Individuals expelled from the United States to Panama in February 2025 without being allowed to present asylum claims appear to have psychological and physical symptoms consistent with their reports of torture, mistreatment, and/or persecution in their countries of origin, according to new evidence from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) submitted today by the Global Strategic Litigation Council (GSLC) to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) based on summary findings from medico-legal evaluations.
This submission, prepared by PHR, forms part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Global Strategic Litigation Council and a group of lawyers at the IACHR concerning Panama’s detention and treatment of 112 migrants expelled from the United States without due process.
Four physicians and one psychologist from PHR conducted Istanbul Protocol (the United Nations-endorsed international guidelines for rigorously investigating torture and ill treatment) medico-legal evaluations with 27 people who had been expelled from the United States to Panama in February 2025. The medico-legal evaluations were conducted between March 19 and March 27, 2025. Coming from countries such as Afghanistan, Cameroon, China, Eritrea, Iran, and Russia, the individuals described a range of reasons for leaving their countries to seek asylum and why they would be harmed or in some cases, killed, were they to be forced to return.
Evaluated individuals included a women’s rights activist and a former military officer who had fought against the Taliban who were facing severe risk of harm or possibly death now in Afghanistan; people who had converted from Islam to Christianity in Iran where such conversions are punishable by imprisonment and even execution; individuals persecuted for their sexuality and threatened with imprisonment; and people who had been detained and tortured for their political activities and affiliations in their home country.
Many of the people evaluated reported experiencing torture and ill-treatment in their own countries and exhibited psychological and/or physical symptoms and in some cases, physical scars, consistent with their accounts.
Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council said: “The testimonies elicited in these evaluations by expert Physicians for Human Rights clinicians were detailed and deeply troubling. Today, we submitted this critical evidence to the Commission as part of our ongoing lawsuit against Panama. The evidence further underscores the severe risk these individuals would face if returned to their home countries. We urge the Commission to act now and issue precautionary measures to Panama to protect these individuals from further harm and ensure their safety and well-being.”
Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, medical director at PHR and professor of internal medicine and public health at the University of Michigan*,* said: “Over my career I’ve conducted hundreds of Istanbul Protocol medico-legal evaluations of people who have endured torture and ill treatment. Most of the people we evaluated in Panama showed clear symptoms of acute stress disorder or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder consistent with their accounts of torture and ill-treatment. Some also showed scars and injuries consistent with what they reported. The accounts indicate very real risks of harm upon return to their home countries. Yet not a single person we evaluated had been given the opportunity to explain to U.S. or Panamanian officials why they had left their countries of origin. They had no chance to have their credible fear of return objectively assessed. Their legal and human right to seek asylum, guaranteed under international law, U.S. law, and Panamanian law, has been completely denied.”
“These individuals urgently need medical and psychological care, as well as a safe, stable environment in which to begin healing and rebuilding their lives – not further detention or forced return to the very countries where they fled torture, ill-treatment, or other forms of persecution,” said Dr. Heisler.
The medical evaluators from PHR included Dr. Heisler as well as Dr. Treveni DeFries, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine; Dr. Jim Recht, a psychiatrist and lecturer at Harvard Medical School; Dr. Barbara Eisold, a psychologist and faculty at New York University; and Dr. Katherine Peeler, a pediatric critical care physician at Boston Children’s Hospital, Medical Advisor for Physicians for Human Rights, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
The Global Strategic Litigation Council and PHR are calling on the U.S. and Panamanian governments to halt the forced return of individuals to their countries of origin, ensure due process, and provide medical and psychological support for survivors of torture and ill treatment.
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The Global Strategic Litigation Council uses the power of people and the power of the law to drive change for displaced communities. They unite and support a global coalition of over 550 organizations, refugee leaders and lawyers to advance the rights of refugees and migrants through strategic litigation and advocacy. They lead and support high-impact legal cases at the national, regional and global level. This lawsuit was brought in collaboration with co-counsel Jesús Vélez Loor, Ali Herischi, Álvaro Botero Navarro, Ian M. Kysel (Transnational Disputes Clinic Cornell Law School) and Silvia Serna Román (Global Strategic Litigation Council).
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) uses the power of medicine, public health, science, and law to document grave human rights violations, seek justice, and advocate interventions to end violations and promote healing. PHR is recognized globally for its expertise in forensic documentation of torture and sexual violence. The organization led the collaborative exercise that established the Istanbul Protocol (IP), formally known as the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (2022 edition), which the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights endorsed in 1999 as the “gold standard” for investigating and documenting torture.” Medico-legal evaluations conducted by PHR have been admitted and relied upon by accountability bodies around the world in adjudicating human rights-related claims. PHR has mobilized thousands of clinicians in the U.S. to undertake medico-legal evaluations of individuals seeking asylum to assess claims of persecution and torture, and to document conditions in immigration detention.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.