NORTH CAROLINA
STOP TORTURE
NOW

PO Box 50345
Raleigh, NC 27650
e-mail via:
contact AT ncstoptorturenow.net

(919) 834-4478
(evenings, or messages during business hours)

North Carolina Stop Torture Now is a grassroots coalition of individuals representing themselves and a diversity of faith, human rights, peace, veteran, and student groups across the state.

We aim to stop torture everywhere, and have worked since 2005 to expose and end North Carolina's central role in the ongoing U.S. torture program.

Our special focus has been on the "torture taxis" of Aero Contractors, Ltd. of Smithfield, and Centurion Aviation of Fayetteville. Both are nominally private companies linked to the operation of aircraft in clandestine support of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. Extraordinary rendition is a phrase that disguises the kidnap, detention and torture of individuals alleged to be enemies of the United States, including those guilty of nothing other than being misidentified.

Aero Contractors' headquarters is located at the Johnston County Airport near Smithfield, NC, and you can view a partial list of detainees who were disappeared and subsequently tortured at the Aero Flew Them page, or directly on this PDF document.

We are particularly concerned that state and local government officials and individual citizens recognize their own complicity in the extraordinary rendition program and take prompt steps to provide restorative justice to victims and survivors, to air a full account of human rights violations, and to demand top-down accountability for the authors and perpetrators.

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JOIN US at one or both of our next meetings:
2-4 p.m., Sunday, July 18

Founders' Hall, directly below the sanctuary
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh (UUFR)
3313 Wade Avenue

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2-4 p.m., Sunday, August 29

Founders' Hall, directly below the sanctuary
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh (UUFR)
3313 Wade Avenue

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JOIN US for a Vigil in Johnston County

Raise your voice and a banner to call for accountability and educate the community.

2-3:30 p.m., Saturday, July 24

at the northeast corner of the Johnston County Airport
at the intersection of Swift Creek Road & US Business Hwy 70

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Accountability: Grassroots struggle, international investigations fill a vacuum of domestic leadership.

On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Canadian Maher Arar any chance of restorative justice from the U.S. judiciary.

Arar was detained during a stopover at JFK Airport on suspicion of terrorist activity.  The Bush administration then denied him adequate counsel and shipped him to Syria, where he was tortured in an underground cell in Damascus for nearly a year.

Following an extensive Canadian public inquiry, Arar won full exoneration from Ottawa in 2007, including public apologies and $10 million in damages.

But, Arar himself said the Supreme Court decision "eliminates my last bit of hope in the judicial system of the United States."

Although Arar is the best-known survivor of extraordinary rendition, he is among dozens of men who have been released without charge following their disappearance and torture.

David Cole, counsel for Arar at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), said the decision places responsibility for redressing victim's and survivor's injuries squarely with Congress and President Obama.

North Carolina Stop Torture Now (NCSTN) recognizes the high court decision diminishes the chance the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will allow Binyam Mohamed and counsel from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) a hearing of his claims against the torture flights' travel agency, Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Data Plan.

While we are encouraged that – on the heels of the Arar decision – Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) disclosed an investigation focused on Syrian and U.S. officials, we agree with Cole that the decision underscores the urgency for renewed grassroots pressure on elected officials.

NCSTN continues to build on partnerships with national organizations such as the ACLU and CCR, and collaborate with other localized groups such as the Coalition to Ground Boeing Torture Flights, the Illinois Coalition Against Torture, the South Bay Mobilization and others.

In the near term, we will emphasize:

- Gathering community support for citizen-to-citizen outreach between the people of North Carolina and victims and survivors of extraordinary rendition;

- Diversifying and increasing support for a grassroots commission of inquiry exposing and documenting the role of North Carolinians in supporting U.S.-sponsored torture, from the piloting and maintenance of rendition aircraft to the conduct of ghoulish human experimentation; and

- Continued lobbying of federal, state and local officials to fulfill their duty to achieve genuine accountability for past wrongs, intervene to stop ongoing human rights abuse, and offer meaningful restorative justice to victims and survivors that includes at minimum a public admonition for the architects and authors of their pain and suffering.

Please visit our page highlighting ways you can help in these efforts.

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Torture program scarred many people

(Reprinted from The Clayton News-Star)

New ideas about Johnston County’s involvement in torture emerged from an April 8-10 conference at Duke University.

Over the past decade, we North Carolinians have experienced war, counterterror and trauma in many forms. Our sons and daughters have fought on the frontlines in Afghanistan and Iraq, and often returned home bearing painful burdens.

Other North Carolinians have taken part in sensitive national security operations, including Special Forces deployments and “extraordinary rendition” flights. And many of us feel outraged at the now-disavowed policies of secret detention and torture.

In Johnston County, interactions over torture have often been adversarial – understandable when so much is at stake. But at the recent conference, it became apparent to us that while North Carolina has played a critical role in the implementation of torture, perhaps there is more to unite us than to divide us.

At the conference, we learned that a European investigation uncovered chilling details of a secret program based on bilateral agreements between the United States and most European nations.

After leaving their base at the Johnston County Airport or the Kinston JetPort, Aero Contractors jets would stop in Washington, D.C., to pick up CIA “snatch teams.” Around the globe, detainees were handed over to those teams in secret to be stripped, beaten, hooded, diapered, shackled, handcuffed and rectally sedated – all in the presence of Aero crews.

Aero Contractors personnel operated aircraft on “rendition circuits,” in which prisoners were secretly shuttled among pickup points, foreign jails and secret CIA secret torture facilities. Joining in a systematic coverup, Aero pilots disguised flight plans to help the CIA avoid detection.

Binyam Mohamed, a United Kingdom resident transported to Morocco by Aero Contractors for the CIA, was reportedly held in secret for 18 months and subjected to brutal beatings and slicing of the genitals and torso. He was “rendered” again by Aero Contractors pilots to the “Dark Prison” in Afghanistan, held for many months in complete darkness and kept awake for days at a time by continuous loud sounds.

After years at Guantanamo, Binyam was released without charges – and without acknowledgment or apology from our government.

Some “rendered” detainees disappeared and may have died as a result of torture. Others remain at Guantanamo indefinitely, without a trial. Those eventually released without charges have never received an apology, restitution or any support in trying to make new lives.

Although this history is appalling, the employees of Aero Contractors were not the authors of the “extraordinary rendition” program. They were the pilots, the mechanics and the crew, some of whom themselves may be affected by their involvement with torture.

It is the officials who planned, authorized and justified such unlawful conduct in our names – in contradiction to our proud history of protecting civil and human rights – who should be held accountable.

To do that, we need transparency at all levels.

There must be both justice and healing for all those scarred by extraordinary rendition, and we hope that employees at Aero Contractors can join us on this path.

We at N.C. Stop Torture Now have played our part in adversarial relations with the employees of Aero. While extraordinary rendition has caused serious damage to those who were kidnapped and tortured, as a state and a nation we are all harmed. The United States’ walk on the “dark side” of torture and secret detention has robbed us all of our most precious birthrights: the rule of law and our basic value of respect for human life.

Across our differences, what unites us is our desire to be proud of our communities and our country. We all want safety and peace for our children. We all value human life and are ready to stand up for democracy.

Together, we can acknowledge what went wrong and bring it to the light of day. We can seek out those who were harmed, learn what they need, offer apologies and begin to make amends.

–Christina Cowger, Coordinator, NC Stop Torture Now

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Weaving a Net of Accountability: Taking on extraordinary rendition at the state and regional levels

The three-day conference detailed at Weaving a Net of Accountability, was launched by an interfaith service attended by about 40 who were led in reflections on the congregation of humanity's obligation to our brothers and sisters, and featured a keynote address by Scott Horton, a contributing editor for Harper's Magazine, author of the blog "No Comment" and an expert on international law and extraordinary rendition.

Horton told an audience of about 90, including U.S. Representative David Price (NC – Fouth District), his view of the talk's title "The Unresolved Legacy of Guantánamo" as shorthand for the nation's retreat from the rule of law and citizens' obligation to reclaim foundational values of the nation.

During Friday, April 9, a group of between between 70 and 80 was guided by a diverse and uniquely qualified group of speakers in an exploration and struggle with the challenge of framing and moblizing the reclamation project Horton described the night before. Of especial concertn was whether North Carolinians have either a special obligation or an organizational head start on seeding and nurturing such an effort from the grassroots.

Videos of the Friday panel presentations are available here.

On Saturday, April 10, a smaller, self-selected group worked in earnest to synthesize lessons and listening from the day before into an action plan and has charged a group to move forward on that task.

Additional details on that effort will be shared here, and youranalysis, commitment and feedback are welcome. Visit our contact page to offer these in the most constructive fashion.

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Extraordinary Rendition, Disappearances & Torture:
Selected survivors' struggles for justice, in light of the Obama administration's resistance to the rule of law

As truthout.org reports:

On the heels of President Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, the American Civil Liberties Union offered frank, focused and critical reaction to the President's professed commitment to the rule of law, human rights, and American values "not just when it is easy, but when it is hard."

"We're increasingly disappointed and alarmed by the current administration's stance on accountability for torture," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, during a conference call with reporters. "On every front, the [Obama] administration is actively obstructing accountability. This administration is shielding Bush administration officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture."

Nobel laureate Obama is openly defiant of United States' obligations under the Convention Against Torture, by refusing to conduct a full investigation of extraordinary rendition, disappearance and torture of detainees. Indeed, Attorney General Eric Holder works actively to block lawsuits that demand release of torture evidence or seek civil penalties against officials implicated in the torture.

George Washington University Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley asserts that the Obama administration argues to reverse more than six decades of US legal precedents – dating back to the post-World War II Nuremberg trials – which held that legal wordsmiths who clear the way for war crimes share the guilt with the actual perpetrators.

BINYAM MOHAMED:

The Guardian / Observer (United Kingdom) reports:

A recently declassified legal opinion from US District Court Judge Gladys Kessler reinforces British resident Binyam Mohamed's claim that he was tortured.

Judge Kessler's favorable ruling on a writ of habeas corpus petition in the case of Saeed Farhi, a prisoner from Algeria who has been held at Guantánamo for almost eight years found that there was "credible" evidence that a British resident was tortured while being held on behalf of the CIA, and acknowledged that the US government does not dispute Mohamed was tortured while being held at "its behest."

Mohamed is fighting to prove that British authorities knew he was being subjected to torture and mistreatment.

Judge Kesslers's opion states: "Binyam Mohamed's trauma lasted two long years. During that time, he was physically and psychologically tortured. His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in plots to imperil Americans. The government does not dispute this evidence."

Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of the human rights group, Reprieve, described the US ruling as "another nail in the coffin of the British government's attempts to cover up" its role in Mohamed's treatment.

MAHER ARRAR:

June 14, 2010 – The U.S. Supreme Court denied Canadian Maher Arar any chance of restorative justice from the U.S. judiciary.

Arar was detained during a stopover at JFK Airport on suspicion of terrorist activity.

The Bush administration then denied him adequate counsel and shipped him to Syria, where he was tortured in an underground cell in Damascus for nearly a year.

Following an extensive Canadian public inquiry, Arar won full exoneration from Ottawa in 2007, including public apologies and $10 million in damages.

But, Arar himself said the Supreme Court decision "eliminates my last bit of hope in the judicial system of the United States."

"When the history of this distinguished court is written, today's majority decision will be viewed with dismay," wrote Judge Guido Calabresi in his dissent from a 7-4 en banc opinion of the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued November 2, 2009, as the case worked its way up the high court.

As Scott Horton reports for Harper's:

"In the Arar case, state secrecy claims are preposterous because the diplomatic and intelligence relationship that would supposedly have been compromised was that with Canada, and the Canadians had already come clean about what had happened and confessed to their own part in it, publishing a report as thick as two Manhattan telephone books. In this process, the Canadians behaved just like a modern democracy should. So it is not damage to relations with our neighbor to the North that is a concern. Rather, it is embarrassment of political figures in Washington."

AMIR MESHAL:

The Washington Post and The Public Record report:

On the heels of the Second Circuit's ruling in Arar v. Ashcroft (above) that only Congress and the executive branch of government – not the courts – can interfere with government-sponsored extraordinary rendition, a U.S. citizen from New Jersey seeks restitution from the US government for damages endured during his disappearnce and abuse in three different African natios over a period of four months.

Amir Meshal, 24, the son of Muslim immigrants from Egypt is represented by the ACLU, whose complaint alleges that Mesahal was arrested after fleeing hostilities in Somalia during 2006, secretly imprisoned in inhumane conditions, and subjected to harsh interrogations by US officials over 30 times in three different countries before ultimately being released four months later without charge.

"This case challenges the US government's effort to evade accountability for illegal detention and interrogations in counter-terrorism operations by masking and hiding its involvement," said Jonathan Hafetz, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.

According to the ACLU, Meshal was studying Islam in Mogadishu, Somalia, in December 2006, when hostilities broke out. With the airport disabled by bombing, Meshal fled to neighboring Kenya, where he wandered in the forest for three weeks seeking shelter and assistance before being arrested. Following his arrest, he was detained and repeatedly interrogated by U.S. officials who threatened to harm him, denied him access to counsel and accused him of receiving training from al-Qaeda, which Meshal denied.

Following his arrest and detention in Kenya, the suit says Meshal was illegally rendered to Somalia and then to Ethiopia where he was imprisoned in secret for over three months. There, U.S. officials subjected him to harsh interrogations while denying him due process and access to a lawyer, his family or anyone else in the outside world.

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updated 10 July 2010, JMcI

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