In an effort to build support for accountability for torture, the ACLU and the PEN American Center have developed a public education program that draws attention to the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. "Reckoning with Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the 'War on Terror'" delivers key facts of the torture program through dramatic readings of documents related to the torture program, combined with video testimonials from former Guantánamo detainees and artwork by artist Jenny Holzer that incorporates government torture records.
By Alex Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 10:59am
This Saturday and Sunday, June 1 and 2, mark the first annual National Day of Civic Hacking. The ACLU is participating by enabling developers to access our Torture Database and in turn make this information even more accessible to the public. Starting now, anyone can access the extensive data amassed by the ACLU relating to the Bush administration’s rendition, detention, and interrogation policies and practices.
By Noa Yachot, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 2:31pm
A detailed and harrowing first-person narrative of a prisoner's experiences in Guantánamo is available to the public for the first time: Slate today published a three-part series of excerpts from The Guantánamo Memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi. The excerpts were culled from a manuscript hundreds of pages in length, which Slahi provided his attorneys, a pro bono team of ACLU and other lawyers. After being classified for years, Slahi's memoirs – of arrest, rendition, torture, and imprisonment without charge or trial – are finally seeing the light of day, albeit with some redactions.
By Alex Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 2:39pm
Nearly two years ago, a non-partisan, constitutional think tank called the Constitution Project assembled its blue-ribbon Task Force on Detainee Treatment to examine the treatment of detainees in the years following 9/11. Today, the Task Force released its report—a 550-page, comprehensive condemnation of the role of senior Bush administration officials in the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody.
Click here to read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TEDTalk below.
Trained in the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military interrogators and guards who tortured and dehumanized prisoners in U.S. custody after 9/11 were hardly without ethical bearings. But as Alberto Mora, former chief counsel of the Navy, predicted when he discovered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had authorized previously banned interrogation techniques,
By Mitra Ebadolahi, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 10:47am
Artist's Work Keeps Human Realities of Torture Alive
Last autumn, Rajkamal Kahlon, a Berlin-based American artist, joined the ACLU as an artist-in-residence. Working out of our New York headquarters, Kahlon furthered an on-going project of hers called Did You Kiss the Dead Body? Visualizing Absence in the Archive of War. This week, she launched a new website compiling her stunning original images as well as texts and interviews with ACLU staff: DidYouKissTheDeadBody.com.
By Zachary Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 12:07pm
Yesterday, the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) issued a comprehensive report laying out the scope of the CIA's extraordinary rendition, secret prison and torture program. The report, following up on the ACLU's 2012 Torture Report, traces the evolution of the program, through which the CIA kidnapped terrorism suspects from around the world, flew them secretly to "black sites" – where they were held incommunicado without charge or trial – and tortured them. The OSJI report reveals that 54 nations, more than a quarter of the world, directly participated in the torture program, including through housing CIA prisoners on their soil, where they were often tortured; helping kidnap terrorism suspects and ship them overseas without any legal process; and allowing CIA planes to use their airspace and airports for those kidnapping missions. (Check out the report to learn which countries participated, and what types of assistance they offered). And it compiles the largest, most detailed list yet of the men and women thrown into these horrific black holes, naming 136 victims, many of whose whereabouts remain unknown today.
When the U.S. ratified the international treaty on the rights of children in armed conflict in 2002, it committed to protecting children under 18 from military recruitment and deployment to war and guaranteeing basic protections to former child soldiers, including those in U.S. military custody. Formally known as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC), the treaty requires ratifying nations to submit periodic reports on the progress they have made to implement their treaty obligations to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a body of independent human rights experts charged with monitoring countries’ compliance with the treaty. The U.S. government’s latest report will be reviewed by the Committee in January 2013. The list of issues to be discussed during this review, which was adopted by the Committee on July 3, raises serious concerns regarding U.S. compliance with the Protocol and provides an opportunity for the United States to provide transparency and accountability for its treatment of juveniles in military custody.
By Sam Walker, University of Nebraska at Omaha at 12:52pm
Happy birthday, FOIA!
July 4 marks the 46th birthday of the Freedom of Information Act. President Lyndon Johnson signed the historic law on July 4, 1966, at his ranch in Texas. FOIA has become a cornerstone of American democracy, making it possible for Americans to find out what their government is doing and to hold it accountable for its actions.
This weekend, Bill Moyers’ public television show is devoting a full hour to Reckoning With Torture, the innovative film project by director Doug Liman, the ACLU, and PEN American Center. The movie will tell the story of America’s torture program using the government’s own documents. Here’s a preview of the upcoming Moyers & Company episode: http://billmoyers.com/segment/preview-reckoning-with-torture/
