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The Backlash Against Torture
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Pat Westwater-Jong
egislators answered the nation’s revulsion to the use of torture in the “war on terror” on Oct. 5, when the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to stop the practice. In a bipartisan act of defiance against a threatened White House veto, the U.S. Senate voted 90 to 9 to pass Senator John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) torture ban amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill. In a measure of how far the U.S.-led “war on terror” has eroded the legal strictures of conflict, the key provisions in the amendment require the United States to obey its own laws and practice: the first requires all U.S. military personnel to abide by the Army’s Field Manual on
Interrogations and the second reiterates the U.S. ban on torture and on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (the language of the Geneva Conventions). The amendment received strong backing from retired military officers and interrogation officials. Amnesty International USA was moving on several fronts to ensure that key provisions of the bill would survive conference committee, in which legislators from the House and Senate hammer out differences between their respective versions of the appropriations bill. “It is critical for us to step up lobbying for the amendment without any change or loopholes that may allow any U.S. agency or facility to condone or practice torture,” said Jumana Musa, AIUSA’s Advocacy Director for Domestic Human Rights and International Justice.
MIKE BROWN/EPA/SIPA
WORLD VIEW
An abandoned guard tower overlooking Camp XRay, the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that was closed after the United States built Camp Delta.
In late September delegations of AIUSA activists across the country lobbied their senators and representatives to vote for the torture ban and establish an independent commission to investigate all torture allegations. More than 200 delegations participated in the week of lobbying, including large numbers of first-time activists and many rural delegations. The lobbying followed a wave of Denounce Torture rallies across the country. Prisoners in U.S. custody in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have become so desperate that more than 200 out of the total 500 began a hunger strike in August to protest their treatment, according to non-governmental organizations. By mid-October U.S. military doctors began force-feeding 21 prisoners through their noses, even though international guidelines forbid force-feeding during a hunger strike. amnestyusa.org/3505
Four AIUSA activists meet with Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.), at right, to discuss allegations of torture in U.S. detention facilities.
Ranjani Ramaswamy
Field Report Building Community “A community is a group of people who see the power in being united,” says Ana Moraga, a former Amnesty International USA intern. She uses intimate knowledge of community building to propel the cause of human rights forward. Moraga discovered the world of non-governmental organizations in high school. Her work with local activist groups produced powerful experiences that fueled her interest in human rights. Ana Moraga As AIUSA’s Latino Outreach Coordinator in the Western Regional Office, Moraga was pivotal to the success of the “Justicia en Juarez” campaign. She collaborated with Latino organizations and rock band Jaguares to boost awareness of the murders of women in Juarez, Mexico, and introduced the campaign to Spanishlanguage media. Her work resulted in 1,500 new AIUSA members and 10,000 letters to promote justice in Juarez. Moraga, 22, is applying her formidable organizing expertise to the fight for women’s human rights in Guatemala, where more than
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1,600 women have been murdered since 2001. She believes education is the long-term solution to the Guatemalan femicide and is currently working with Loyola Marymount University classmate Tania Torres to launch a literacy program in Guatemala City called Leer es Poder (To Read is to Have Power). The program seeks to provide Guatemalan women with opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty. Moraga, who was born in Guatemala during the most brutal years of the civil war, explains her calling simply: “I felt like a hypocrite standing idly by. I needed to return and do something because so many people here are blind to the suffering.” AIUSA’s Regional Field Organizer Sandra Perez praised Moraga for her compassion: “Ana’s dedication to social justice is an inspiration to me and to everyone who has the opportunity to meet her. She embodies Amnesty’s vision.” Laura Spann
