The Press Release from our partner in struggle, Witness Against Torture:

OVER 80 ARRESTED AT U.S. SUPREME COURT

DIRECT ACTION TODAY DEMANDED SHUT-DOWN OF GUANTANAMO AND AN END TO TORTURE AND INDEFINITE DETENTION

WASHINGTON, DC – Early this afternoon, at least 80 activists organized by Witness Against Torture delivered a message to the U.S. Supreme Court demanding the shut-down of the U.S. prison at Guantánamo and justice for those detained. About 40 activists were arrested inside the Court building and another 35 on the steps. The arrests, for demonstrating without a permit, followed a solemn march from the National Mall of 400 persons that included a procession of activists dressed like the Guantánamo prisoners in orange jumpsuits and black hoods. They were part of an International Day of Action that was endorsed by a broad and unprecedented coalition of over 100 groups and that included 83 events around the world.

The International Day of Action launches a concerted campaign to Shut Down Guantánamo. For more information, please visit www.witnesstorture.org.

Inside, a member of Witness Against Torture delivered a letter to the nine Supreme Court justices regarding Al Odah v. United States and Boumediene v. Bush, the two cases brought by Guantánamo detainees that the Court is now considering. They also delivered a writ of habeas corpus for each of the 275 current detainees. Other activists attempted to unfurl a banner inside the Court building but were prevented from doing so by police, who began arresting them and shut the front doors to the building. Another group then started reading the names of the Guantánamo prisoners, but were prevented. They then sat down and started chanting, “Shut it down!” prior to being arrested.

At approximately the same time, about 25 activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods representing the men imprisoned at Guantánamo knelt on the steps of the Court building with hands before them and bowed heads, the position detainees in Guantánamo are often required to assume; others unfurled a banner on the steps. They were arrested as well. Each arrestee had entered the building without ID, and was taken into custody under the name of one of the Guantánamo prisoners.

“This group brought the names of the victims of Guantánamo right to the Supreme Court,” said Elizabeth McAlister, a member of the Jonah House community in Baltimore and the mother of one of the persons arrested inside the Court. “The Court has listened and listened to the views of the imprisoned, but has not heard them.”

Outside the Court, advocates read testimonies and names of prisoners, performed street theater, and handed out information. One performance was a simulation of waterboarding, one of the most controversial torture tactics used at Guantánamo and other U.S. detention centers.

January 11, 2008 marks six years of detention without hope of release for nearly 300 men at Guantánamo. “Lawyers are working hard to bring the cases of the prisoners into the courts,” said Susan Crane of Witness Against Torture, who was arrested in today’s action. “But lawyers can only do so much. These prisoners, who have been illegally detained, tortured, abused, and kept from their families for years, are not even able to communicate openly with their lawyers. That’s why we were here today to appeal to the Supreme Court justices to stand up now and end this abuse.”

Witness Against Torture is calling on the U.S. government to:
* Repeal the Military Commissions Act and restore Habeas Corpus;
* Charge and try or release all detainees;
* Clearly and unequivocally forbid torture and all other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, by the military, the CIA, prison guards, civilian contractors, or anyone else;
* Pay reparations to current and former detainees and their families for violations of their human rights; and
* Shut down Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and all secret CIA detention facilities.

About Witness Against Torture
Tomorrow's action is the latest by Witness Against Torture, which came into being in December 2005 when a group of 24 friends walked to Guantánamo to visit the prisoners – an action following the nonviolent tradition of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. Upon returning to the U.S., they continued the work with public education and community outreach, networking and resource sharing, and acts of nonviolent civil resistance to draw attention to the plight of prisoners in Guantánamo and victims of the war on terrorism everywhere.

*** PROFESSIONAL, HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS AVAILABLE AT RESISTANCEMEDIA.ORG, OR BY CALLING (202) 270-6665 ***

Subjects: Campaign | Grassroots | Guantanamo | Supreme Court

Photo: Survivors of torture and family members of the disappeared gather to remember

As the Congress of the United States embraces and institutionalizes the practice of torture by passing laws like the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and appointing torture apologists to run the Department of Justice, it is important to remember who voted for torture and who stood up for human rights.

We have recently finished building a database of Congress, which will track how each member voted. We are now entering each congressperson's voting record and selected quotes from each member on torture.

Soon, people will be able to visit TortureLaw.org and see if their representative has supported or opposed torture and indefinite detention. Each member of congress will be issued a torture report card for their votes. Tragically, we predict a lot of failing grades.

Subjects: Campaign | Congress | Immunity | TASSC International | TortureLaw.org

Today, TASSC International sent the following statement of support to Rep. Nadler's office endorsing the American Anti-Torture Act, HR 4114. Rep. Nadler has been unwavering in his opposition to the Military Commissions Act and the survivors at TASSC International thank him for his work to end torture in our world.

November 9^th, 2007

The Torture Abolition and Survivor Support Coalition International (TASSC), an organization of torture survivors working for the abolition of torture wherever it is practiced, welcomes efforts to expand the McCain Amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

Over the last seven years, those of us who know torture all too well have been sickened as the President of the United States has abused the law in such a way that blurs the once very clear guidelines prohibiting torture. It is imperative that we take every step necessary to remove all doubt that torture is in fact illegal, and that no member of the United States government can authorize its use under any circumstances.

The efforts of Congressman Nadler and Congressman Delahunt to ensure that not only the Department of Defense, but all parties of this government, are to be held accountable under the provisions of the U.S. Army Field Manual is a an essential step in reestablishing this country's firm stance against the practice of torture. It saddens us that we have found ourselves under the direction of a leader who has made such a step necessary, but we must take it nonetheless.

It is for the above reasons that TASSC International urges all members of Congress to vote in favor of H.R. 4114.

As we work to escape from the dark shadow of torture, we will continue to campaign for the repeal of the Military Commissions Act, the Torture Law, but we believe that this is an important step forward in these dark times.

The text of the bill, and TASSC's concerns, are posted here.

Subjects: Congress | Legislation

[Also posted as a press release in the press room.]

All quotes are from survivors of torture, and members of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International.

Nasim, a survivor of waterboarding from Ethiopia, who does not want her last name in the press, says that she is "brought back to the torture chambers every time I hear the sound of splashing water. In the shower, when water hits my face, I must remind myself that I am not strapped to a board and that my lungs will not fill up with water until I lose consciousness. Though it has been years, the fear and pain are still there. There can be no debate that waterboarding is torture." 

Anthony Ibeagha, a survivor from Nigeria, said that "this confirmation is disrespectful to me as a person and only exacerbates the pain of torture which has come to be my life."

Dianna Ortiz, a US nun and survivor of torture in Guatemala, said that "the Senate may have substituted the name Mukasey, but they voted for torture. What congress and Judge Mukasey have said loudly and clearly is that they have no concern for those of us who were tortured. First we were betrayed by our torturers; now we are betrayed by the government of the United States. Those who voted for torture will go unconcerned to their dinners and cocktail parties, while we go home to our nightmares." 

Sister Ortiz wrote of her experience watching the Senate Judiciary Committee's vote on Mukasey here: http://torturelaw.org/blog_post.php?post=41

The Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition is the only organization in the United States founded by and for survivors of torture. Interviews with survivors are available.

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Subjects: Congress | Justice Department | Survivor's Voices | TASSC International

Courtesy of Nadler's office, here is the text of the American Anti-Torture Act introduced today. The bill expands the McCain amendment (which TASSC did not support) to cover non-DoD personnel. The text below contrasts the Anti-Torture Act with the McCain amendment.

UNIFORM STANDARDS FOR THE INTERROGATION OF PERSONS UNDER THE DETENTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE UNITED STATES.

(a) In General- No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility United States shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

(b) Applicability- Subsection (a) shall not apply with respect to any person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense United States pursuant to a criminal law or immigration law of the United States.

(c) Construction- Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the rights under the United States Constitution of any person in the custody or under the physical jurisdiction of the United States.

We at TASSC thank Rep. Nadler and Rep. Delahunt for their dedication to ending torture. However, it is important to realize that this legislation, while a good thing, is a compromise and we have some concerns.

• There are already multiple laws and treaties making torture illegal. Many survivors feel troubled that legislation is introduced over and over again to make torture illegal and wonder: what is going on here?
• There is no enforcement mechanism, civil or criminal, in the McCain amendment or the American Anti-Torture Act.
• The law that can be used to prosecute torturers, the War Crimes Act, is pre-empted by the Military Commissions Act, a law designed to hide torture and let the president shape the definition of what constitutes torture. This law does nothing to change that.
• The Anti-Torture Act would limit interrogation techniques to what is in the Army Field Manual, but we do not know what is in the Army Field Manual. Thanks to the Bush Administration, for the first time ever, there is a classified section in the Army Field Manual's interrogation techniques.

More on this tomorrow.

Subjects: Congress | Legislation

Today the Pentagon "transferred" eleven prisoners from Guantanamo to Jordan and Afghanistan. Such "transfers" are not transfers at all, but disappearances designed to hide torture by silencing survivors.

Today's disappearances destroy recent hopes that a court had brought this to an end. Expect more before December 5^th, when the Supreme Court will decide if the prisoners held at Guantanamo have a right to challenge their detention in U.S. court.

Subjects: Guantanamo | Transfers

Torture survivors stood outside the committee room for nearly two hours, waiting for the doors to open that would usher us into the presence of the Judiciary Committee.  There, committee members would cast their votes for or against torture.  They may have substituted the name Mukasey, but the subject was torture.

The doors opened.  Reporters were let in. A staff person went up and down our line inviting any senate staffer who happened to be in the vicinity to enter.  Many did, some perhaps with special guests in tow.  Finally, it was our turn—the public's turn to enter, to be witness to this public committee meeting.

The first nine in the long line were allowed to enter, including four of us who were survivors.   Then abruptly all was stopped.  More survivors were in line but they and all the rest were told the room was "absolutely filled."  No one else might enter.  Sorry.  They were invited to go to the TV room where they might watch the proceedings.  One of the survivors replied, "I didn't come here to watch TV." And so, many remained in line, remained to see twenty-three more  "special" persons admitted to the absolutely filled room.   

I was one of the lucky ones, or so, some might say.  Although others might think it strange, I brought a companion into that room.  I brought faith, a faith that finally for the first time since the Bush administration began torturing, Congress would say, "No more."  We four survivors, witnesses-to-be in a struggle over torture prayed for a miracle.  Specter, Graham, Schumer, Feinstein, surely they understood torture. Surely they would not vote for it.  But of course, they did.

No miracle happened there. Faith is a fragile thing, easily torn much like the fingernails torturers tear from a young child. All hope that for once, Congress would stand against torture ended in the ayes and nays—some barely audible, some strong and proud.  Republicans, one after another "aye."  Democrats, Leahy, "nay." Kennedy, "nay," Biden, "nay," Feinstein, "aye," Schumer, "aye."   The deed is done.   No matter how they try to mask it, torture wins, 11-8.

With each "aye," my thoughts turned to Nasim, a former law student from Ethiopia.   With each "aye," it was as if I were witness to the forcing of her head into feces-filled water—every gasping breath she took.   The final count …11-8.  Mukasey, the man who cannot say whether waterboarding is torture, who does not even know what it is, if he is to be believed, is in line to become the next U.S. attorney general.  Those who voted for torture have recommended his nomination to the full Senate. 

Did those who cast a vote for Mukasey give any thought to what their actions mean to torture survivors—to those of us who live with the remnants of our torture day after day?  We do not have the luxury of trading our torture for some political advantage.  Those who voted for torture will go unconcerned to their dinners and cocktail parties, while we go home to our nightmares. 

By Dianna Ortiz

Subjects: Congress | Justice Department | Survivor's Voices

Today's Washington Post includes a letter to the editor I wrote entitled 'What Congress Should Do Next About Torture.' The letter was written in response to this editorial.

An excerpt:

The problem is not that the Senate has not banned torture. The problem is that President Bush, aided by a Justice Department run by torture apologists, violates those bans.

...

Several laws and treaties already declare torture illegal, but another law prevents prosecution for these crimes against humanity. If Congress is to restore this country’s honor and guide us away from the torture chambers, Congress needs to repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Subjects: Congress | Justice Department | Legislation

Abdallah Higazy is a man who has admitted his involvement in the attacks of September 11^th, yet he walks free today. Despite the confession, the FBI discovered that he is innocent and released him. Why did Higazy, an innocent man, confess to involvement in such a horrible crime? He claims that the confession was coerced, and FBI Agent Templeton, who extracted the false confession, does not deny it. Higazy is suing the FBI for coercing the confession.

The Second Court of Appeals recently decided to let Higazy's case move forward and posted the opinion on their website. The opinion on their website does not describe the techniques the FBI agent used to coerce the confession because that information is classified. Where the description of the interrogation would be, it reads "this opinion has been redacted because portions of the record are under seal. For the purposes of the summary judgment motion, [FBI agent] Templeton did not contest that Higazy's statements were coerced."

The exact details of the interrogation techniques the FBI and CIA use on suspected terrorists are classified. An unfortunate, yet predictable, effect of maintaining secrecy about how interrogations are conducted is that the secrecy is impossible to maintain if innocent people are released from the prison and allowed to speak about their experiences.

Once questioned, a prisoner has secret information. An innocent prisoner can not be released, or allowed to tell her story, without potentially compromising the secrecy of the interrogation system. The Bush Administration even argued that prisoners held in secret in clandestine CIA-run prisons should not be allowed to speak to lawyers because they possessed the classified information of what was done to them during interrogations. Until a court recently ordered it to stop, the Pentagon has been attempting to silence Guantanamo prisoners cleared for release by 'transferring' or 'repatriating' them to prisons of brutal dictators where they can not tell their stories. So many prisoners have been 'transferred' out of Guantanamo that the population is less than half its previous size.

In addition to the obvious, that secret interrogation techniques might hide torture, secret interrogation techniques make releasing innocents difficult.

The redacted section of the Higazy opinion was accidentally posted on the Second Court of Appeals website, and was copied before they removed it. How Appealing, a legal blog, posted the opinion with the redacted section explaining what techniques produced the false confession. The Court of Appeals demanded that the opinion be taken down because it contains classified information, but How Appealing bravely refused.

We now know the interrogation technique that the state argues needs to be kept a secret for national security purposes: Agent Templeton discussed details about Higazy's family, who live in Egypt, and threatened to have them tortured by the Egyptian authorities if Higazy didn't confess.

Subjects: District Courts | Tortured Evidence | Transfers

In recent weeks, Colonel Morris Davis has added his voice to those of numerous human rights advocates decrying the system of show trials created by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a law that the survivors of torture at TASSC International have renamed the "Torture Law." Davis is an unlikely candidate to voice such opinions as, until recently, he was the chief prosecutor of military commissions and one of the system's most vocal defenders. Were it not for his recent change of heart he would probably be remembered as a torture apologist and the first prosecutor in modern history to try a child soldier for war crimes.

We came to know Davis through his interviews with the media where he regularly defended the Torture Law and attacked the credibility of survivors. He dismissed claims of torture in Guantanamo as al Qaeda propaganda. (The FBI disagrees.) On the 10^th anniversary of the UN Day in Support of Torture Victims and Survivors, June 26, 2007, Davis published an op-ed in the New York Times defending Guantanamo and the system of Military Commissions.

In addition to publishing his defense of Guantanamo and the Torture Law on the UN Day in Support of Torture Victims and Survivors – an insult to survivors everywhere – Davis mocked those of us who questioned the legitimacy of Military Commissions. According to Davis, we were saying that "if a defendant does not get a trial that looks like Martha Stewart's and ends like O. J. Simpson's, then military commissions are flawed."

He has since learned from experience what the survivors who demand the repeal of the Torture Law could easily see, and retired in anger. He explains his reasons for retiring by saying that he felt he "was being pressured to do something less than full, fair and open." Today Davis's statements sound similar to how ours sounded then. Davis recently said that he "think[s] it's a disgrace to call it a military commission, it's a political commission" designed to produce a predetermined result.

Coming from the former chief prosecutor of military commissions, who spent the final months of his career attacking anyone who would question the justice of the military commissions system, Davis's remarks are devastating to the little credibility that military commissions have left.

Subjects: Guantanamo | Military Commissions | Prosecuting Children

Today all ten Democrats on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, but disgustingly none of the nine Republicans, signed a letter to Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey demanding that he clearly state if he believes waterboarding is illegal. The letter cited numerous sources, including the Military and State Department, stating that waterboarding is, and always has been, a barbaric form of torture.

The only clarification Mukasey gave during his confirmation hearing was to say that "if it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional." And that is probably all he will say. Mukasey was clear about why he won’t clarify his stance on the legality of waterboarding or other forms of torture, such as mock execution and sexual humiliation.

There are people who are using coercive techniques and who are being authorized to use coercive techniques.

Coercive techniques are torture. The people who are using torture are CIA officers and those authorizing torture include the President, Vice President and lawyers in the Justice Department Mukasey hopes to lead.

People in the US government are committing and authorizing torture, terrible crimes against humanity, and Mukasey does not want them to go to jail. In his own words, labeling waterboarding as torture “is going to put their careers or freedom at risk.”

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, one of the last acts of the Republican congress, is what created the insane legal framework where torture can not be prosecuted unless the executive branch labels it torture. Mukasey understands this well; to label what is happening as torture would destroy the legal immunity that the Military Commissions Act created.

Stopping Mukasey’s confirmation is important, and let’s hope the Democrats finally take a stand. But repealing the Miltary Commissions Act is the only way to end the culture of torture and impunity.

Subjects: Immunity | Justice Department

TASSC International, and the Campaign to Repeal the Torture Law, would like to thank Cesar Maxit of RVLTN Design for designing this ad, which will run in SOA Watch's program for the vigil at Fort Benning:

Subjects: Campaign | Grassroots | TASSC International | TortureLaw.org

One year ago today, President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, the Torture Law.

As we did then, we gathered outside the White House for a symbolic funeral procession, mourning the death of our basic civil liberties. This year we were joined by our partner in struggle, Amnesty International.

Hopefully next year we will have repealed the Military Commissions Act, stepped out of the dark shadow of torture, and won't have to mourn at yet another symbolic funeral.

Photos From This Year

Photos From Last Year

Subjects: Campaign | Grassroots | President Bush | TASSC International

Last week Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an injunction preventing the Pentagon from 'transferring' a prisoner, Mohammed Abdul Rahman, from Guantanamo to his native Tunisia.

Such 'transfers' are not transfers at all, but disappearances to hide torture by silencing survivors.

Judge Kessler’s injunction is a welcome sliver of hope that courts will finally limit the Adminstration’s torture operation in Guantanamo."This is the first time," Mr. Rahman's attorney Joshua Denbeaux told the Washington Post, "that the judicial branch has exercised its inherent power to control the excesses of the executive as to treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The executive has now been told it cannot bury its Guantanamo mistakes in Third World prisons."

But Mr. Denbaux might have overstated the value of the case. The injunction applies only to Mr. Rahman and only until the Supreme Court decides if the prisoners held at Guantanamo will be allowed to file habeas corpus petitions in US courts.We can hope, though, that other judges follow Judge Kessler’s courageous lead.

The United States has never charged Mr. Rahman with a crime. Why, then, can’t he file a petition for habeas corpus? Because the Military Commissions Act stripped him of the right to challenge his detention in US courts.

Thus, he could be detained forever or transferred anywhere, without our courts ever considering whether he violated any law or was held in violation of United States or international law.

Judge Kessler issued the injunction because she found that Mr. Rahman could face “irreparable harm” if he is transferred to Tunisia — it would do him little good if he ultimately is allowed to challenge his detention if he is already being held and tortured in Tunisia (the two Guantanamo prisoners already transferred to Tunisia claim to have been tortured upon arrival).

Over 400 prisoners have already been 'transferred' or 'repatriated' out of Guantanamo, many into prisons of dictators that regularly practice torture and are not known for giving prisoners a fair trial.

These transfers have one purpose: to silence Guantanamo prisoners. We cannot try them, for if we do that a court may find them innocent. And if they are found innocent, they might talk about what we did to them.

So we transfer them to torture chambers around the world, confident that men such as Mr. Rahman will not be able to tell their story from a cell in a prison in Tunisia.

Subjects: District Courts | Guantanamo | Supreme Court | Transfers

Former President Carter describes the Military Commissions Act on CNN yesterday:

The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday.

"I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."

Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.

Subjects: Language | Miscellaneous

The First Set of Disappearances Were Called Extraordinary Renditions

While extraordinary renditions were the sanitized words the US Government, and, sadly, the media, used to label the disappearances, there was nothing extraordinary about them.

The CIA used the same tactics that survivors of torture everywhere have come to know all too well. Without an arrest, without charges, in darkness or in shadows, people were disappeared, drugged, hooded, and sent to a clandestine prison where they were tortured.

After denying the existence of CIA-run secret prisons for years, the Bush administration now claims to have closed them. As always the case when governments disappear people, we may never know what happened to all of the prisoners. We do know that at least some of the prisoners were transferred to DoD custody and sent to Guantanamo.

The Second Set of Disappearances Are Being Called 'Transfers' and Are Happening Now

If extraordinary renditions were the sanitized words used to describe the first set of disappearances, transfer and repatriation are the sanitized words being used to describe the second set of disappearances.

Yesterday, the Department of Defense 'transferred' eight more prisoners from Guantanamo to governments where torture and indefinite detentions are common. According to the DoD, six prisoners (the Pentagon uses the sanitized term 'detainees') were 'transferred' to Afghanistan, one was 'transferred' to Libya and one to Yemen.

Languishing in those countries’ prisons is an unfortunate fate for men that the US Government has already held for years, likely tortured, and is only releasing now because prosecutors lack any evidence to prove their guilt. As with all disappearances, authorities have refused to release even the names of the prisoners.

These eight are the latest in a series of transfers – disappearances – as the government attempts to escape from the legal pit it climbed into while attempting to bypass the Geneva Convention and US Constitution. So deep in the dark hole of torture, the only option they see is to keep digging.

Much like the Military Commissions Act, the law created to govern Guantanamo, the 'transfer' and 'repatriation' of prisoners is designed to look good on paper. DoD press releases state that 'the transfer is a demonstration of the United States' desire not to hold detainees any longer than necessary.' 

But, much like the Military Commissions Act, the transfers continue a system of disappearances and torture. Much like the Military Commissions Act, the transfers are a PR stunt that hides torture and denies survivors any hope of ever telling their story and seeking justice.

The men 'transferred' yesterday may never see a day in court. They may never get to tell their stories. Along with the Military Commissions Act – the Torture Law – we must demand that the second set of disappearances comes to an end.

Subjects: Guantanamo | Language | Transfers

Last night the War Resister's League honored Sister Dianna and the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, as well as our dear friends Michael Ratner and the Center for Constiutional Rights for the work that we do in "Taking on the Torturers."

The flier for the event (.pdf)

Below is Dianna's Speech:

To receive an award from the War Resisters League and to be present while the Center for Constitutional Rights receives such an award as well is to be doubly honored.  This is indeed exceptional company that TASSC shares tonight. 

With your permission, I wish to rewrite an old cliché.  I would imagine we all have heard that, "misery loves company."  While that may be true, there are others who love company as well.  And so I say to you this evening, Visionaries love company too.  And therefore, let me say that on behalf of my fellow survivors, we "love being" here with you tonight.

The War Resisters League, what a fine, what a noble name—the goal, not simply to resist wars already under way but to stop them before they begin.  How many times you must have been told, that you aren't being realistic.  And my friend, Michael Ratner, how many times CCR must have been told, "You're reaching too far.  You've got to be realistic."

I cannot tell you the number of times we at TASSC have been told these exact same words.  We smile, at least outwardly, but we continue to seek what others believe is impossible—a world where no one is tortured ever again.  

Visionary as it may seem, TASSC and its survivor-members believe that the abolition of torture is possible and is indeed in the making.  Like many of you here, perhaps especially CCR, we want the law back.  We want the constitution back.  We want the treaties we signed back.  TASSC wants a world free of torture and the War Resisters League wants an end to war.

I told you we were visionaries. It seems to me all of us here tonight were made for each other.   In that spirit, on behalf of TASSC, we thank you for this award.

Subjects: Grassroots | TASSC International

The Military Commissions Act, the Torture Law

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, what we survivors of torture have come to know as the 'Torture Law,' has frightened nearly everyone in the US who works to eradicate torture. Even groups who never before worked on the issue of torture have begun campaigning to reform the Military Commissions Act.

Numerous international organizations of human rights attorneys have made reforming the Military Commissions Act a top priority. Numerous politicians in the US Congress have made reforming the Military Commissions Act a top priority.

In all the clamor, the voices of torture survivors have not been heard. Our understanding of the debate surrounding torture and the Military Commissions Act reaches a deeper, more intimate level than all the arguments of lawyers and politicians—and one thing we know is that the Military Commissions Act must be repealed. Not reformed—repealed.

Why Repeal? Because the Framework, Not the Details, Is What Matters

As survivors of torture, many of us recall the most frightening words we ever heard—words that were more terrifying even than the rapes, the burns, the beatings, and the psychological torture that we would come to know too well. We all heard the same words—and still hear them sometimes, when we wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat:

"Scream as loud as you want—it won't matter. Nobody's listening."

It did not matter if we were tortured during the cold war, a civil war, or a brutal dictatorship. It did not matter if we were tortured in a clandestine prison in Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, or Guatemala. We were all told the same thing.

The reason it sent chills through our bones is simple: you are helpless when your captors act with impunity.

The Creation of the Campaign

Most of The Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition's (TASSC's) work is dedicated to helping other survivors in the painstaking lifelong process of healing and learning how to trust people again. Although we have been active in speaking out against torture, through our Truth Speaker's program, we had no experience in building a grass roots campaign to repeal a law.

We began with a petition. The original director of the Campaign, Paul Magno, organized the collection of thousands upon thousands of signatures demanding a complete repeal of the Military Commissions Act, the Torture Law. Every month a group of survivors hand-delivered the petitions to Nancy Pelosi's office and worked to set up a meeting with the recently elected leader of the House.

We worked to build coalitions with other organizations. TASSC humbly reached out to other organizations, our partners in our struggle to create a torture-free world, and asked them to endorse the campaign. Over a hundred organizations, some with tens of thousands of members, signed on.

We felt as if we were moving forward and gaining initiative.

But Too Many Were Willing to Compromise on Torture

The feelings of progress proved to be an illusion. Nancy Pelosi never met with us. Almost all of the large human rights organizations refused to sign on to the Campaign. Perhaps compromised by their relationships with members of congress, perhaps compromised by the role they played in crafting the Torture Law, they were not willing to demand the full and unconditional repeal.

The law, they pointed out, wasn't as bad as Bush wanted. The law didn't explicitly endorse torture. The law could be fixed, they claimed, but we would never get enough support to repeal it.

We were told that torture survivors didn't understand the law, and elite human rights attorneys and politicians did. We were told it is a complicated issue.

But it is a lot less complicated to survivors of torture. The Torture Law removes the survivor's hope of someday being able to prosecute torturers. The Torture Law hides torture. The Torture Law creates an air of impunity that always leads to torture. For us, there can be zero tolerance for torture.

The Website

We do not, and probably never will, have the resources of the large human rights organizations. But survivors of torture understand torture like nobody else, and we believe that survivors can be the most effective voices speaking out against torture. Our voice must be heard.

We have created a number of tools to help the public and the media understand why this Torture Law must be repealed.

• A growing section of fact sheets, thanks in part to the National Security & Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law.
• Tools to allow people to sign the petition or contact congress online.
• A Perspectives section, where we have begun to collect articles explaining why a complete and unconditional repeal is the only honorable response.
• Information about a billboard design competition we are organizing to help the public, and Congress, realize that repeal is the only way to restore our honor and our system of justice.

Survivors need your help. With the website, and your help, we can bring the Torture Law to an end. We have built the tools. Please get involved today. Together we can create a torture-free world.

Subjects: Campaign | Survivor's Voices | TASSC International | TortureLaw.org