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| Founded | 1986 |
|---|---|
| Type | Nonprofit |
| Focus | Human rights |
| Location | |
Key people | Saman Zia-Zarifi (Executive Director) |
| Website | phr |
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is aUS-basednot-for-profithuman rightsNGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New York City,[1][2] with offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., as well as Nairobi.[2] It was established in 1986 to use the unique skills and credibility of health professionals to advocate for persecuted health workers, prevent torture, document mass atrocities, and hold those who violate human rights accountable.
In 1981,Jonathan Fine, aprimary care physician in Boston, was asked to fly to Chile on short notice and lead a delegation seeking the release of three prominent physicians by GeneralAugusto Pinochet's regime.[3] The three Chilean doctors were released five weeks after Fine's visit.[4]
In 1986, recognizing the impact physicians could have in the human rights field, Fine co-founded Physicians for Human Rights with Jane Green Schaller, Robert Lawrence,Jack Geiger, andCarola Eisenberg.[5]
Since the organization's founding, PHR teams have exposed the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Iraq, exhumed mass graves in Bosnia and Rwanda for international tribunals, and provided evidence for criminal investigations into torture and extrajudicial executions in countries such as Colombia, Honduras, Libya, Mexico, Peru, and Sierra Leone.[6] In 1997, the organization shared theNobel Peace Prize for medically documenting landmine injuries and serving as a leader in theInternational Campaign to Ban Landmines.[7]
PHR has also been at the forefront in developing standards for human rights abuse documentation: staff memberVincent Iacopino played a lead role in developing theIstanbul Protocol, the recognized international standard for documenting torture and ill treatment.[8] Likewise, the Director of the International Forensics Program was involved in the revision process of theMinnesota Protocol, the international guidance on the investigation of potentially unlawful death.[9] Governments,United Nations agencies, international and national courts, and other human rights organizations have all sought PHR's forensic and research expertise. The organization's work has contributed to landmark decisions such as the 2016conviction of Radovan Karadžić.[citation needed]
Health professionals in PHR's International Forensics Program (IFP) useforensic investigations such as autopsies and medical and psychological evaluations, to determine the nature of abuse that victims have endured. These evaluations can then contribute to evidence for prosecutions or be used to bring attention to crimes. The IFP has performed forensic investigations for bodies such as theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and theInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.[citation needed]
Experts in the IFP range fromforensic pathologists toforensic anthropologists, as well as analytical scientists such as firearm examiners. They perform forensic investigations, evaluations, monitoring, or review of other parties' forensic work.[10]
PHR launched the Forensic Training Institute (FTI) to strengthen local capacities for forensic investigations and documentation. The institute seeks to strengthen the ability of medical personnel to document torture, mass atrocities, sexual violence, and the persecution of health care workers. It also trains legal and law enforcement professionals who seek redress via local, national, and international justice mechanisms.[11]
PHR's FTI program has partners inAfghanistan,Burma, theDemocratic Republic of the Congo,Kenya,Kyrgyzstan,Syria,Tajikistan, and theUnited States. The program has specifically helped clinicians strengthen their interviewing techniques, physical examinations, evidence collection, crime scene documentation, forensic photography, and grave exhumation.
PHR's Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones was launched in 2011. The program strengthens cross-sectoral responses to sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya through training workshops for health care, law enforcement, and legal professionals.[12] While PHR itself has engaged in many forensic investigations and advocacy efforts around rape in armed conflict, the Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones builds local capacities for the collection of court-admissible evidence to support prosecutions for sexual violence crimes.
The program has an office at renowned gynecological surgeonDenis Mukwege'sPanzi Hospital, inBukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo.[13] The Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones partners with Panzi Hospital to train and mentor health workers, police officers, lawyers, and judges in effective documentation and prosecution of sexual violence.
To aid the documentation of sexual violence, PHR has developed MediCapt, an app allowing the secure digital recording and transmission of medical evidence.[14]
PHR's Asylum Program advocates for improved conditions in U.S. immigration detention centers and documents abuses suffered byasylum seekers in their home countries and in U.S. care. The network consists of hundreds of volunteer health professionals who provide medical evaluations to survivors of human rights violations, strengthening their applications forasylum in the United States.[15]
PHR's documentation of abuses has involved investigations into the use ofsolitary confinement inimmigration detention facilities,indefinite detention, and violations of theright to health in detention.[16]
In 2010, PHR partnered with Weill Cornell Medicine to create theWeill Cornell Center for Human Rights (WCCHR), a medical student-run human rights clinic that assists survivors of torture seeking asylum in the United States.[17][18]
PHR's U.S. Anti-Torture Program (ATP) was launched in 2003, afterreports of torture by U.S. military personnel were first exposed. PHR published a series of investigative reports documenting the U.S. government's use of torture in pursuit of national security goals. "Break Them Down", published in 2005, found evidence of the systematic psychological torture employed by the military. Additional reports documented the severe physical and mental harm inflicted by interrogation practices and human experimentation inGuantanamo Bay.[19]
The research and investigations department at PHR documents human rights abuses around the world. Their areas of research include attacks on health care and health personnel, mass atrocities, torture, and sexual violence across the globe. Notable investigations include:
1988 — PHR researchers uncover evidence of the Iraqi government using chemical weapons on theirKurdish citizens.[20]
1996 — PHR teams exhumes mass graves in theBalkans. They provided evidence ofethnic cleansing to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).[21] This work contributed to the ICTY's conviction ofRadovan Karadžić of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.
1996 — PHR sends a team to exhume mass graves inRwanda and eventually provides forensic evidence to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.[22]
2004 — PHR researchers investigate mass killings inDarfur.[23] The organization is the first to call the events genocide.[24]
2010 — PHR begins a successful global lobbying campaign to freeKamiar Alaei and Arash Alaei, brothers imprisoned inIran for their work on the treatment of people withHIV/AIDS.[25]
2011 — PHR researchers begin documenting assaults on Syrian health care workers and infrastructure, creating an interactive map of attacks and revealing the Syrian government's systemic targeting of hospitals and health workers.[26]
2015 — PHR issues a report on the state of health care in easternAleppo city after almost five years of the Syrian conflict, revealing that almost 95% of doctors had fled, been detained, or been killed.[27][28]
2019 — published report,My Only Crime Was That I Was a Doctor, about Assad's targeting of medical personnel and civilians in Syria.[29]
PHR's National Student Program engages medical students and young health professionals in health and human rights work by organizing local action on human rights issues, raising awareness on campuses, organizing educational events, and calling on elected officials to take action. PHR has student chapters across the United States, and collaborates with them through PHR's university-affiliated asylum clinics and national student conferences.[30]
The program has created tools and resources for student chapters covering topics such as medical professionalism, health and human rights education, and the Istanbul Protocol.
After their 1991 investigation of the health impact ofland mines in Cambodia, PHR, in collaboration withHuman Rights Watch, published the first report calling for a ban on landmines. In 1992, PHR helped form theInternational Campaign to Ban Landmines, participating in the talks that led to theOttawa Treaty.[31] For their work, PHR shared the 1997Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines."[32]
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