A man with dark grey hair and a light grey beard looks pensively at the camera.

Dr. Hernán Reyes

Senior Research Fellow

Bio

Dr. Hernán Reyes, MD, is a Senior Research Fellow with the Human Rights Center. He is former medical coordinator for Health in Prisons for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a post he occupied from 1984 – 2012. A graduate of Geneva University Medical School (Switzerland), with a doctorate in Medicine and FMH specialization in Obstetrics and Gynecology (Foederatio Medicorum Helveticorum: Swiss medical federation), he joined the ICRC in 1982 as medical doctor, specifically for health activities related to persons in custody. Dr. Reyes documented prison health as well as ill-treatment, human rights violations, and torture for the ICRC in more than 45 countries around the world during his 28 years with the institution. Dr. Reyes has taught two generations of ICRC medical staff on health in prison issues, torture and its consequences, solitary confinement and other forms of abuse, on management and mismanagement of hunger strikes, and many other related subjects. Since 1991, he has been medical Observer for the ICRC to the World Medical Association (WMA) and its Ethics Committee, working closely with the WMA on many ethical issues of concern in prisons.