UNEARTHING TORTURE IN UGANDA: What Role do Medical Personnel Play?
A Human Rights Watch Report published on March 29, 2004 described "Torture In Uganda" as a "State of Pain". The one recommendation that was offered to the Ugandan Medical Profession and its Relevant Associations was to "Investigate whether the conduct of physicians providing death certificates in cases of prisoners who died in the military hospital, and involved in the diagnosis and treatment of prisoners during their detention, conformed to ethical standards."
The report also indicated that "Ugandan security and military agencies routinely took suspects to unacknowledged and ungazetted (not published in the official gazette) places of detention including safe houses and army barracks." This implication contravened with the 1992 research paper published in the Journal of Medicine and War which claimed that Yoweri Museveni's regime had committed to the "restoration of human rights and had set up an office of Inspector General of Government which acted as ombudsman, and to which the public could bring complaints of human rights abuses and corruption" (Bracken, Giller, and Kabaganda, 1992).
According to the 2004 HRW report, the 2001 election campaigns marked the re-emergence of safe-houses, and other hidden detention centres which were utilized by security and military forces as enclaves for conducting concealed torture of suspects.
This Sunday, the STATE OF THE NATION's Henry Ssali engages with two medical personnel Dr. Joel Mirembe, and James William Mugeni, and a victim of persecution Dr. Stella Nyanzi in examining the role of physicians in aiding torture in Uganda.
Do physicians have an obligation to protect tortured suspects? Where do medical personnel report when they encounter evidence of torture among jailed suspects? Is it ethical for physicians to walk off the job when they are coerced to write false reports about a tortured suspects?
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