NATIONAL RELIGIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST TORTURE
ADVOCATING FOR U.S. POLICIES THAT HELP END TORTURE BY OTHER GOVERNMENTS
READ THE NEW YORKER ARTICLE, IT IS JUST EXCELLENT
READ THE NEW YORKER ARTICLE, IT IS JUST EXCELLENT
Torture is widely practiced by governments across the globe despite prohibitions found in international and national laws. The United States government can use its resources to encourage other countries to reject the use of torture.
NRCAT will:
1. Urge President Obama to sign the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT). This treaty would help protect all prisoners in U.S. custody from torture by setting up mechanisms to ensure that U.S. laws prohibiting torture are followed in all detention facilities, including prisons, mental hospitals, jails, and other places of confinement.
Strategies include:
* Producing and promoting an educational video on OPCAT;
* Asking national senior religious leaders, individual people of faith, and religious organizations to endorse a statement calling upon the President to sign the treaty;
* Meeting with the State Department about the treaty.
* Producing and promoting an educational video on OPCAT;
* Asking national senior religious leaders, individual people of faith, and religious organizations to endorse a statement calling upon the President to sign the treaty;
* Meeting with the State Department about the treaty.
2. Advocate for the State Department to prepare a "Torture Watchlist" of countries engaged in torture and to make U.S. assistance available for efforts to end the use of torture.
3. Advocate for legislation that provides incentives to foreign governments that are making significant efforts to end torture in their countries. One way to do this is to add provisions to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act that offer positive incentives, including monetary assistance for initiatives by foreign governments to end torture (such as training local police forces to use humane interrogation techniques).
On December 10, 2009, the Board of Directors of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture voted to continue its efforts to end U.S.-sponsored torture forever and to expand into two new areas of work: ending torture in U.S. prisons and advocating for U.S. policies and practices that help end torture by other governments.
Learn more about the need for advocating for U.S. policies and practices that help end torture by other governments (PDF)
Solitary Confinement Toolkit:
Top Five Recommended Comprehensive Resources
4. Annals of Human Rights: Hellhole - Is solitary confinement torture?
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The National Religious Campaign Against Torture's work on U.S. prisons is primarily focused on the use of solitary confinement. Solitary confinement has a variety of labels including isolation, segregation (“seg”), “the hole”, and many more. Regardless of the label, the conditions share common features. Prisoners are held by themselves in small cells for up to 23 hours per day and exercise alone for the remaining hour. Some prisoners have been held for months, years, even decades, in these isolated conditions and have experienced long-term mental harm as a result. Many studies have documented the detrimental psychological effects of solitary confinement, such as hallucinations, paranoia, and panic attacks. For NRCAT, the term 'prolonged solitary confinement’ is equated to torture - the point when the use of solitary confinement results in severe mental or physical pain or suffering.
