Those who succumb to torture can no longer feel at home in this world.

As shown by Amnesty International's annual report, human rights violations which result in serious consequences for their health have assumed epidemic proportions. By treating the survivors of torture, performing post-mortem examinations, and carrying out other professional tasks, physicians, psychologists and nurses become accessories. As such, they play a key role in terms of exposing or hushing up human rights violations. They are faced with moral dilemmas and find themselves in situations of being threatened by members of national security forces. Often, they must make the decision between either becoming accomplices of the perpetrators, or becoming victims themselves. The following article recounts the fate of persecuted health professionals; it also examines the reasons for and the scope of their complicity and perpetration by way of examples. In addition, the goals and work approach of Amnesty International's Health Professionals Network, in which over 10,000 people worldwide from all areas of health care have banded together, are discussed. The effects of torture are treatable, and being managed by competent therapists is of existential significance for survivors of organized violence. However, healing-especially of psychological damage- can virtually never be achieved. As a result, we must demand both prevention and stronger international activism on the part of professional medical associations and other health professional organizations by lending support to victims of organized violence and denouncing the participation in human rights violations by health professionals. Toward this end, the naming of human rights representatives by health professional associations is urged. * T. Lucas is a physician and press officer of the Working Group Medicine-Psychology of the German section of Amnesty International * * Ch. Pross is a physician and director of the Berlin Treatment Center for Torture Victims