March 29, 2024

Guantanamo interrogators using prisoners’ medical records

Detainees sit in a holding area at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay. ).(AFP/US Navy/File/Shane T. McCoy) American military interrogators have been given access to the medical records of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Medical ethics experts have denounced this as a serious breach of medical confidentiality. According to the Washington Post, the files are still being made available to interrogators despite complaints by the International Red Cross.

The US is constantly searching for legal ways to make prisoners reveal information about terrorist organisations. Early last year the Defense Department formally authorised interrogators to use “stress and duress” techniques which are designed to weaken resistance. Medical ethics experts say that interrogators could withhold medicine or somehow torment prisoners with information from their files.