Some Useful Groups and Websites
Speak out by supporting organizations working to bring an end to torture.
This list does not purport to be comprehensive, and your web browsing will undoubtedly turn up others.
Support Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International.
Join and have your faith group join in the National Religious Campaign Against Torture which currently has Jewish, Christian, and Human Rights First materials for study and action.
Check out and post to the Friends Committee on National Legislation's Calendar of Anti-Torture Events Nationwide.
Support the work of other groups:
Christian Peacemaker Teams Public Witness
Human Rights Watch
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's STOP Campaign
Center for Constitutional Rights
Act Against Torture is a coalition of activists based in the San Francisco Bay Area working to abolish torture and indefinite detention, to end U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to prevent future wars. Their website has downloadable fact sheets, posters, postcards, etc. that can be used in an educational and consciousness-raising campaign.
Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trama (ASTT)
The mission of ASTT is to alleviate the suffering of those who have experienced the trauma of torture, to educate the local, national, and world community about the needs of torture survivors, and to advocate on their behalf. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, it operates a satellite office in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Wheaton. Its work includes specialized mental health services and social services for survivors of torture and war trauma. The website also includes useful resources on torture, its consequences, and the needs of survivors, as well as links to other organizations active in this field.
Among other resources on the site, you can find the very useful article on “Understanding Torture and Its Effects.” Other useful links are provided on its Links page, such as links to other North American treatment centers for survivors of torture and trauma. Friend and speaker Karen Hanscom is executive director of ASTT.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
“The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty. We work daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Our job is to conserve America's original civic values: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”
The ACLU has been active in many ways in seeking the protection of constitutional guarantees in the post-9/11 United Sates, including opposing features of the USAPATRIOT Act, successfully suing the government under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain release of records essential to let ting the public know of detainee torture and abuse, advocating the closure of Guantánamo and providing fair and judicially reviewable trials of those detained there as enemy combatants.