NORTH CAROLINA STOP TORTURE NOW

HELP OUT

What can you do to help end extraordinary rendition and achieve accountability for victims and survivors of the United States' program of kidnapping, extra-judicial transfer, indefinite detention and torture?

First and foremost, use our resources pages to learn about the criminal conduct your tax dollars support. Torture-by-proxy is as morally abhorrent as murder-for-hire.

Once you're convinced that torture is immoral, illegal and ineffective, share the message by reaching out to your friends, family and neighbors. In the words of one NCSTN activist, the most effective work is witness.

NCSTN actively seeks to diversify individual and group membership in our coalition. If you have suggestions, would like to host a speaker at your organization's meeting, or can assist in this initiative, please let us know.

JOIN US at our Next Meeting:

2-4 p.m., Sunday, May 19, 2013

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh
3313 Wade Avenue

Organizational and Individual Endorsements Sought
on Call for North Carolina Citizens' Commission of Inquiry

The next steps in seeking accountability for our state’s role in extraordinary rendition have begun and your support is needed.

Details are here.

Please get in touch if your organization recognizes the need for formal examination of North Carolina's role in extraordinary rendition and is ready to commit the time and energy of identified individuals to:

Present, explain and advocate on behalf of the call to other organizations; and

To receive, discuss and respond to the commission report; or

To help build a seed fund to support the staff essential to the work of the commission.

The task of building a broad coalition of organizations and opinion-leaders from around the state and among a diverstiy of political viewpoints, communities of faith, ethnic identity, and socio-economic strata will require sustained effort.

We are convinced, though, that working to achieve accountability is essential.

Our safety, our national ideals, and the integrity of the men and women who risk their lives to defend them depend on it.

Write a Letter of Support to a Guantánamo Detainee

At the close of 2012, 166 men remain in captivity at Guantánamo Bay. At least 100 detainees have been approved for release by the U.S. Government, which recognizes they present no danger to the U.S. or its allies.

Thirty-five detainees are scheduled to face trials, and -- most alarmingly -- 48 others have been designated as suitable for indefinite detention without charge or trial.

On September 8, 2012, Adnan Latif of Yemen was found dead in his cell. Latif had spent 11 years in the prison despite having been cleared in 2004 by the Bush administration and in 2009 by a judge reviewing Latif's habeas petition.

Here is a poem Latif wrote in the prison. The poem was published in the book Poems from Guantánamo:

They are artists of torture,
They are artists of pain and fatigue,
They are artists of insults and humiliation.

Where is the world to save us from torture?
Where is the world to save us from the fire and sadness?
Where is the world to save the hunger strikers?

The youngest to have been held at the prison camp is Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen captured as a child soldier at the age of 15, denied medical treatment and tortured in custody. After initially boycotting a military commission proceeding, Khadr accepted a plea deal, which was roundly criticized by human rights organizations. He was repatriated to Canada in late September 2012.

The oldest is Saifullah Paracha, 64. Paracha was scheduled to fly to Thailand for a business meeting on in July 2003, but when he arrived at the Bangkok airport on July 6, he was seized, hooded, and cuffed, thrown into the back of a vehicle and taken to an unknown location where he was held for a few days, blindfolded, with his ears covered and his hands and legs cuffed.

According to investigative reporting by Stephen Grey in his authoritative work, Ghost Plane, Paracha was flown from Bangkok to Bagram aboard a Gulfstream V aircraft, N379P, based at Smithfield, NC and operated by Aero Contractors, Ltd.

Glenn Greenwald reported that, in August 2010, a military commission sentenced Sudanese detainee Ibrahim al Qosi -- convicted as part of a plea bargain of being an al Qaida foot soldier and sometime driver for Osama bin Laden -- to an undisclosed term. As Greenwald asks: "What kind of country has secret sentences?"

Al Qosi was released to his native Sudan in July 2012.

Please take a moment to write a letter of support to one or more of these men.

Offer a simple message of good will and solidarity. Anything that can be construed as political should be avoided, as it will almost certainly be intercepted and destroyed.

Recall that, in most cases, you will not be writing in the prisoners' first language.

Therefore, simple sentiments, PRINTED AS CLEARLY AS POSSIBLE will be best.

Good choices might be: 'Wishing you peace and happiness for the future,’ or ‘Thinking of you.’ You may choose to use this simple stationery, with text borrowed from Amnesty International USA. If you would like to learn more about this action, please see this background sheet.

Also, writing to prisoners notifies prison staff and the military censors who screen the letters that people care about the individuals in U.S. custody, and are concerned for their welfare.

As an example, one young woman offered this simple, but touching message:

"Dear Fahed Ghazi–
Somewhere in the world, right now, someone is thinking of you, loving you , missing you. You are not alone. You have not been forgotten. Thousands of people support you, think every day of the horrors you endure. You do not deserve this. I hope you will be reunited with your family."

SEND MESSAGES TO:

DETAINEE NAME (from this list provided by No More Guantánamos)
DETAINEE ISN #
Camp Delta
P.O. Box 160
Washington, DC 20053

If your letter is returned, please alert us.

SEND MONEY

NCSTN is an entirely grassroots effort.

We have no office and no paid staff.

Volunteers coordinate our efforts, maintain this Web site, develop and maintain contacts with allies, answer phone calls and e-mail inquiries.

Donations in support of NCSTN's work may be sent to:

North Carolina Stop Torture Now
and mailed to:
PO Box 12707
Raleigh, NC 27605

Questions: contact@ncstoptorturenow.org

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updated 20 April 2013,JMcI

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