NORTH CAROLINA
STOP TORTURE
NOW

PO Box 50345
Raleigh, NC 27650
e-mail via:
contact AT ncstoptorturenow.net

(919) 834-4478
(evenings, or messages during business hours)

North Carolina Stop Torture Now is a grassroots coalition of individuals representing themselves and a diversity of faith, human rights, peace, veteran, and student groups across the state.

We aim to stop torture everywhere, and have worked since 2005 to expose and end North Carolina's central role in the ongoing U.S. torture program.

Our special focus has been on the "torture taxis" of Aero Contractors, Ltd. of Smithfield, and Centurion Aviation of Fayetteville. Both are nominally private companies linked to the operation of aircraft in clandestine support of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. Extraordinary rendition is a phrase that disguises the kidnap, detention and torture of individuals alleged to be enemies of the United States, including those guilty of nothing other than being misidentified.

Aero Contractors' headquarters is located at the Johnston County Airport near Smithfield, NC.

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JOIN US at our next Meeting
2-4 pm, Sunday, August 2

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh (UUFR)
3313 Wade Avenue
in the Clara Barton Room

We've abandoned (at least temporarily) the 4th Sunday schedule announced previously, and will take a hiatus during July.

Next meeting is also scheduledin the Clara Barton room at UUFR:

2 pm, Sunday, September 13

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Got Change?

During his candidacy, President Obama promised change.

So far all we've seen is sleight of hand.

NCSTN welcomed the President's prompt announcement of plans to close Guantánamo and his promise to end the use of torture by U.S. military and intelligence operatives.

We noted, though, that the President stopped short of any commitment to prohibit the kidnap and disappearances of children and men to third countries for indefinite detention and torture.

Since then, our concerns are amplified rather than assuaged.

President Obama and his administration:

1) Have taken no steps to end extraordinary rendition.

Indeed, there is every reason to believe the program has been accelerated and expanded.

2) Has refused to advocate for and enforce detainees' right to due process.

Insisting, instead, that certain men and children enjoy no right to hear and challenge charges against them.

3) Continues to thwart victims' and survivors' access to restorative justice by shielding his and the previous executives' actions behind the veil of state secrets.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert notes that:

"One of the most disappointing aspects of the early months of the Obama administration has been its unwillingness to end many of the mind-numbing abuses linked to the so-called war on terror and to establish a legal and moral framework designed to prevent those abuses from ever occurring again."

...

"Americans should recoil as one against the idea of preventive detention, imprisoning people indefinitely, for years and perhaps for life, without charge and without giving them an opportunity to demonstrate their innocence."

Our nation was founded on resistance to just such tyranny, after all.

Yet, this President openly defies federal court orders, echoing tactics used by renegade executives in the Jim Crow South.

As Amnesty International notes:

"President Obama noted in a May 21, 2009 speeach that 'the United States is a nation of laws, and we must abide by ...' (federal court rulings)

Yet, Chadian national Mohammed el Gharani, first taken into custody by the USA when he was 14 years old, was not released from Guantánamo until June 11, 2009, five months after his immediate release was ordered by a federal court. Even then, although the US Department of Justice noted the judicial order, it stated that the release was the result of executive review of the case."

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Mothers Against Torture

On May 10, NCSTN activists and allies gathered to encourage our neighbors to demand accountability, even as torture advocate and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey spoke at the UNC Law School Graduation. Graduates' families were offered a Mother's Day Card (available here in ready-to-fold format) with an explanation of extraordinary rendition and specific actions they could take to demand a exposure and end of the program.

The event was covered by local television news, and was introduced by an excellent opinion piece from UNC-Law faculty member, Joseph E.Kennedy.

***

Leaders in the NC General Assembly Urge Select Members of North Carolina's Congressional Delegation to Press Obama Department of Justice for Overdue Investigation

On March 10, Representatives Paul Luebke, Earl Jones and Pricey Harrison sent Congressmen Miller, Price, Watt and Butterfield a letter urging each to follow-up on Attorney General Cooper's and Congressman Watt's request for an FBI investigation of Aero Contractors.

On June 11, NCSTN leaders Peggy Misch and Andy Silver joined the National Religious Campaign Against Torture in a day of action and lobbying in Washington, D.C. and visited with several members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation to ask for Congressional action to ensure accountability and restorative justice.

***

Johnston County Board of Commissioners Won't Scrutinize Aero Contractors

NCSTN members and allies have returned every month since visiting the Johnston County Board of Commissioners, March 2, when Chairman Wade Stewart asked if any commissioner wanted to offer a motion in support of investigating Aero Contractors' involvement with the kidnap, disappearance and torture of hundreds.

NC Stop Torture Now and allies from the NAACP of Johnston County, and other groups were following up on a request pending before the board since February, and are taking the request to the streets and parking lots of Johnston County gathering signatures on petitions from Johnston County residents who recognize that "torture is not a value of Johnston County."

During his response to questions from Christina Cowger, Chairman Stewart noted that, in his view, "If torture were not ... at times ... effective ... it would have ceased 2,000 years ago, because it didn't work."

To hear Chairman Stewart's response to Cowger, visit: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJDJJo94YU>

Allyson Caison, of Selma, introduced guest speaker Floyd McGurk, by reminding the Board of their moral responsibility to take action.

McGurk, a decorated veteran with two sons and two other kin actively serving in Iraq, gave the Board a brief history lesson and read from the personal observations of service men and women who are convinced that torture is not only wrong, but jeopardizes their safety.

McGurk focused, though, on reminding the commissioners that history would be the ultimate judge of their actions. Someday, he noted, perhaps years from now there will be a reporter or a graduate student who reads the transcript of this meeting and judges each commissioner by the Board's action.

McGurk elaborated on the points he made before the Board in a letter published by the Clayton News-Star, March 11. (*.pdf archive version of: McGurk's Letter to the Editor)

Walt Caison, of Selma, and Chuck Fager, of Quaker House in Fayetteville, underscored McGurk's appeal to the commissioners' duty to their legacy and to their community.

Caison wondered if the days of shielding the tenants in a big blue hangar may become as notorious as the days when the county was known as a haven for terrorist syndicates such as the Ku Klux Klan.

Fager noted that momentum was building in the nation to hold accountable those responsible for the U.S. torture policy. He said NCSTN and allies were offering the Board an opportunity to show leadership and get on the right side of this issue.

The dialogue -- including testimony from four Johnston County residents -- was marked by Chairman Stewart's observation that water boarding is not torture and that -- in his opinion -- torture must sometimes be effective.

Among the Johnston County residents who testified was Katherine Parker, of Clayton, who disagreed with Stewart that torture works, but explained that it doesn't matter whether torture works, because Americans have a duty to each other and the founding principles of our nation to rise above it.

Ultimately, though, the Board followed advice from County Attorney Mark Payne, who characterized appeals to the Board's sense of conscience and posterity as misguided and declined to act.

Read about the meeting in the Raleigh News & Observer's online edition.

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updated 25 June 2009, JMcI

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