January, 2012 - Center for Victims of Torture

December 16, 2011 - Center for Victims of Torture

St. Paul, MN – The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) is profoundly disappointed that Congress has approved, and President Obama has agreed to sign into law, new legal authorization for indefinite detention of captured terrorism suspects under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA). This action marks the first time the United States has statutorily authorized cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees.

May 2, 2011 - The New York Times

AMMAN, Jordan — The first time the Iraqi Army arrested him, he said, soldiers burst into his shop in Baghdad, dragged him out in handcuffs and a blindfold, and took him to a filthy, overcrowded prison. Beatings, rape, hunger and disease were rampant, and he expected at any moment to be killed. He was held for four months, until December 2008. Continue reading...

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 30 - On June 24, 2007, Douglas Johnson from Minneapolis sat at a dinner in Washington, D.C.'s, historic Tabard Inn, brainstorming strategies for stopping coercive interrogation tactics the White House had authorized in the name of fighting terror.

No point in mincing words. They were talking about torture.

On Jan. 22 this year, President Obama sat a few blocks from the scene of that dinner and signed an executive order banning the interrogation tactics at issue.

By Douglas Johnson,
Executive Director of the Center for Victims of Torture (Minneapolis), a member of the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights.

In his inaugural speech, President Barack Obama spoke of the "false choice between our safety and our ideals." These words were a subtle but important signal that monumental policy change would be coming in regard to U.S. interrogation rules.

DAYTON, Oct 10 - University of Dayton President Daniel J. Curran will become the first president of a U.S. Catholic university to sign a national petition calling for the president to reject cruelty and torture.

"As a Catholic, Marianist University, we affirm the statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that the use of torture must be rejected as fundamentally incompatible with the dignity of the human person and ultimately counterproductive in combatting terrorism," Curran said.

CHICAGO, July 18 -- On June 25, 2008, the Center for Victims of Torture, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and Evangelicals for Human Rights launched the Campaign to Ban Torture: American Voices for American Values. Today, we are happy to announce that the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights has officially endorsed the campaign.

“No act of war, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture"

WASHINGTON, June 25, 2008 - A bipartisan group of 200 former government officials, retired generals and religious leaders plans to issue a statement on Wednesday calling for a presidential order to outlaw some interrogation and detention practices used by the Bush administration over the last six years.

The executive order they seek would commit the government to using only interrogation methods that the United States would find acceptable if used by another country against American soldiers or civilians.

NOV. 28 - Coalition partners are concluding a six-month initiative in Iowa working to raise awareness of the issues surrounding U.S. interrogation policy and torture and abuse suffered at the hands of U.S. officials. With the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus just weeks away, there is no doubt that Iowans will play a unique and important role in shaping the national dialogue on this vital issue.