Nathaniel Raymond

Last updated
Nathaniel Raymond
Nathaniel Raymond 2013.jpg
Born (1977-11-11) November 11, 1977 (age 46)
Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican
EducationDrew University, B.A in Religious Studies (1999)
Occupation(s)human rights investigator, anti-torture advocate

Nathaniel Raymond (born November 11, 1977) is an American human rights investigator, specializing in the investigation of war crimes, [1] including mass killings and torture. [2] Raymond directed the anti-torture campaign at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), and the utilization of satellite surveillance by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). Raymond advocates the use of intelligence by human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations.

Contents

Anti-torture campaign

"This is arguably the single greatest medical-ethics scandal in American history."
— Raymond, regarding the complicity of healthcare professionals with torturing prisoners. [3]

Raymond led Physicians for Human Rights' investigation into torture by the United States government and other governments as part of the War on Terror. He oversaw an inquiry into Dasht-i-Leili massacre in northern Afghanistan, which included the discovery of a mass grave site in 2002. [4] [5] In 2008, the United States Defense Department and State Department released documentation in response to Freedom of Information Act requests by Raymond indicating that 1500-2000 people were killed at Dasht-i-Leili. [4] [6]

He directed an investigation into the role of psychologists during torture sessions, and has alleged that the American Psychological Association (APA) changed its ethics policy specifically to allow psychologists to be present during investigations when torture is used. Raymond criticized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and United States Department of Defense for performing torture and human experimentation on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and at black sites. [7] [8] He stated that those acts were in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Convention against Torture, the Nuremberg Code, and the War Crimes Act of 1996, and has advocated the prosecution of CIA agents and military personnel who engaged in torture. [9] [10]

Raymond has recommended that Congress modify the War Crimes Act to strengthen its prohibition against human experimentation, and that state governments specifically prohibit health care professionals from participating in torture or the improper treatment of prisoners. [7] [11] The documentaries Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death and Doctors of the Dark Side were based in part on Raymond's work. [12] [13]

Satellite surveillance

Raymond in 2013 at a PopTech event Nathaniel Raymond.jpg
Raymond in 2013 at a PopTech event

Raymond was the director of operations for the Satellite Sentinel Project, a program sponsored by George Clooney, and coordinated through the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, which utilized satellite imagery and other information to produce reports on the security situation in the Sudan. [14] [15] In 2011, the Satellite Sentinel Project detected images of freshly-dug mass grave sites in the Southern Kordofan state of Sudan, where Sudan's Arab military had been targeting the black ethnic minority. [16] [17] Raymond stated that the Sudanese military violated the Geneva Conventions during their capture of the town of Abyei. [18]

Raymond founded and currently directs Harvard's Signal Program, which conducts research and teaching on the use of technology to document and prevent human rights violations. [19] Raymond has advocated the use of human intelligence and satellite surveillance to investigate and prevent human rights abuses, but has also expressed concerns about the misapplication or abuse of that data. [20] [21] The Signal Program is developing guidelines for how human rights workers should interpret satellite data. [19] Raymond has also stated that an ethics code should be created for the use of crisis mapping. [21] [22] For his work with satellite surveillance, Raymond was named a PopTech Social Innovation Fellow in 2013. [23]

Animal rights

Raymond has been a lifelong advocate for the rights of household pets, specifically their right not to be strapped to the tops of moving vehicles. [24] His writing on Seamus attracted attention in the Wikipedia community due to accusations of political bias against Mitt Romney.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dasht-i-Leili massacre</span> Massacre in Afghanistan

The Dasht-i-Leili massacre occurred in December 2001 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan when 250 to 2,000 Taliban prisoners were shot and/or suffocated to death in metal shipping containers while being transferred by Junbish-i Milli soldiers under the supervision of forces loyal to General Rashid Dostum from Kunduz to Sheberghan prison in Afghanistan. The site of the graves is believed to be in the Dasht-e Leili desert just west of Sheberghan, in the Jowzjan Province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extraordinary rendition</span> State-sponsored abduction and transfer to a third country

Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored kidnapping in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpose of circumventing the source country's laws on interrogation, detention, extradition and/or torture. Extraordinary rendition is a type of extraterritorial abduction, but not all extraterritorial abductions include transfer to a third country.

Sheberghān or Shaburghān, also spelled Shebirghan and Shibarghan, is the capital city of the Jowzjan Province in northern Afghanistan.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New York City, with offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., as well as Nairobi. It was established in 1986 to use the unique skills and credibility of health professionals to advocate for persecuted health workers, prevent torture, document mass atrocities, and hold those who violate human rights accountable.

<i>Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death</i> 2002 film

Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death is a 2002 documentary by Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran and Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi. It documents alleged war crimes committed by the Junbish-i Milli faction of the Afghan Northern Alliance under General Abdul Rashid Dostum against Taliban fighters. The Taliban fighters, who had surrendered to Dostum's troops after the November 2001 siege of Kunduz, were transported to Sheberghan prison in sealed containers. Human rights groups estimate that hundreds or thousands of them died during and after transit. Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death presents testimony from interviewees stating that American military personnel were present at and complicit in some of the mass killings, known as the Dasht-i-Leili massacre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human rights in Libya</span>

Human rights in Libya is the record of human rights upheld and violated in various stages of Libya's history. The Kingdom of Libya, from 1951 to 1969, was heavily influenced and educated by the British and Y.R.K companies. Under the King, Libya had a constitution. The kingdom, however, was marked by a feudal regime, where Libya had a low literacy rate of 10%, a low life expectancy of 57 years, and 40% of the population lived in shanties, tents, or caves. Illiteracy and homelessness were chronic problems during this era, when iron shacks dotted many urban centres on the country.

"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Bagram, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Bucharest—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating, binding in contorted stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep disruption, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, deprivation of food, drink, and medical care for wounds, as well as waterboarding, walling, sexual humiliation, rape, sexual assault, subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold, and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures, to which he himself was subjected, were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration", "rectal fluid resuscitation", and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees, there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children, and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War on terror</span> Military campaign following 9/11 attacks

The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is a global military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks and is the most recent global conflict spanning multiple wars. The main targets of the campaign are militant Islamist movements like Al-Qaeda, Taliban and their allies. Other major targets included the Ba'athist regime in Iraq, which was deposed in an invasion in 2003, and various militant factions that fought during the ensuing insurgency. After its territorial expansion in 2014, the Islamic State militia has also emerged as a key adversary of the United States.

Sudan has a conflict in the Darfur area of western Sudan. The Khartoum government had, in the past, given sanctuary to trans-national Islamic terrorists, but, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, ousted al-Qaeda and cooperated with the US against such groups while simultaneously involving itself in human rights abuses in Darfur. There are also transborder issues between Chad and Darfur, and, to a lesser extent, with the Central African Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Prendergast (activist)</span> American human rights and anti-corruption activist

John Prendergast is an American human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as an author. He is the co-founder of the Sentry, an organization concerned with war crimes. Prendergast was the founding director of the Enough Project and was formerly director for African affairs at the National Security Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Satellite Sentinel Project</span> Nonprofit organization

The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) was conceived by George Clooney and Enough Project co-founder John Prendergast during their October 2010 visit to South Sudan. Through the use of satellite imagery, SSP provides an early warning system to deter mass atrocities in a given situation by focusing world attention and generating rapid responses to human rights and human security concerns taking place in that situation.

Vincent Iacopino is an American doctor, who has specialized in the after-effects of torture. He is the author or co-author of several books on torture, or that address topics related to torture. He came up with the idea of the Istanbul Protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Emmerson</span> British lawyer

Michael Benedict Emmerson CBE KC is a British barrister, specialising in public international law, human rights and humanitarian law, and international criminal law. From 2011 to 2017, he was the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism. Emmerson is currently an Appeals Chamber Judge of the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals sitting on the Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He has previously served as Special Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and Special Adviser to the Appeals Chamber of the ECCC.

The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict was a United Nations fact-finding mission established by a resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on 23 July 2014 to investigate "all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law … in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014" in the Palestinian territories, particularly the Gaza Strip, during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.

Dasht-e Leili is a desert in the Jowzjan Province of Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nadia Murad</span> Yazidi human rights activist from Iraq and winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize

Nadia Murad Basee Taha is a Yazidi human rights activist who lives in Germany. In 2014, she was kidnapped from her hometown Kocho and held by the Islamic State for three months.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Leaning</span> American health scholar

Jennifer Leaning is an American health scholar currently the François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and former Editor-in-Chief of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War's Medicine & Global Survival. She is also Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darfur genocide</span> 2003–present violence against Darfuris in Sudan

The Darfur genocide is the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the ongoing conflict in western Sudan. It has become known as the first genocide of the 21st century. The genocide, which is being carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, has led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. An estimated 200,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005.

War crimes in Afghanistan covers the period of conflict from 1979 to the present. Starting with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, 40 years of civil war in various forms has wracked Afghanistan. War crimes have been committed by all sides.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry in Ukraine is a United Nations commission of inquiry established by the United Nations Human Rights Council on 4 March 2022 with a mandate to investigate violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Commission delivered its reports on 18 October 2022 and 16 March 2023.

References

  1. ↑ Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Archived 2015-03-12 at the Wayback Machine (2014). Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  2. ↑ Physicians for Human Rights. "Nathaniel Raymond" (2010). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  3. ↑ Mayer, Jane. "Can Leon Panetta move the C.I.A. forward without confronting its past?" in The New Yorker (22 June 2009). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  4. 1 2 Risen, James. "U.S. Inaction Seen After Taliban P.O.W.’s Died" in The New York Times (10 July 2009). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  5. ↑ Smith, James F. "NY Times probe cites PHR's Afghan work" in The Boston Globe (10 July 2009). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  6. ↑ "A Mass Grave In Afghanistan Raises Questions" on National Public Radio (23 July 2009). Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  7. 1 2 Raymond, Nathaniel and Scott Allen (M.D.). Physicians for Human Rights. Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the Enhanced Interrogation Program. (Cambridge, MA: 2012).
  8. ↑ Wadman, Meredith. "Medics performed interrogation research" in Nature (7 June 2010). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  9. ↑ Lewis, Tara A. "Did CIA Doctors Experiment on Terror Suspects?" in Newsweek (24 June 2010). Retrieved 12 July 2013.
  10. ↑ Jakes, Lara. "White House: No grounds to probe Afghan war crimes" in The Associated Press (10 July 2009). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  11. ↑ Gamage, Daya. "U.S. cited for War Crimes: used terrorism suspects as human guinea pigs" in The Asian Tribune (11 June 2010). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  12. ↑ Lasseter, Tom. "As possible Afghan war-crimes evidence removed, U.S. silent" in McClatchy Newspapers (11 December 2008). Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  13. ↑ Corey, Joe. "DVD Review: Doctors of the Dark Side" in Inside Pulse (27 June 2013). Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  14. ↑ Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. "Nathaniel A. Raymond" (archived website) (2010). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  15. ↑ Meldrum, Andrew. "Clooney launches project to monitor Sudan" in GlobalPost (2 January 2011). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  16. ↑ Chappell, Bill. "South Sudan Joins U.N.; Mass Graves Reported In Nearby Sudan" on National Public Radio (14 July 2011). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  17. ↑ Harris, Paul. "George Clooney's satellite spies reveal secrets of Sudan's bloody army" in The Guardian (24 March 2012). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  18. ↑ Fick, Maggie. "Satellite photos show Sudanese war crimes, watchdog claims" in The Christian Science Monitor (31 May 2011). Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  19. 1 2 Davies, Benjamin. "HHI Concludes Satellite Sentinel Project Pilot, Launches Signal Program" Archived 2013-09-21 at the Wayback Machine by The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (press release) (18 July 2012). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  20. ↑ Harlow, Frances. Crisis Spotting (Drone Humanitarianism II). Media Berkman, 9 November 2012. Radio podcast.
  21. 1 2 Raymond, Nathaniel, Caitlin Howarth & Jonathan Hutson "Crisis Mapping Needs an Ethical Compass" in Global Brief (6 February 2012). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  22. ↑ Tovrov, Daniel. "George Clooney And The New Ethics Of Satellite Surveillance" in The International Business Times (16 March 2012). Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  23. ↑ PopTech. "Nathaniel Raymond" Archived 2013-09-21 at the Wayback Machine (19 September 2013). Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  24. ↑ "Mitt Romney dog incident".
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