October 25, 2011 - University of Minnesota Law School

Earlier this month, students and faculty working at the University of Minnesota Law School's Immigration and Human Rights Clinic helped a West African man, who prefers to remain anonymous, secure asylum in the United States. After being arrested, starved, beaten, tortured, and sexually humiliated by government soldiers for his political beliefs, the man risked his life to escape imprisonment and travel to the United States.

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.

The Human Rights Center, located in the University of Minnesota Law School, trains and assists the work of human rights professionals and volunteers through five primary programs including: applied human rights research; educational tools; the Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship Program, the Hubert H. Humphrey Human Rights and Law Fellowships and other field and training opportunities; the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library; and through learning communities and partnerships.