STOP Campaignh

Local, regional, and national actions are building momentum to stop the use of torture by the United States government. In the Unitarian Universalist community as well as in other communities of faith, there is a growing concern about this difficult issue. Individuals, congregations, and regional entities are declaring their opposition to the use of torture by the United States – in Minneapolis, on Nantucket Island, on Long Island, in North Carolina, in Greater Washington, D.C., in New York City and across the nation.

After Labor Day, the pace should pick up for what promises to be a critical Congressional election season. This is a time when people of faith can make their voices heard to support justice. This is the time to speak truth to power. Keep up the momentum!

Here are actions you can take right now:

Declare your opposition to torture by signing the statement of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, "Torture is a Moral Issue". Urge your congregation to do the same!

Ask your present member of the House of Representatives to cosponsor HR 952 – the Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). And ask your two U.S. senators to co-sponsor Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy's bill in the Senate, S 654, the Convention Against Torture Implementation Act.

Ask every candidate for U.S. House and Senate to sign the "Torture is a moral issue" statement of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

Recent events

On June 29, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court released its long-awaited decision in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case, which ruled against the Bush administration and its military commission system of dealing with detainees at Guantanamo Bay. It determined the following:

"The government has not charged Hamdan with an "offense…that by the law of war may be tried by military commission."

"The military commission at issue is not expressly authorized by any Congressional Act."

"The military commission at issue lacks the power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949, Pp. 49-72."

Second week of July: The Department of Defense released its July 7, 2006 memorandum instructing all United States military forces to implement Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions immediately. This order has no effect on entities outside the Department of Defense or on countries to which we transport detainees.

Closely following the release of the Department of Defense memorandum, 20 retired generals and admirals, along with prominent senators such as Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, and Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, stated that the court-martial system should be the working model for handling cases involving Guantanamo detainees.

But at the first hearing on the subject on July 11, 2006 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Bradbury recommended the committee support legislation to be approved by Congress that would create the very military commissions that the Supreme Court had found to be illegal.

In subsequent Judiciary Committee hearings that same week, according to the New York Times, "top lawyers from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines contradicted the Bush administration…on how to bring terror suspects to trial, endorsing an approach that extends more human and legal rights to detainees than one that administration lawyers have pressed Congress to authorize."

Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) taking of hostages;

(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.