Renounce Torture

The Senate will soon consider Alberto Gonzales' nomination to become Attorney General, replacing John Ashcroft. Gonzales is the White House counsel notorious for opening the door to torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons.

"We call on Alberto Gonzales, nominee for Attorney General, and members of the Senate to unequivocally renounce torture by signing the Declaration Against Torture."

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	DECLARATION AGAINST TORTURE Whereas torture and cruel, inhuman 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 U.S. 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 condones it will be punished; apply to all detainees of the United States the legal definitions of 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.

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