Torture and the UK’s ‘War on Asylum’

Medical Power and the Culture of Disbelief

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Abstract

This chapter explores medical power in the UK’s ‘war on asylum’, examining how medical expertise has been undermined in the asylum process when this expertise is utilised to add weight to asylum seekers’ claims to have experienced torture. It examines how there have been attempts to narrow the definition of torture in ways which exclude people from the protections to which torture survivors are entitled. It explores the extent to which medical power has been complicit in riding roughshod over existing safeguards to prevent further harm to those who have experienced torture, and also, crucially, how this form of power has been and continues to be challenged.


open access | peer reviewed

Submitted: Aug. 21, 2019 | Accepted: Aug. 25, 2019 | Published Dec. 6, 2019 | Language: en

Keywords Border control • Immigration detention • Torture • Asylum seekers • Medical power

Copyright © 2019 Monish Bhatia, Jon Burnett. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-358-8/007


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