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Past Actions: Declaration Against Torture
Petition
We call on Alberto Gonzales, nominee for chief law enforcement officer of the United States, members of the U.S. Senate, and other responsible government officials, to sign the Declaration Against Torture, unequivocally renouncing all forms of torture and abuse as instruments of U.S. policy.
Sign the petition at MoveOn.org/Gonzales
Declaration Against Torture
Whereas torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment:
- Are contrary to the fundamental moral values on which the United States was founded;
- Violate United States and international law;
- Increase the risk to U.S. citizens serving abroad, and as Secretary of State Colin Powell warned “undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops;"
- Weaken national security by inciting anti-American hatred, fanning the flames of terrorist recruitment, and providing comfort to enemies of the United States;
- Compromise the global fight against terrorism, by making foreign governments more reluctant to turn over suspected terrorists to the U.S.;
- Are “useless as interrogation techniques,” according to the U.S. Army Field Manual.
We therefore unequivocally declare that the US must:
- Respect and enforce, across all agencies, and among all employees and contract agents of the U.S. government, all obligations under the laws of war and duly ratified treaties that prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment;
- State directly and forthrightly that torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are always unacceptable and that anyone who engages in such behavior or knowingly condone it will be punished;
- Apply to all detainees of the United States the legal protections against torture contained in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, as incorporated in the U.S. Law of Land Warfare, banning "any ... form of coercion" or "unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment" to get information from prisoners of war; and in the international Convention Against Torture (1984), to which the U.S. is party, prohibiting "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining … information;”
- Repudiate all claims of presidential power that allow for the use of torture, or for imprisonment without due process;
- Halt the practice of “extraordinary rendition,” by which some detainees and prisoners are transferred to nations that employ torture.
Back to Past Actions 03-05
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