July 2, 2009: Amnesty report issued: Israel/Gaza: Operation "Cast Lead": 22 Days of Death and Destruction.

 

June 27, 2009: 24-hour vigil in DC by TASSC.org et al. commemorating UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims and Survivors 

 

June 25, 2009: Torture Accountability Action Day in Washington, DC, sponsored by Amnesty International, After Downing Street, Coalition for Peace Action, Code Pink, Peace Action, Progressive Democrats of America, et al.

 

June 11, 2009: Religious public witness in Washington, DC, sponsored by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, pressing for a commission of inquiry.

 

June 11, 2009: Forum on torture, Princeton, NJ, sponsored by the Princeton Area Anti-torture Advocacy Group, the Nassau Presbyterian Church, the Coalition for Peace Action, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, the Union to Reform Judaism, Princeton University, Amnesty International, the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church, and the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Trenton.

 

June is Torture Awareness Month. June 26 is UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

 

Letter to the Editor of the Intelligencer, "Perpetrators must be accountable," May 28, 2009.   Letter to the Editor of the Intelligencer, "Torture cannot be dismissed," May 21, 2009   Visited with Rep. Patrick Murphy, May 27, 2009: A nine-member delegation including representatives of Amnesty, the ACLU, and the Coalition for Peace Action met with Rep. Patrick Murphy to ask for his support for a commission of inquiry into the treatment of detainees since 9/11 and an investigation by the Justice Department. Our thank-you letter>>

Father Louis Vitale, Franciscan priest who has spent over a year in jail for protesting torture by the U.S., to speak at sites in NJ and PA May 19-21, 2009: Details>>

 

Editorial: "Descent into torture," Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/15/2009: "Just as harsh U.S. interrogation techniques were being discredited at a Senate hearing this week, the reported suicide of a former CIA detainee in Libya recalled one of the most spectacular and far-reaching failures of torture-like tactics. . . ."

 

Sign the petition for a Commission on Accountability. We call on the President of the United States to establish an independent, non-partisan commission to examine and report publicly on torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in the period since September 11, 2001. The commission, comparable in stature to the 9/11 Commission, should look into the facts and circumstances of such abuses, report on lessons learned, and recommend measures that would prevent any future abuses. We believe that the commission is necessary to reaffirm America ’s commitment to the Constitution, international treaty obligations, and human rights. The report issued by the commission will strengthen U.S. national security and help to re-establish America’s standing in the world.

 

Workshop on "Affecting Torture Policy: Torture by the U.S. has not been permanently and completely banned. Those who tortured in the name of the U.S. have not been held accountable. Find out what you can do." March 26, 2009, 6:30-8:30 PM, 302 Frist Student Center, Princeton University. Sessions led by Leslie Potter, from the office of Congressman Rush Holt; George Hunsinger, founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture; Robert Duncan, of the Princeton Area Anti-Torture Advocacy Group at Nassau Presbyterian Church; and Patrick Heery, of the Seminarians for Peace and Justice subgroup on Torture, the Death Penalty, and Prison Reform; with remarks by Coalition for Peace Action Executive Director Rev. Bob Moore.

 

"The Torture Report," New York Times editorial, December 17, 2008. 

 

"Tortured Reasoning" by David Rose, Vanity Fair, December 16, 2008.

 

"Report on detainee abuse blames top Bush officials" by Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, December 12, 2008.

 

WHYY's Radio Times, December 8, 2008: "With pressure on president-elect Barack Obama to abolish torture, there are increasing calls for the establishment of a commission to explore what many say are human rights violations committed by the Bush Administration. We talk about the value of such an investigation, what it would accomplish and what it might look like. Our guests are attorney Scott Horton and former Congressman Mickey Edwards." Horton is the author of "Justice after Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration," Harper's, December 2008. WBUR's Here & Now, December 9, 2008: CIA veteran Robert Baer also advocates an investigation of the CIA's role in torture and rendition.

"Rejecting the torture legacy," by Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, December 3, 2008.

"An interrogator speaks: I'm still tortured by what I saw in Iraq," by Matthew Alexander, Washington Post, November 30, 2008. Matthew Alexander is the author of How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq. Listen to his interview on WHYY's Radio Times, January 8, 2009.

"How the media talks about torture and the rule of law," by Glenn Greenwald, Salon, November 26, 2008.