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dark-side-spotlightDocumentary examines physician involvement in detainee torture

‘Doctors of the Dark Side’ screening and panel hosted by UMass Health Professionals for Human Rights

November 1, 2012

  boyd-wesley  lubell-ellen
    
  J. Wesley Boyd  Ellen Lubell
The new documentary Doctors of the Dark Side examines the role of physicians and psychologists in torture at U.S. military prisons. The student group Health Professionals for Human Rights (HPHR) will host a screening and panel discussion of the film at UMass Medical School on Thursday, Nov. 8.

According to the producers, the documentary exposes how psychologists and physicians implemented and covered up the torture of detainees in U.S.-controlled military prisons. Director Martha Davis spent four years investigating the controversy and produced the documentary with an award-winning team.

Guest panelists will be Ellen Lubell, JD, a lawyer who represented a former Guantanamo detainee, and J. Wesley Boyd, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who teaches medical ethics in military settings.

Event organizer Amos Lichtman, SOM ’15, co-leads HPHR, which is a student branch of the national organization Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), co-winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Along with co-leaders Geoffrey Buckle and Elise Sullivan, SOM ’15, Lichtman is active in the coalition spearheaded by PHR and the Massachusetts Campaign Against Torture group (MACAT) in support of state legislation that would subject health care professionals licensed in Massachusetts to sanctions if they participated in torture of prisoners. “Advocacy for the legislative campaign is hugely helpful, and hosting a screening of this documentary seemed like the best way to provide support as a student,” Lichtman said.

Screenings of Doctors on the Dark Side are being presented nationwide with support from PHR, with local support for the UMMS event provided by MACAT. Free and open to the public, the screening will be held in the Arthur and Martha Pappas Amphitheatre (Amphitheatre I, S2-102) at 6 p.m., with dinner available at 5:30 p.m.