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)

PSYCHOLOGISTS PROTEST

DURHAM HERALD-SUN : A Letter to the Editor

FAYETTEVILLE OBSERVER : CENTURION DENIES LINKS TO RENDITION FLIGHTS

GHOST PLANES STILL FLYING - N478GS: MET ON ARRIVAL TO SHANNON, TWO ANTI-TORTURE ACTIVISTS DETAINED (November 28, 2007)

LONDON TIMES: SECRET FLIGHT LOGS REVEAL EUROPEAN COMPLICITY IN RENDITION EUROPEAN MP's CALL GUANTÁNAMONAMO TREATMENT TORTURE
(Nov. 25)

HOUSE VOTES TO END RENDITION PROGRAM (November 14, 2007)

GROUP HONORED WITH CITIZEN'S AWARD (November 2007)

TORTURE CASE AGAINST PRIVATE CONTRACTOR GOES FORWARD (Nov. 6, 2007)

OCT. 27 MARCH, RALLY IN SMITHFIELD

The award winning video of the Oct. 27 "Peace Rally and Walk of Remembrance ..." can be seen at: <http://www.vimeo.com/425389>

PBS' FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION

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Psychologists Protest Support of Torture Program

One hundred psychologists holding signs that read, "Do no harm" and "Abolish torture," about 100 people attended a rally outside the American Psychological Association's annual convention August 16.

A resolution to that effect is being weighed by the organization's 148,000 members.

Explaining division within the organization, Stephen Behnke, who directs the association's ethics office said:"For some, any involvement is complicity. Others maintain that you have to be present to make it clear that these acts are never permissible."

The debate is far from hypothetical, though. Senate Armed Services Commitee investigations reported in Mother Jones indicate that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld actively enlisted psychologists to reverse engineer U.S. military training exercises to guide novice interrogators in torture techniques.

Read more.

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Herald-Sun Runs Member's Letter

"Every North Carolina school kid learns about the Wright Brothers and the story of the first flight at Kitty Hawk back in 1903.

But what about a much newer kind of flight, the so-called "torture taxis" out of Smithfield's Johnston County airport?

...

Any German who spoke up against the murder of the Jews risked prison or death, but we live in a free country with nothing to fear. We have no excuses for looking the other way as America tortures, holds prisoners for years without a trial, and betrays our country's bedrock principles of freedom and liberty.

We know what the history books say about the Wright brothers.

I wonder what they'll say about us."

- Orin Starn
Read the full letter.

***

Fayetteville Observer reports on planespotting at KFAY; Centurion Aviation Services

Dec. 23 - The Fayetteville Observer covered NCSTN's ongoing effort to directly monitor and photograph aircraft linked to torture flights at stop-overs in North Carolina.

The story focused on the August 29 arrival of N475LC at KFAY, which is documented at our planespotting page.
A Centurion Aviation spokesman denied involvement with the CIA's program of kidnap and torture, noting: “We are obliged to protect the privacy of our clients with regards to the nature of their business ... ”

However, Fager later photographed a different aircraft, a Gulftstream IV with FAA registration: N478GS, at Fayetteville Regional/Grannis Field and Irish allies who met the plane in Shannon were detained when they demanded a police investigation of the plane's mission and cargo.

In spite of Centurion officials' denial of involvement in rendition, reporting in the Chicago Tribune describes a very suspicious crash and subsequent disappearance of passgengers on one of the jet's landings in Bucharest.

And, while Centurion denies involvement in rendition flights, the ACLU has gathered evidence that another rendition-linked company, Jeppesen DataPlan, openly told employees what services they provided the CIA.

***

Irish allies arrested meeting N478GS on arrival at Shannon

NCSTN planespotters had photographed the rendition-linked aircraft
at Fayetteville Regional / Grannis Field, November 28

N478GS arrived at Shannon 1:30 a.m., November 29. Two Irish allies, alerted by NCSTN went to the airport in the public viewing gallery and had already requested the police to search the plane if it arrived. Instead, police arrived and arrested the anti-torture activists as the plane arrived at the terminal building.

The activists were released after about an hour.

Via e-mail, one of the activists wrote: "It will become an important test case to challenge why the Irish police have not (been) investigating or searching these CIA planes ..."

The plane they met has been linked to secret prisons served by rendition flights was photograhed on the tarmac at Fayetteville Regional, November 28.

The twin-engine Gulfstream IV with FAA registration number N478GS is the one that crash-landed in Romania last year, and is registered to L-3 IS, LLC of Great Falls, Montana.

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NEWLY REVEALED FLIGHT LOGS POINT TO EUROPEAN COMPLICITY IN TORTURE

Nov. 25 — Stephen Grey reports that "(S)ecret flight plans of American military planes have revealed for the first time how European countries helped send prisoners, including British citizens, to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp."

Europe's leading watchdog on human rights alleged that European countries had breached the international convention against torture by giving the US secret permission to use its airspace.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, said: "What happened at Guantánamo was torture and it is illegal to provide facilities or anything to make this torture possible. Under the law, European governments should have intervened and should not have given permission to let these flights happen."

Read more ... (external link)

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HOUSE VOTES TO END CIA RENDTION PROGRAM

Nov. 14 — The Democrats' $50 billion Iraq funding bill that passed the House would effectively end CIA renditions, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU, one of the largest nonprofit organizations fighting the Bush Administration on torture and civil liberties issues, lauded House members for passing the bill, which faces a rocky road in the Senate.

The Iraq funding measure revises the Army Field Manual to prohibit torture and abuse, including waterboarding, and authorizes an array of specific interrogation tactics. It specifically states that CIA operatives must adhere to these rules as well.

Read more ... (external link)

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2007 Citizen Award

NCSTN is grateful to have been honored by the Independent Weekly for our work to sever North Carolina's ties to torture.

We invite you to join the struggle.

Visit our action page to learn how you can join the struggle.

(Image at left is courtesy of The Independent Weekly, photographer Jeremy M. Lange.)

 

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TORTURE CASE AGAINST PRIVATE CONTRACTOR GOES FORWARD

Nov. 6 — In a key victory in the struggle to end torture, a federal court ruled today that the lawsuit against a private military contractor in Iraq should be heard by a jury of Americans. The action was filed in 2004 against CACI and Titan, both of which were named in the military investigation of the Abu Ghraib scandal. The Center for Constitutional Rights, Burke O’Neil LLC, and Akeel Valentine brought the suit as a class action on behalf of the hundreds of Iraqi torture victims. The same firms filed an action on October 11 against Blackwater USA for the killing of innocent bystanders at Noori Square in September.

The court today ruled that the case could go forward against CACI, whose employees worked as interrogators in the prison. The court found that that there was a dual chain of command where corporate employees were obliged to report abuse up the chain of command at CACI. The court dismissed the claims against Titan, whose employees worked as translators, reasoning that the military exercised exclusive control over the translators.

Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, stated, “This will send a message to all contractors that they cannot act with impunity outside the law ...”

Read more ... (external link)

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PEACE RALLY & WALK OF REMEMBRANCE FOR VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS OF WAR AND TORTURE

Smithfield, NC - Nearly 350 peace, justice and human rights supporters gathered in the seat of Johnston County for a march and rally and at the headquarters of Aero Contractors in a memorial for victims and survivors of war and torture.

As the Smithfield Herald put it in their coverage Tuesday, Oct. 30: "For an afternoon, Smithfield is home to the debate over the War on Terror."

Video and photos from the event:

The award winning video of the Oct. 27 "Peace Rally and Walk of Remembrance ..." can be seen at: <http://www.vimeo.com/425389>

Collected Photos / Videos / Headlines (courtesy John Booth)

More Photographs and Narrative (courtesy Quaker House)

We marched through the town's business hub - from the First Baptist Church, past the Town Hall, opposite the Ava Gardner Museum and past the veterans' memorial statues at the county courthouse.

Paced by the steady cadence of a marching drum, we walked slowly, sang songs and raised both boisterous chants and hands clenched into the silent, but powerful symbol of peace. Passing motorists waved encouragement even as opponents of our message hurled insults from across the street as well as just steps away from our children.

In the Town Commons, the group cheered speakers including:
Iraq War Veteran Sgt. Jimmy Massey; youth leaders in the NCSTN coalition; psychologist Art Eccleston, ACLU-Georgia attorney and human rightsactivist Azadeh Shahshani, history professor and NCSTN activist Jerry Surh, scholars and activists from the Center for Theology and Social Analysis in St. Louis, and enjoyed performances by Hip Hop Education and the Rainbow ReSisters.

The day ended with a memorial just outside the gates of Aero Contractors' headquarters, where demonstrators walked solemnly to the perimeter fence - through throngs of counter-protesters - to hang images of survivors and victims on the chain link structure.

NCSTN is particularly grateful to all the volunteers who made this event a positive and peaceful one. In particular, we thank those who co-sponsored or endorsed the action.

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PBS' FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION

PBS aired an extensive investiagiton of extraordinary rendition in early December 2007.

Read more or watch the video ... (external link)

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Please report broken links or other concerns.
updated 21 September 2008, JMcI