FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 9, 2015
CONTACT: Benny Witkovsky, West End Strategy Team - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Office: 202-776-7700; Cell: 202-765-4290
Faith Community Calls for Swift Passage of McCain-Feinstein Torture Amendment
WASHINGTON – Today, Senators McCain, Feinstein, Reed, and Collins introduced a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would substantially strengthen the legal protections prohibiting the CIA from using torture. The National Religious Campaign Against Torture released the following statements calling for swift inclusion of the amendment in the NDAA:
Rev. Ron Stief, Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said: “Descriptions of the CIA’s torture program, made public in the Senate Intelligence Committee report released last year, include horrible passages involving convulsions, vomiting, and people being chained to ceilings, forced into boxes, and left to die of hypothermia. This report confirmed what many in the faith community have always known: Torture is always wrong, and the CIA operated in a markedly immoral fashion. With this knowledge made public, there is no excuse, Congress must act now to ensure that the CIA never tortures again.”
Matt Hawthorne, Policy Director for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, added: “This amendment would have prohibited the CIA’s torture program. Voting for this amendment is the only way to begin to reconcile with our past actions - voting against it is to show a blatant disregard for the suffering of others. Congress faces a clear choice – pass this amendment and prove that our country values human dignity and decency, or oppose this amendment and continue down a darker path.”
Also, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture joined human rights groups in a joint statement in support of the legislation.
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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