Medical campaign

Dear World Medical Association Council Chair, Dr Edward Hill and the Council

We the undersigned 725 physicians represent both academic medicine (114 professors) and
clinical practice in 43 countries. A matter of grave concern to us, and a threat to the public
reputation of the World Medical Association, has brought us together in this perhaps
unprecedented medical initiative. We wish to publicly protest and appeal against the recent
appointment of Dr Yoram Blachar, longstanding President of the Israeli Medical Association,
as President of the World Medical Association. We believe that his Presidency makes a
mockery of the principles on which the WMA was founded in 1947, which was as a response
to egregious abuses by German and Japanese doctors in World War Two.

The WMA’s own Declaration of Tokyo (1975) specifies that “physicians shall not
countenance, condone or participate in the practice of torture or other forms of cruel,
inhuman or degrading procedures, and in all situations, including armed conflict and civil
conflict”. The WMA Annual General Assembly of 2007 made it clear that inaction was not an
option, stating that “this is the first time the WMA has explicitly obliged doctors to document
cases of torture of which they become aware. The absence of documenting and denouncing
such acts might be considered as a form of tolerance and of non-assistance to the
victims”.(1) There are still more recent calls from authoritative academic sources for the
international medical community to go much further in actively allying itself with efforts to
suppress mistreatment of prisoners. (2)

Amnesty International concluded as long ago as 1996 that Israeli doctors working with the
security services “formed part of a system in which detainees are tortured, ill treated and
humiliated in ways that place prison medical practice in conflict with medical ethics”. (3) Dr
Blachar, already IMA President, took no action. Amnesty’s briefing to the UN Committee
against Torture in September 2008 “focuses on Amnesty International’s (continuing)
concerns about Israel’s failure to implement the Convention against Torture in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories and the intensification of measures amounting to cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment and punishment”.(4)

A well publicised report in 2007 by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI),
based on the detailed testimony of 9 Palestinian men tortured between 2004 and 2006, gives
a graphic demonstration of the extent to which Israeli doctors continue to form an integral
and everyday part of the running of interrogation suites whose output is torture. (5) The IMA
have conceded that they were aware of this report, but did nothing. More recently, at a
meeting on December 10 2008 in Tel Aviv, with Dr Blachar presiding only weeks after his
inauguration as WMA President, Physicians for Human Rights Israel again sought
(unsuccessfully) to get the IMA to face this report and all the other evidence in the public
domain.

In its 2008 annual report to the UN Committee Against Torture, the UAT Coalition, a coalition
of 14 Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations, concluded that “since the Committee
last reviewed Israel, the practice of torture and ill treatment has continued unabated. The
UAT Coalition wishes to inform the Committee that in its opinion the use of torture and ill
treatment by Israeli authorities against Palestinians is both widespread and systematic. The
UAT Coalition has recorded evidence of acts, omissions and complicity by agents of the State
at all levels….until this culture of impunity is addressed this situation is unlikely to improve”.(6)
In November 2008, PCATI filed a contempt of court motion to the High Court of Justice
against the government of Israel and the General Security Service for their responsibility for a
policy that grants a-priori permits to use torture in interrogations. The IMA have never
challenged torture as state policy in Israel.

Dr Blachar went as far as to justify the use in Israel of “moderate physical pressure”
(condemned as torture by the UN Committee AgainstTorture) in the fourth paragraph of a
letter published in the international medical journal The Lancet in 1997 (7, and attached pdf ).
This surely unprecedented action by the president of a national medical association has not
been disowned, and renders him unfit for the office of WMA President. In the age of evidence-

based medicine his rejection of the documentary record has been unprofessional and
frequently contemptuous. On the British Medical Journal (BMJ) website he dismissed a BMJ
paper on health and human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories- which cited
Amnesty, Johns Hopkins University, the International Court of Justice, a UN Rapporteur and
Physicians for Human Rights Israel- as “the lies and filth he spews and “reminiscent of some
of the worst forms of anti-semitism ever espoused” (8) Indeed Dr Blachar has made
statements which were untrue, and which he must have known were untrue, on at least 10
occasions in the Lancet and the BMJ in the past decade.(9) Given that these 2 international
medical journals are amongst the world’s most prestigious and influential, this is an intended
corruption of the public record.

IMA membership of WMA appears to have been a figleaf: The IMA website pays lip service
to medical ethics but Dr Blachar has overseen a studied failure to take the actions mandated
by the Declaration of Tokyo.

We conclude that under Dr Blachar’s leadership the IMA made a decision on political
grounds years ago to turn a blind eye to torture in Israel and the institutionalised involvement
of doctors. This stance continues with Dr Blachar as WMA President. On an issue that goes
to the heart of the moral authority of the profession, Dr Blachar has offered shameful ethical
leadership to doctors in Israel and worldwide.

It could scarcely be more scandalous that he now assumes the Presidency of the official
international body overseeing medical ethics. This appointment will seriously damage the
public reputation of the WMA and its work, and risks making it a laughing stock. We call upon
the WMA Council to oblige Dr Blachar to step down as a matter of priority. Since the WMA is
mandated to ensure that its member associations conform to its codes, we also request an
investigation into the IMA record highlighted above.

In view of the public importance of this issue we are copying our letter and supporting
documentation to international medical journals and mainstream newspapers for coverage.

We hope to hear from you and the WMA Council as soon as possible please.

Yours sincerely

Professor Alan Meyers ([email protected]) and 724 other physicians from: United Kingdom,
Canada, USA, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Italy, South Africa, Norway, Occupied
Palestinian Territories, Malaysia, Switzerland, Algeria, Iraq, Eire, Spain, Australia, India, New
Zealand, Germany, France, Sweden, Pakistan, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Greece,
Libya, Turkey, Bahrain, Belgium, Peru, Syria, Qatar, Nigeria, Czech Republic, France,
Zambia, Denmark, Dubai, Kuwait, Argentina.

References

  1. World Medical Association. Doctors urged to document cases of torture. Press Release 8
    Oct 2007.
    22 Miles S, Freedman A. Medical ethics and torture: revising the Declaration of Tokyo.
    Lancet 2009: 373:344-48.
    3 .Amnesty International. “Under constant medical supervision”,torture, ill-treatment and the
    health professions in Israel and the Occupied Territories. London. Amnesty International.
    MDE 15/37/96. 1996.
  2. Amnesty International. Israel/OPT. Briefing to the Committee Against Torture. MDE
    15/040/2008. 2008.
  3. Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. Ticking Bombs testimonies of torture victims in
    Israel. PCATI 2007.
  4. Defence for Children International. Palestine Section. UAT Report: Torture and illtreatment in Israel and the OPT. 2008.

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