Religious Leaders' Message to Congress: Restore Habeas Corpus
Religious Leaders Speak Out on “Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice”
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
(Washington, DC , June 26, 2007) – As Congress prepares to consider restoring habeas corpus for individuals held in U.S. custody, Evangelical, Jewish, Catholic and Muslim leaders today called for an end to the suspension of habeas corpus and due process, CIA kidnappings, secret prisons, and all acts of torture – without exceptions.
At a press conference on Capitol Hill prior to the “Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice” rally and lobby day, organized by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberty Union and the Leadership Conference of Civil Rights, the leaders specifically called for Congress to reform the abuses of the Military Commissions Act by enacting the Restoring the Constitution Act.
“Torture aims to break not just the body, but the very spirit of a human being,” said Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, “Torture is a major transgression of God's limits. The impact of such a transgression is not just on the victim, but on the souls of all those engaged in and complicit in the evil act.”
Dr. Charles Gutenson, an Evangelical leader and professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, “Jesus not only commanded, but also modeled a way of life that refused to repay evil with evil. When his enemies came for him, he embodied the call to love our enemies. How, then, can we who seek to imitate this Jesus ever see torture as a legitimate tool wielded to serve our own purposes?”
“I am representing hundreds of Rabbis across our land,” stated Rabbi Gerry Serotta, Chair of the Board for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, “who have declared that torture shatters and defiles God’s image. We mean that torture violates the tortured human being, who was created in the likeness of God, as well as the torturer’s human soul, which is inevitably defiled and compromised in dishonoring the image of God in his victim.”
Bishop Walter Sullivan, retired Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of Richmond, Virgnia added, “It is unacceptable that our country which professes a belief in freedom and human rights would resort to acts of torture. Supposedly our nation upholds truth and justice, yet we perform inhuman acts emulating rogue nations where people’s lives are expendable.”
Today’s “Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice” activities for people of faith were organized by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture – a growing membership organization of more than 115 religious groups committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Since its inception in January 2006, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture has:
• Gathered almost 16,000 individual endorsements for NRCAT’s Statement of Conscience, “Torture is a Moral Issue” and placed the statement, signed by 28 national leaders – including Elie Weisel, Pastor Rick Warren, Sayyid Syeed, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, and Jimmy Carter – on the op-ed page of the New York Times.
• Initiated a project to screen the HBO documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib in 1,000 congregations during the week of October 21-28, 2007.
• Supported Evangelicals for Human Rights, which authored “An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture,” which was adopted by the National Association of Evangelicals in March 2007.
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture empowers members of America’s faith community to join one another in religious witness to ensure torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment never play a role in U.S. policy. “For a nation that tortures, compassion and mercy are shoved to the corner of our hearts or buried in self-justification,” said Dr. Mattson in her closing remarks. “We must repent of our actions, restore the ethical basis of our collective authority and repair the damage to the body politic.”
www.tortureisamoralissue.org
###
CONTACT: Rev. Richard Killmer, 207-846-1614 or rkillmer@nrcat.org
