference will work
contrary to this, and be a<br>direct rejection of Palestinian civil society’s act of nonviolent<br>resistance to colonization and oppression.<br><br>More importantly, the Israeli medical establishment has consistently<br>
refused to shoulder its ethical responsibility to ensure that its<br>institutions and members do not engage in serious violations of universal<br>medical ethics, not to mention basic human rights, particularly<br>Palestinians’ rights to life and freedom from torture and ill treatment.<br>
It is in this context that we expect your association not to lend its name<br>to covering up these injustices--to do no harm, at the very least.<br><br>Many conveners of this conference are no doubt aware of the persistent<br>
calls to the Israeli medical establishment, and the Israeli Medical<br>Association in particular (of which the Israeli Psychiatric Association is<br>a member), to investigate evidence of the collusion of medical
personnel,<br>including physicians, in the ill-treatment and torture of Palestinians in<br>detention centers, prisons, and other facilities supervised by the<br>security forces.<br><br>In May 2009, 725 physicians and professors addressed an open letter to the<br>
World Medical Association (WMA) Council from 43 countries around the<br>world, coordinated by Professor Alan Meyers of Boston University and Dr.<br>Derek Summerfield of the University of London [4]. The signatories<br>protested the appointment of Dr. Yoram Blachar, the longstanding President<br>
of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), as President of the WMA, and<br>called for his removal. In the words of the signatories, “under Dr<br>Blachar's leadership the IMA made a decision on political grounds years<br>
ago to turn a blind eye to torture in Israel and the institutionalised<br>involvement of doctors.” Palestinian medical and health institutions<br>supported this initiative
and urged condemnation of the IMA. [5]<br><br>The context within which the challenge to the Israeli Medical Association<br>was made, and which continues to be ignored by the IMA, is the WMA’s<br>Declaration of Tokyo (1975) that specifies that "physicians shall not<br>
countenance, condone or participate in the practice of torture or other<br>forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading procedures, and in all situations,<br>including armed conflict and civil conflict". The WMA Annual General<br>
Assembly of 2007 made it clear that inaction was not an option, stating<br>that "this is the first time the WMA has explicitly obliged doctors to<br>document cases of torture of which they become aware. The absence of<br>
documenting and denouncing such acts might be considered as a form of<br>tolerance and of non-assistance to the victims." [6]<br><br>The authors of the letter also based themselves on a 1996 Amnesty<br>International report concluding that Israeli doctors
working with the<br>security services "formed part of a system in which detainees are<br>tortured, ill treated and humiliated in ways that place prison medical<br>practice in conflict with medical ethics." Later, Amnesty's briefing to<br>
the UN Committee against Torture in September 2008 focused on Amnesty<br>International's continuing concerns about Israel's failure to implement<br>the Convention against Torture in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and<br>
the intensification of measures amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading<br>treatment and punishment. [7]<br><br>The letter goes on to explain that a 2007 report by the Public Committee<br>Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) gives a graphic demonstration of the<br>
extent to which Israeli doctors continue to form an integral and everyday<br>part of the running of interrogation suites whose output is torture. In<br>November 2008, PCATI filed a contempt of court motion to the High Court
of<br>Justice against the government of Israel and the General Security Service<br>for their responsibility for a policy that grants a-priori permits to use<br>torture in interrogations. The IMA has never challenged torture as state<br>
policy in Israel. [8]<br><br>The letter points to a justification of the use of "moderate physical<br>pressure" (condemned as torture by the UN Committee Against Torture) by<br>the President of the IMA in the international medical journal The Lancet<br>
in 1997, concluding that “[t]his surely unprecedented action by the<br>president of a national medical association has not been disowned…. In the<br>age of evidence-based medicine his rejection of the documentary record has<br>
been unprofessional and frequently contemptuous.” [9]<br><br>Israeli human rights organizations such as B`Tselem, Physicians for Human<br>Rights-Israel and the Public Committee against Torture in Israel have also<br>warned of this collusion
[10]. Most recently, a report in 2011 by PCATI<br>and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel arrived at similar conclusions<br>[11]. It recommends, among other measures, that, “The Ministry of Health<br>and the Israel Medical Association must resolutely and unequivocally<br>
announce to the public their opposition to torture and to the<br>participation of medical personnel in torture. They must unequivocally<br>condemn cases where doctors abandoned their ethical duties, whether<br>through involvement in torture or ill-treatment or by any other means, and<br>
hold those doctors responsible for their actions.” [12]<br><br>It is important to note that the response of the medical establishment in<br>Israel to similar appeals in the past few years has been a resounding<br>silence. This is nothing but persistent complicity.<br>
<br>Convening a conference sponsored by the IMA would, therefore, constitute a<br>rejection of the appeal from over 170 civil society
organizations that<br>comprise thePalestinian BDS movement. Specifically, your conference would<br>violate the Palestinian call for boycott by contravening clause 1 of the<br>“PACBI Guidelines for the International Academic Boycott of Israel,” in<br>
which it calls for a boycott of academic events (such as conferences,<br>symposia, workshops, book and museum exhibits) convened or co-sponsored by<br>Israeli institutions:<br><br>All academic events, whether held in Israel or abroad, and convened or<br>
co-sponsored by Israeli academic institutions or their departments and<br>institutes, deserve to be boycotted on institutional grounds. These<br>boycottable activities include panels and other activities sponsored or<br>
organized by Israeli academic bodies or associations at international<br>
conferences outside Israel. Importantly, they also include the convening<br>in Israel of meetings of international bodies and associations. [[13],<br>emphasis
added]<br><br>We are not asking you at this point to endorse the boycott of Israel, but<br>simply not to cross our boycott picket line—not to undermine our struggle<br>for freedom, justice and equality.<br><br>We, therefore, call upon members of the WPA-TPS to press for the<br>
conference venue to be changed to another country. In the event that this<br>request is not met, we urge a widespread boycott of this conference. No<br>self-respecting professional body, and especially not one concerned with<br>
people’s dignity, human rights, and well being, should wish to enable a<br>regime of apartheid.<br><br>Sincerely,<br>PACBI<br><a href="http://www.pacbi.org" target="_blank">www.pacbi.org</a><br><a href="mailto:pacbi@pacbi.org" target="_blank">pacbi@pacbi.org</a><br>
<br>About PACBI and the BDS movement<br>In 2004, inspired by the triumphant cultural boycott of apartheid South<br>Africa, and supported by key Palestinian unions and cultural groups, PACBI<br>issued a call for
the academic and cultural boycott of institutions<br>involved in Israel’s occupation and apartheid [14]. The 2004 Palestinian<br>call appealed to the international academic community to, among other<br>things, “refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural<br>
cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions”<br>[15].<br><br>Following this, in 2005, an overwhelming majority in Palestinian civil<br>society called for an all-encompassing BDS campaign based on the<br>
principles of human rights, justice, freedom and equality [16]. The BDS<br>movement adopts a nonviolent, morally consistent strategy to hold Israel<br>accountable to the same human rights and international law standards as<br>
other nations. It is asking the international academic community to heed<br>the boycott call, as it did in the struggle against South African<br>apartheid, until “Israel withdraws from all the lands occupied in
1967,<br>including East Jerusalem; removes all its colonies in those lands; agrees<br>to United Nations resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinian<br>refugees rights; and dismantles its system of apartheid." [17]<br>
<br><br>[1] <a href="http://www.wpa-tps.tel-aviv2012.com/" target="_blank">http://www.wpa-tps.tel-aviv2012.com/</a><br>[2] In its most recent session in Cape Town, South Africa, the Russell<br>Tribunal on Palestine concluded that, “Israel’s rule over the Palestinian<br>
people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated<br>regime of apartheid,”<br><a href="http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/south-africa" target="_blank">http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/south-africa</a>.<br>
[3] <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4251806,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4251806,00.html</a><br>[4]
<a href="http://www.bricup.org.uk/documents/medical/BlacharWMA.pdf" target="_blank">www.bricup.org.uk/documents/medical/BlacharWMA.pdf</a><br>[5] <a href="http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=464&key=health" target="_blank">http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=464&key=health</a><br>
[6] <a href="http://www.bricup.org.uk/documents/medical/BlacharWMA.pdf" target="_blank">www.bricup.org.uk/documents/medical/BlacharWMA.pdf</a><br>[7] Ibid.<br>[8] Ibid.<br>[9] Ibid.<br>[10] B'tselem (1991). The Interrogation of Palestinians during the<br>
Intifada: Ill-treatment, "Moderate Physical Pressure" or Torture?<br><a href="http://www.btselem.org/download/199103_torture_eng.doc" target="_blank">www.btselem.org/download/199103_torture_eng.doc</a>; Physicians for Human<br>
Rights–Israel (2008). Oversight and Transparency in the Israeli Penal<br>System, July 2008. Tel Aviv, Israel<br> <a href="http://www.phr.org.il/default.asp?PageID=119&ItemID=213and" target="_blank">www.phr.org.il/default.asp?PageID=119&ItemID=213and</a> the Public Committee<br>
Against Torture in Israel (2009), Accountability Denied: The Absence of<br>Investigation and Punishment of Torture in Israel. Periodic Report<br>December, 2009.<br><a href="http://www.stoptorture.org.il/files/Accountability_Denied_Eng.pdf" target="_blank">www.stoptorture.org.il/files/Accountability_Denied_Eng.pdf</a><br>
[11] The report
concludes:<br>Our experience on this matter is unequivocal: medical professionals are<br>indeed among those working for the authorities who interact with prisoners<br>and take part in what goes on in the prison system and the interrogation<br>
rooms. Medical professionals abandon their duty by failing to document and<br>report torture; by passing on medical information to interrogators;<br>returning interrogees to the custody of their interrogators when in danger<br>
of being exposed to further torture or ill-treatment; and in extreme<br>cases, by taking an active part in the interrogation. Because of their<br>unique social status, the presence of medical professionals in facilities<br>
where torture or ill-treatment are carried out indicates the boundary<br>between the permissible and the impermissible; it grants ISA interrogators<br>a stamp of approval, whether explicit or tacit, that their conduct is<br>
acceptable. Such behavior by doctors has
far-reaching consequences for the<br>victims of torture or ill-treatment: not only do medical professionals<br>fail to serve as effective recourse for victim’s complaints of injuries<br>inflicted upon them by their interrogators or other authorities; their<br>
conduct furthermore precludes the victim from presenting evidence which<br>can aid in pursuing justice through various legal and administrative<br>proceedings.<br>(<a href="http://stoptorture.org.il/files/Doctoring%20the%20Evidence%20Abandoning%20the%20Victim_November2011.pdf" target="_blank">http://stoptorture.org.il/files/Doctoring%20the%20Evidence%20Abandoning%20the%20Victim_November2011.pdf</a>)<br>
[12] Ibid.<br>[13] <a href="http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108" target="_blank">http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108</a><br>[14] <a href="http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869" target="_blank">http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869</a><br>
[15] Ibid<br>[16] <a href="http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52" target="_blank">http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52</a><br>[17] <a href="http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=868" target="_blank">http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=868</a><br>
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