An End to Torture
Twelve Nobel Peace Prize
laureates have written to President Barack Obama asking the US to close
the dark chapter on torture once and for all. Please add your voice in
support of their message below. It will be forwarded to the President.
And please share widely.
say #NoToTorture
...''those inflicting the torture, as well as those ordering it, are nearly irreparably degraded by the practice. ''
The Authors
Click on image to learn more about these Nobel Peace Prize winners.
The Letter
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
The open
admission by the President of the United States that the country engaged
in torture is a first step in the US coming to terms with a grim
chapter in its history. The subsequent release of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence summary report will be an opportunity for the
country and the world to see, in at least some detail, the extent to
which their government and its representatives authorized, ordered and
inflicted torture on their fellow human beings.
We are
encouraged by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s recognition that “the creation
of long-term, clandestine ‘black sites’ and the use of so-called
‘enhanced-interrogation techniques’ were terrible mistakes,” as well as
the Senate Committee’s insistence that the report be truthful and not
unnecessarily obscure the facts. They are important reminders that the
justification of the torture of another human being is not a unanimous
opinion in Washington, or among Americans as a whole.
We have
reason to feel strongly about torture. Many of us among the Nobel Peace
Prize laureates have seen firsthand the effects of the use of torture in
our own countries. Some are torture survivors ourselves. Many have also
been involved in the process of recovery, of helping to walk our
countries and our regions out of the shadows of their own periods of
conflict and abuse.
It is with
this experience that we stand firmly with those Americans who are
asking the US to bring its use of torture into the light of day, and for
the United States to take the necessary steps to emerge from this dark
period of its history, never to return.
The
questions surrounding the use of torture are not as simple as how one
should treat a suspected terrorist, or whether the highly dubious claim
that torture produces “better” information than standard interrogation
can justify its practice. Torture is, and always has been, justified in
the minds of those who order it.
But the
damage done by inflicting torture on a fellow human being cannot be so
simplified. Nor is the harm done one-sided. Yes, the victims experience
extreme physical and mental trauma, in some cases even losing their
lives. But those inflicting the torture, as well as those ordering it,
are nearly irreparably degraded by the practice.
As torture continues to haunt the waking hours of its victims long
after the conflict has passed, so it will continue to haunt its
perpetrators.
When a
nation’s leaders condone and even order torture, that nation has lost
its way. One need only look to the regimes where torture became a
systematic practice – from Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany to the French
in Algeria, South Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge and others – to see the
ultimate fate of a regime so divorced from their own humanity.
The
practices of torture, rendition and imprisonment without due process by
the United States have even greater ramifications. The United States,
born of the concept of the inherent equality of all before the law, has
been since its inception a hallmark that would be emulated by countries
and entire regions of the world. For more than two centuries, it has
been the enlightened ideals of America’s founders that changed
civilization on Earth for the better, and made the US a giant among
nations.
The
conduct of the United States in the treatment of prisoners through two
World Wars, upholding the tenets of the Geneva Convention while its own
soldiers suffered greatly from violations at the hands of its enemies,
again set a standard of treatment of prisoners that was emulated by
other countries and regions.
These are
the Americans we know. And believing that most Americans still share
these ideals, these are the Americans we speak to.
In recent
decades, by accepting the flagrant use of torture and other violations
of international law in the name of combating terrorism, American
leaders have eroded the very freedoms and rights that generations of
their young gave their lives to defend. They have again set an example
that will be followed by others; only now, it is one that will be used
to justify the use of torture by regimes around the world, including
against American soldiers in foreign lands. In losing their way, they
have made us all vulnerable.
From
around the world, we will watch in the coming weeks as the release of
the Senate findings on the United States torture program brings the
country to a crossroads. It remains to be seen whether the United States
will turn a blind eye to the effects of its actions on its own people
and on the rest of the world, or if it will take the necessary steps to
recover the standards on which the country was founded, and to once
again adhere to the international conventions it helped to bring into
being.
It is our hope that the United States will take the latter path, and we jointly suggest that the steps include:
a.
Full disclosure to the American people of the extent and use of torture
and rendition by American soldiers, operatives, and contractors, as
well as the authorization of torture and rendition by American
officials.
b. Full verification of the closure and dismantling of ‘black sites” abroad for the use of torture and interrogation.
c. Clear planning and implementation for the closure of Guantanamo
prison, putting an end to indefinite detention without due process.
d. Adoption of firm policy and oversight restating and upholding
international law relating to conflict, including the Geneva Convention
and the UN Convention against Torture, realigning the nation to the
ideals and beliefs of their founders – the ideals that made the United
States a standard to be emulated.
Respectfully,
President José Ramos-Horta, Timor-Leste,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1996 Leymah Gbowee, Liberia,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2011
John Hume, Northern Ireland,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1998
Bishop Carlos X. Belo, Timor-Leste,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1996
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1996 Leymah Gbowee, Liberia,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2011
John Hume, Northern Ireland,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1998
Bishop Carlos X. Belo, Timor-Leste,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1996
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1984
Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2006
F.W. De Klerk, South Africa,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1993
Betty Williams, Northern Ireland,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1976
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1984
Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2006
F.W. De Klerk, South Africa,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1993
Betty Williams, Northern Ireland,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1976
Mohammad ElBaradei, Egypt,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2005
Oscar Arias Sanchez, Costa Rica,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1987
Jody Williams, USA,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1997
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Argentina,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1980
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2005
Oscar Arias Sanchez, Costa Rica,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1987
Jody Williams, USA,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1997
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Argentina,
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1980