Nathaniel Raymond (born November 11, 1977) is an American human rights investigator, specializing in the investigation of war crimes, including mass killings and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...

. Raymond directed the anti-torture campaign at

Physicians for Human Rights 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 ...

(PHR), and the utilization of satellite surveillance by the

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) is an interfaculty Harvard University initiative dedicated to advancing research, practice, and policy in the field of humanitarian assistance. HHI's mission is "to relieve human suffering in war and disa ...

(HHI). Raymond advocates the use of

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

groups and other non-governmental organizations.

Anti-torture campaign

Raymond led Physicians for Human Rights' investigation into torture by the United States government and other governments as part of the

War on Terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...

. He oversaw an inquiry into

Dasht-i-Leili massacre 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 soldi ...

in northern

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

, which included the discovery of a mass grave site in 2002.Risen, James
"U.S. Inaction Seen After Taliban P.O.W.’s Died"
in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' (10 July 2009). Retrieved 7 July 2013.Smith, James F
"NY Times probe cites PHR's Afghan work"
in ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' (10 July 2009). Retrieved 7 July 2013. In 2008, the United States Defense Department and State Department released documentation in response to

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...

requests by Raymond indicating that 1500-2000 people were killed at Dasht-i-Leili. He directed an investigation into the role of psychologists during torture sessions, and has alleged that the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

(APA) changed its ethics policy specifically to allow psychologists to be present during investigations when torture is used. Raymond criticized the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

(CIA) and

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...

for performing torture and human experimentation on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and at

black site In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. According to the Associated Press, "Black sites are clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with ...

s.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).
/ref> He stated that those acts were in violation of the

Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conve ...

, the

United Nations Convention against Torture The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (commonly known as the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT)) is an international human rights treaty under the review of the United Nation ...

, the

Nuremberg Code The Nuremberg Code (german: Nürnberger Kodex) is a set of ethical research principles for human experimentation created by the court in '' U.S. v Brandt'', one of the Subsequent Nuremberg trials that were held after the Second World War. Tho ...

, and the

War Crimes Act of 1996 The War Crimes Act of 1996 is a law that defines a war crime to include a " grave breach of the Geneva Conventions", specifically noting that "grave breach" should have the meaning defined in any convention (related to the laws of war) to whic ...

, and has advocated the prosecution of CIA agents and military personnel who engaged in torture. Raymond has recommended that

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

modify the War Crimes Act to strengthen its prohibition against human experimentation, and that

state governments A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, ...

specifically prohibit

health care professionals A health professional, healthcare professional, or healthcare worker (sometimes abbreviated HCW) is a provider of health care treatment and advice based on formal training and experience. The field includes those who work as a nurse, physician (suc ...

from participating in torture or the improper treatment of prisoners. The

documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

'' Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death'' and '' Doctors of the Dark Side'' were based in part on Raymond's work.

Satellite surveillance

Raymond was the director of operations for the

Satellite Sentinel Project 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 t ...

, a program sponsored by George Clooney, and coordinated through the

, which utilized satellite imagery and other information to produce reports on the security situation in the Sudan.Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
"Nathaniel A. Raymond"
(archived website) (2010). Retrieved 7 July 2013. In 2011, the Satellite Sentinel Project detected images of freshly-dug

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

sites in the Southern Kordofan state of Sudan, where Sudan's Arab military had been targeting the black ethnic minority.Harris, Paul
"George Clooney's satellite spies reveal secrets of Sudan's bloody army"
in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' (24 March 2012). Retrieved 7 July 2013. Raymond stated that the Sudanese military violated the Geneva Conventions during their capture of the town of

Abyei The Abyei Area ( ar, منطقة أبيي) is an area of on the border between South Sudan and the Sudan that has been accorded "special administrative status" by the 2004 Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict (Abyei Protocol) in ...

. 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.Davies, Benjamin
"HHI Concludes Satellite Sentinel Project Pilot, Launches Signal Program"
by '' The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative'' (press release) (18 July 2012). Retrieved 7 July 2013. 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.Raymond, Nathaniel, Caitlin Howarth & Jonathan Hutso
"Crisis Mapping Needs an Ethical Compass"
in ''Global Brief'' (6 February 2012). Retrieved 7 July 2013. The Signal Program is developing guidelines for how human rights workers should interpret satellite data. Raymond has also stated that an ethics code should be created for the use of

crisis mapping Crisis mapping (also known as disaster mapping) is the real-time gathering, display and analysis of data during a crisis, usually a natural disaster or social/political conflict (violence, elections, etc.). Crisis mapping projects usually allows ...

. For his work with satellite surveillance, Raymond was named a PopTech

Social Innovation Social innovations are new social practices that aim to meet social needs in a better way than the existing solutions,Howaldt, J./ Schwarz, M"Social Innovation: Concepts, research fields and international trends" IMO international monitoring, 201 ...

Fellow in 2013.

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. His writing on

Seamus Seamus may refer to: * Séamus, a male first name of Gaelic origin Film and television * Seamus (''Family Guy''), a character on the television series ''Family Guy'' * Seamus, a pigeon in '' Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore'' * Seamus Mc ...

attracted attention in the Wikipedia community due to accusations of political bias against Mitt Romney.

References

External links

''Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death.'' Directed by Jamie Doran. Windsor, UK: Atlantic Celtic Films, 2002. TV documentary.
*Blanding, Michael

in

The Boston Globe Magazine ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

(archived website) (29 April 2012).
''Doctors of the Dark Side.'' Directed by Martha Davis. New York, NY: Shelter Island, 2011. Movie trailer.
*United States Department of Defense. " Freedom of Information Act Release to Physicians for Human Rights Regarding Dasht-i-Leili" (4 August 2008). *United States Department of State. " Freedom of Information Act Release to Physicians for Human Rights Regarding Dasht-i-Leili" (19 September 2008). {{DEFAULTSORT:Raymond, Nathaniel 1977 births Living people Drew University alumni People from Northborough, Massachusetts People from Brimfield, Massachusetts American human rights activists American Episcopalians