From the Archive

Platform Planks – Torture Abolition and Accountability

Torture Abolition and Accountability[1]

Close the Guantanamo Prison

1. The US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay is both a primary site and enduring symbol of post-9- 11 US torture. The prison must close immediately.
2. All remaining Guantanamo detainees who are not under indictment for serious crimes will be immediately repatriated or resettled. Repatriation to Yemen should be an option for Yemeni nationals. All detained men, simply put, should be fairly tried or released.
3. The Military Commissions will be brought to an end. Those prisoners currently on trial, or awaiting trial, before Military Commissions should be transferred into competent, civilian courts, federal courts, or international courts under international sovereignty. All evidence regarding allegations made against them, and all pertinent documentation regarding treatment of defendants while under government custody, must be made available to defendants and their counsel. Any evidence obtained under torture is inadmissible under law. If valid evidence is insufficient to prosecute, the charges must be dropped and the defendants must be released.
4. The current legislative ban on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States will be revoked.
5. A fair and well-managed process will be established for all formerly detained men to swiftly secure damages for their unjust detention and abuse.
6. All onerous bans on the travel of formerly detained men to the United States will be removed, so that they may address US media and participate in various forums seeking accountability.
7. Substantial US monetary and other resources will be disbursed to aid the resettlement and well-being of formerly detained men.
8. Serious negotiations with the sovereign state of Cuba to return the entire US Naval base at Guantanamo to the Cuban state and people will be initiated. It is an unpardonable indignity that the United States committed torture on Cuban soil, in a facility that by treaty was only ever to be used for the refueling of naval vessels.
9. The US government will immediately and absolutely renounce indefinite detention without charge.[2]

Ensure Accountability for Torture[3]

10. A full and unsparing record of US torture, based on government documents and internal government investigations, must be made public (with reasonable measures to protect potentially sensitive information). The full Senate Torture Report will be released immediately, along with any and all other investigations by US military and civilian agencies into the US treatment of detainees.
11. The US Department of Justice will discontinue invoking states’ secrets, executive privilege, and other national security grounds to stop lawsuits from victims of US torture, rendition, and other abuse against individuals in the US government, government agencies, and private companies. Victims of US policies and practices should have their day in criminal and civil courts.
12. The US Department of Justice will scrutinize the entirety of the Senate Torture Report to determine the existence of evidence of indictable crimes. Should such evidence exist, DOJ will bring appropriate indictments against CIA and other personnel.
13. The US government will honor its obligation under the UN Convention Against Torture to seriously investigate alleged violations of the Convention by its citizens and agencies of the government itself.
14. All branches of the US government, working with human rights bodies, journalists, legal advocates, religious figures, and torture victims, will devise a comprehensive legal process to investigate and, when/if warranted, prosecute all those who criminally participated, or were criminally complicit, in torture. These investigations should not regard rank, title, or position in the US government in determining eligibility for prosecution. Such a process could be directed by a special prosecutor, exist within conventional courts, or in an international forum.
15. The United States will sign and ratify the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, which would allow U.S. citizens to be tried for war crimes in an internationally-recognized venue. 

Strengthen Anti-Torture Provisions[4]

16. Congress will pass legislation making torture a federal crime inside the United States, and not only outside the United States (as currently stipulated in Section 2340 of the federal criminal code).
17. The US government US Army Field Manual on Interrogations will be amended so as to a) eliminate appendixes that permit abusive treatment and b) explicitly prohibit stress positions and abnormal sleep.
18. The United States will work with the international community to amend the Convention Against Torture so as to explicitly describe and prohibit all forms of psychological torture.
19. The US government will proactively challenge all nations — especially its allies — that torture their own or other citizens to cease this practice.
20. The US will grant asylum to additional survivors who have fled their countries after being brutally tortured.

[1] Torture is always and in every sense wrong. It is a violation of human rights; a breach of domestic laws and international conventions; a sin to all faiths; a moral outrage; a profound abuse of the body, the psyche and the soul; and an enduring trauma that can destroy individuals, families, and whole communities.

The People’s Convention calls for the total abolition of torture throughout the world. We demand, in particular, that the United States fully repudiate torture, which became a systematic state practice following September 11, 2001. We sharply denounce the pro-torture candidacy of Republican nominee Donald Trump. Trump’s call to “bring back” plainly illegal torture techniques like waterboarding should alone disqualify him from consideration for the presidency. However, both Republican and Democratic administrations and politicians have been complicit in torture policies over the last 15 years. All lawmakers and candidates have an obligation to relegate torture to the US past.

[2] President Bush asserted, and President Obama formally claimed by Executive Order, the right to detain captives indefinitely without charge or trial. This is illegal and wrong.

[3] Torture policies were devised or condoned by our highest elected officials and their staffs, including the President and Vice President, and leading cabinet heads, notably the Secretary of Defense. Torture was carried out by US intelligence officials, civilian contractors, and uniformed US military. It was sometimes assisted by professionals in the fields of medicine and psychology. (The American Psychiatric Association has since taken a position prohibiting its members from participating in these) And yet almost no one — whether they concocted, facilitated, or executed torture policies — has ever been held to legal account for their treatment of detainees. Shortly after becoming Attorney General in 2009, Eric Holder announced that the DoJ would not pursue criminal investigations of US intelligence and military personnel operating under the aegis of since-discredited DoJ memos that essentially authorized torture. This was a an unconscionable whitewash of criminal activity, terrible mistake, as it both effectively immunized torture and accepted the power of the Executive to unilaterally rewrite without accountability for torture, the rule of law and the US justice system stand shattered. The law, moreover, is removed as a deterrent to current and future torturers.

The People’s Convention seeks meaningful legal and other forms of accountability for US torture. We are motivated not by a desire for punishment but rather the desire for justice for survivors of torture victims and assurance that the United States will never again torture anyone in its custody/protection.

[4] As indicated, US and international law already prohibits torture and the cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of detainees. Nonetheless, existing laws can be strengthened.