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Abstract
Rights groups say that few cases have been recorded over the past decade or so, although they do not track the practice in the same way that they do for capital punishment, for example. “Doctors are expected to refuse to take part in torture and to oppose and denounce it, but this can put their lives in danger.” Since 1979, Iranian courts have issued at least 356 sentences of amputation and implemented 192, but the real numbers are probably higher, Roya Boroumand, Executive Director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, a US-based group, told The Lancet. “Capital punishment is on the rise in Saudi Arabia as are other forms of repression in the Gulf that don't get so much attention, such as solitary confinement, which is also torture”, she said.