FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 2, 2015
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National Faith Leader Speaks Out Against Treatment of Post-9/11 Detainees in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center
Tonight's New York City vigil featured testimony from head of NRCAT, human rights advocates, and detainees' families

NEW YORK – This evening, Rev. Ron Stief, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, joined human rights advocates and the families of detainees in a vigil outside the Metropolitan Correction Center in Lower Manhattan. The vigil was a part of the No Separate Justice campaign to expose and seek an end to the human rights abuses found in the hundreds of "war on terror" cases that have been processed through courtrooms and federal prisons across the United States since 9/11. Stief's participation is a continuation of NRCAT's ongoing work to mobilize the faith community to end the torture of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and to counteract the bigotry behind the mistreatment of detainees.

Rev. Ron Stief, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said at today's vigil, "The immoral post-9/11 epidemic of abuses and isolating people in detention, even pre-trial, did not just happen at Guantanamo or CIA secret overseas prisons. It continues to go on right here in New York City at the federally run Metropolitan Correctional Center.

"Placing any person in isolation for questioning and out of contact with loved ones amounts to one thing and one thing only -- torture. Religious leaders have consistently called for an end to the torture of prolonged solitary confinement at home and the torture of detainees overseas. Today, we call on the federal government to stand accountable to the people of this nation and to God and bring an end to the immoral and torturous practices inside the MCC."

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is a membership organization committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Since its formation in January 2006, more than 300 religious organizations have joined NRCAT, including representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Baha’i, Buddhist, and Sikh communities. Members include national denominations and faith groups, regional organizations and local congregations.
NRCAT.org     @NRCATtweets     facebook.com/nrcat

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