Turning the page on torture
June is Torture Awareness Month, and religious leaders are spending time this month to help ensure that America never tortures again. Between now and the end of the month, events from Iowa to California will lift up the faith community’s call for a Commission of Inquiry. This would be an independent, non-partisan commission, and its purpose would be to shed light on post-9/11 U.S. interrogation and detainee treatment practices.
Today scores of faith leaders from across the nation (coming from Maine, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and more) are taking part in the National Religious Campaign Against Torture’s public witness across the street from the White House in Lafayette Square, and dozens of faith leaders are meeting with White House officials, including representatives of the Office of Public Engagement and the White House Counsel’s office to present the administration with an interfaith letter calling for a Commission of Inquiry.
The religiously-motivated call for a Commission of Inquiry is grounded in a deep concern for our country’s soul. People of faith are speaking out to encourage leaders of both parties to put aside partisan interests and find out once and for all how our torture regime came to be. NRCAT’s statement that “nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation” is poignant and true. A thorough accounting will require courage and will, and that’s why we need voices of conscience from the faith community to push our leaders to uphold our values and ideals.