Where you can join

Bloggers Against Torture was created in June 2006 to `blogswarm' the Torture Awareness Month website. It was then revived the following month to raise money for Amnesty International (USA). As part of this, a blogroll was created, which can be found on the right. It is a list of the people who participated in efforts to raise awareness of coalition human rights abuses, especially torture.

Given that these events are now over, Bloggers Against Torture is no longer receiving new members. However, if you are interested in raising your voice against these attack on our nations' own fundamental values, please head on over to `Never in our Names' by clicking on the graphic below.



NION is a fast-growing collaborative blog dedicated to fighting against human rights abuse. It concerns especially those abuses committed by our own governments, that we, as citizens of these democratic countries, are morally responsible for. It is an open community so anyone can join and start posting.

Washington, 5 May, Inquiry on Torture and Just Treatment

Those of you who are live near the Washington D.C. area may be interested in attending the Faith and Freedom Convocation: An Inquiry on Torture and Just Treatment being held at the All Souls Unitarian Church on Saturday, May 5, 2007. Details can be found here.

Cartoon by Ted Rall

Slate's article; what we already knew

Amnesty International USA



Not to diminish the fact that this was written, but consider why all these blogs have signed up to be against torture; Torture Is Counterproductive (The response to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession proves it) Click on the title for the full article, as usual, here is an excerpt:

The Daily Telegraph, normally the most pro-American newspaper in Britain, wrote that it hardly mattered whether he was guilty, since whatever the conclusion of the military tribunal that will try him, "the world will condemn the procedures by which the verdicts were reached." Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung concluded that "the Bush administration has nobody but itself to blame for the fact that the actions and motives of the perpetrator are now playing second fiddle to the practices used by the Americans in fighting terrorism."
In another article, Anne Applebaum writes about the torture myth:

Given the overwhelmingly negative evidence, the really interesting question is not whether torture works but why so many people in our society want to believe that it works. At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.

Perhaps it's reassuring to tell ourselves tales about the new forms of "toughness" we need, or to talk about the special rules we will create to defeat this special enemy. Unfortunately, that toughness is self-deceptive and self-destructive. Ultimately it will be self-defeating as well.

Which brings me back to this self image I feel Americans have in the face of external criticism; those with all the bravura attitude of toughness are like the little children or bullies we see who feel the need to prove themselves. It is a sign of immaturity, true immaturity, and lack of experience. Especially when it comes to war on home turf, and the fear that comes from being occupied.

On The Homefront: Observations from a Street Corner

On The Homefront: Observations from a Street Corner

This is a great account from a father who's protested against the war since before the war began. Read Larry Syverson's account from Military Families Speak Out.

woohoo, anybody home?

James from "The left end of the dial" had this to say:

I've noticed that the blogroll for "Bloggers Against Torture" has gathered some dust and am under the impression that whoever was maintaining it is on an extended haitus. That's cool and all, except that sometimes bloggers (like me) end up making some address changes. As time permits, I'm creating a new blogroll and will update y'all when it's ready to launch. In the meantime, we'll deal with what we have.

So can anyone 'update' this blog or does Elendil have to do this? Does anyone know how to get in touch with her?
Just wondering..
Ingrid

US indicting Charles Taylor...isn't it ironic..

...don't you think;

Alice Fisher, assistant U.S. attorney general for the Justice Department's criminal division, said the indictment was the first time charges under the torture laws had been brought. Emmanuel faces a potential life prison sentence.

"Crimes such as these will not go unanswered," Fisher said at a news conference in Washington with Miami U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta and Julie L. Myers, head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"This is a clear message that the United States will not be a safe haven for human rights violators," Myers said.

Say what?

The Congress just passed a bill that enshrines both “harsh interrogation” methods and denies habeas corpus for anyone who is accused of “purposefully and materially supporting hostilities against the United States” no matter if that support came in the shape of donating money to a cause only to find out that the cause was a front for “terrorists.” In voting for this bill, the Congress has eviscerated major portions of our Bill of Rights and what it means to be a liberal democracy as envisioned by our founding fathers. With less than a week of debate, they have set the United States on the road to being a banana republic where the rule of law no longer applies.

So why is this bill so dangerous? And what does this portend for our future?

The danger arises from the secret, unaccountable license for brutality.

for more pictures go to antiwar.com



Yes by all means, let us not be a 'safe haven' for human rights violators.
Ingrid, proud member of BLOGGERS AGAINST TORTURE! (cross posted at Blogger Round Table)

Trusting the President to do the right thing

TONY SNOW: Helen, you've had your hand up, sorry.
Q: I wanted to talk about the bill the President will sign tomorrow.
MR. SNOW: Yes.
Q: It makes him a final arbiter on torture.
MR. SNOW: Right.
-- White House Press Briefing, 16 October 2006

Here is a partial list of interrogation techniques that have already been used under the Bush Administration. They include electrical torture, Palestinian hanging, severe beatings and sexual assault. Here is a list of cases in which those so-called interrogation techniques have resulted in a death.

These are the things that the President has already done, either directly through U.S. agents, or indirectly through the rendition programme, using allies as torturers-by-proxy for the United States.

If this is what Bush was willing to do before the Act, before he had ensured that the laws against what he was doing are virtually unenforceable, what do you think he will be willing to do now?

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Further reading:

• ACLU Statement, 17 Oct 2006, President Bush Signs Un-American Military Commissions Act, ACLU Says New Law Undermines Due Process and the Rule of Law