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SEQUENCE:18496325
CREATED:20080118T072300Z
DESCRIPTION:The Iraq Action Group at UCSF will host Retired Brigadier General Steve 
 Xenakis, leading military critic of U.S. torture policy Feb 25th from noon 
 to 1pm.\n\nMillberry Union Gymnasium\n500 Parnassus Avenue\nSan Francisco, 
 CA 94143-0234\n\n\nRetired Brigadier General Stephen Xenakis...\n\nSince 
 the June 2006 release of the Pentagon's new guidelines affirming the 
 involvement of psychologists in interrogations, Stephen Xenakis, a retired 
 brigadier general with a 28-year Army career, has been traveling across the 
 country speaking out against torture and abuse of detainees in US 
 custody.\n\nDr. Xenakis denounces the Defense Department's protocol as 
 violating the basic code of medical ethics to "first do no harm." And as a 
 physician and retired high-ranking military officer, Dr. Xenakis, 58, 
 provides a credible and valuable insider's voice on this issue.\n\nWhen the 
 American Medical Association publicly came out against the Pentagon 
 guidelines by prohibiting its members from being involved in 
 interrogations, Dr. Xenakis began working with PHR to lobby the American 
 Psychological Association to also issue a formal opposition to the 
 guidelines. When the APA fell short of explicitly prohibiting its members 
 from designing, implementing, or assisting in interrogations, Dr. Xenakis 
 spoke out on behalf of military and civilian personnel caught in command 
 structures and operational settings that demand their participation in 
 abusive interrogation techniques. "Standards without rules do nothing to 
 stop abusive and illegal tactics ongoing as part of US counterterrorism 
 operations," said Dr. Xenakis.\n\nDr. Xenakis is also working with PHR to 
 pressure Congress to enforce the McCain Amendment of the Detainee Treatment 
 Act, prohibiting the cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners. This effort 
 affirms the recent Supreme Court ruling protecting the rights of detainees 
 and concessions by the White House and Defense Department that terror 
 suspects in military custody have legal rights under the Geneva 
 Conventions.  The Defense Department later released a revised army field 
 manual that is strongly grounded in the Geneva conventions and the McCain 
 amendment.\n\n"Medical personnel have a duty to serve as a check to the 
 line command and investigators, and as a constant reminder that all 
 soldiers - even the enemy captured in combat - should be treated with 
 dignity and humanely," says Dr. Xenakis, who currently serves as director 
 of child adolescent psychiatry at the Psychiatric Institute of 
 Washington.\n\nHe has spoken out repeatedly about the extensive evidence 
 (including PHR's recent publication Break Them Down) that tracks how 
 psychological torture by US personnel - including sensory deprivation, 
 sexual humiliation, and forced nudity - were not isolated to Abu Ghraib but 
 also systematic and central to the interrogation process of detainees in 
 Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.\n\nDr. Xenakis says his human rights 
 work is guided by a simple principle: "Do what's good and do what's right. 
 Be honorable."\n"In an organization like the military, it always works 
 better when there is, at all levels, the same kinds of principled thinking 
 and clear understanding of guidelines and ethics. It's the same in medicine 
 as it is in the military. Both are professions that are out there to serve 
 and do right by people."\n\n"The most gratifying aspect of working with PHR 
 has been the opportunity to get to know a group of professionals who show 
 uncommon human decency in their daily work and live by the high principles 
 they advocate," says Xenakis.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/17/18473201.php
SUMMARY:Ret. Brigadier General Stephen Xenakis Speaks Out about Torture
LOCATION:UCSF Campus\n\nMillberry Union Gymnasium\n500 Parnassus Avenue\nSan 
 Francisco, CA 94143-0234
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/17/18473201.php
DTSTART:20080225T200000Z
DTEND:20080225T210000Z
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