Accountability Now—Ending Torture Forever

On Friday, June 25th, the Alliance for Justice is cosponsoring a panel discussion focused on ending U.S. sponsored torture and marking the United Nation’s International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The event will be moderated by Jim Winkler, who is the General Secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, and will feature the following speakers: David Cole, JD (Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center), Sr. Dianne Ortiz (DC office director of Pax Christi USA a torture survivor), Sondra Crosby, MD (Assistant Professor of Medicine and Boston University School of Medicine) and Matthew Alexander (Author of How to Break a Terrorist and former senior interrogator of the United States Air Force). RSVP for the event, Accountability Now - Ending Torture Forever.

The informative event will also feature clips from AFJ's film Tortured Law, and a large group of torture survivors will be present to participate in small group discussions following the panel.

Another one of the cosponsors of the event is AFJ member organization, Physicians for Human Rights. Their recently released report "Experiments in Torture" is the first report to reveal evidence indicating that CIA medical personnel allegedly engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after 9/11, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture. They have since filed a complaint to the Office of Human Research Protections demanding there be an investigation in regards to the CIA’s possible experimentation on detainees. If the complaint is proven to be accurate, the torture and experimentation will have violated the Geneva Conventions, Common Rule, and other international and domestic policies in regard to human experimentation. The Alliance for Justice has signed on to this petition and urges AFJ supporter’s to take action now by joining the OHRP complaint.

The Alliance for Justice has been working on accountability for torture for years, and most recently honored the cast and crew of Law and Order for their remarkable depiction of the "torture memos" from the Bush administration in “Memo from the Dark Side” at our annual luncheon. Watch the video from the event.