Healer of Body, Mind and Soul

The Guardian pays tribute to Duncan Forrest, NZ born surgeon and renowned anti-torture campaigner. An “outstanding and innovative paediatric surgeon,” Forrest spent his career at the vanguard of surgical developments in spina bifida, hydrocephalus and cleft palate. He was also a long-standing member of the medical arm of Amnesty International, for which he became chairman and newsletter editor upon retiring from medicine in 1987, and a volunteer clinician for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. Forrest spoke and wrote extensively against the use of torture in Syria, Egypt, the Punjab and, more recently, in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.