June 26th is United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. A few years ago, religious and human rights organizations in the United States declared the month of June to be Torture Awareness Month as a way to provide greater visibility to this issue and provide an opportunity for coordinated actions across the country.

In the spring, NRCAT will provide resources for use in your community during June 2010.

Wrap-up of June 2009 Torture Awareness Month activities

• Read a report about June 11 activities in Washington, DC, including video footage and press stories.
• Read a broader report on activities across the country.
  

 Activities
Worship Resources
Study Resources
Action/Advocacy
Community Outreach
Media Outreach
Other June Events of Note

Worship Resources 

• Encourage your congregation’s leaders to incorporate a sermon, homily, responsive reading, prayer or some other form of liturgy within a worship service. An interfaith prayer and other worship materials are available from NRCAT. Petitions/letter-writing resources could be available after the service.

Study Resources 

• Encourage your congregation to organize an educational event (internal to the congregation or as a public gathering) using the new NRCAT adult study resource Ending U.S.-Sponsored Torture Forever that includes an 18-minute DVD and discussion guide.
• Click here for more information
• Click here to see the trailer.
• Other videos are also available: Primetime Torture or Taxi to the Dark Side.
• An extensive list of additional study resources available here.

Action/Advocacy

• Participate in NRCAT’s Religious Public Witness in front of the White House on June 11. Click here for more information.  If you can’t come to DC, consider organizing a local religious witness on that date.
• Consider organizing a public event (e.g., a speaker or a screening of Taxi to the Dark Side) or public witness (e.g., a candlelight vigil or solemn procession with banners) to mark the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on Friday, June 26.
• Encourage your congregation to organize a delegation(s) to visit the local office(s) of your member(s) of Congress and advocate for a Commission of Inquiry and specific legislation. Interfaith delegations that include clergy are particularly effective. Members of Congress will likely be in their home districts for the July 4th recess, beginning Monday, June 29. More information will be on this page. 

Community Outreach - Banners, Stickers, etc.

• If your congregation has an anti-torture banner, encourage your congregation’s leaders to display it in June.
  
• Encourage your congregation to purchase a new banner with a message focused on “Investigate. Legislate.”
• Actively promote NRCAT’s new bumper stickers and NRCAT’s poster showing banners displayed by congregations in June 2008.

Media Outreach

• Modify this sample media advisory with local information, and use these talking points in seeking media coverage for your local June 2009 activities.
• Seek a visit to the editorial board of your local newspaper to urge them to editorialize on NRCAT’s Agenda for 2009. Click here for guidelines for such visits, based on our successful project in 2008.

Other June Events of Note

TASSC

For the past 12 years, the Torture Abolition and Survivor Support Coalition (TASSC) has played a crucial role in organizing survivors and their friends to publicly oppose torture everywhere in the world. This year TASSC will again sponsor June Survivors Week, which commemorates the UN International Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture, and issues a call to abolish torture once and for all.

We are writing you to encourage you to send letters of support to survivors who will be gathered in front of the White House on June 27. Send your letters to campaign@nrcat.org, and a representative of NRCAT will share them with survivors on that day.

To learn more about TASSC, click here.  For more information, visit www.tassc.org.