Vigil Raises ‘Voices Against Terror’
WASHINGTON - The mock prison cell, the barking dog belonging to another protester, people asking names and ages.
Sister Dianna Ortiz said yesterday that the sights and sounds during a 24-hour vigil and protest at Lafayette Square against torture took her “back to that place” and time — Guatemala in 1989, when the American nun, then 29, taught Mayan children about human rights. 
It took her back to the day she was blindfolded and taken to a prison for reasons she still doesn’t know. To an interrogation, cigarettes burned on her breasts, being forced to dance naked, raped repeatedly. Back to hell.
Ortiz escaped within a day as her captors transported her to another prison. But each year on June 23, the United Nations’ International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Ortiz is reminded of her ordeal as she leads a vigil in front of the White House.
In 1996, Ortiz founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International, which brings together survivors and advocates for human rights issues, and she began to travel across the country to tell her story. Participants at this weekend’s vigil, the coalition’s 10th, included 75 survivors from some of the 150 countries the organization cites for practicing and condoning torture.
“We’re not just telling it — we’re reliving it,” Ortiz said. “We feel like we are back in our cell.”
This year, survivors and activists had a specific mission: demanding the repeal of the Military Commissions Act, which President Bush signed in October. Coalition members say they think the act is unconstitutional, is a severe violation of human rights and essentially legalizes acts of torture, she said.
The act establishes procedures for conducting military investigations and hearings for suspected terrorists and combatants. One of the activists, Ray McGovern, who was a CIA analyst for 27 years, said the act ignores prisoner rights established by the Geneva Conventions and the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act.
“The act needs to be banned for practical and moral reasons,” McGovern told yesterday’s crowd. An opponent of the Iraq war, he accused then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in May 2006 of lying about prewar intelligence during the question-and-answer session of a speech in Atlanta.
Some of the vigil participants demonstrated their opposition to what they call the “torture law” through civil disobedience. They stood in front of the White House with protest signs until U.S. Park Police arrested them on charges of violating the terms of their Lafayette Square permit.
Just after noon yesterday, about 100 participants formed a line behind a banner announcing their “voices against terror.” Silently, they carried crosses inscribed with the names of the 150 countries — including the United States — that they believe commit acts of terrorism.
They proceeded from the shady park, crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and stood on the sidewalk in front of the White House. Sixteen stood silently and refused to leave when asked to by a Park Police officer. Other officers arrived on horses and bicycles and put up yellow police tape as sirens sounded. One officer announced that anyone who did not leave would be arrested. Tourists snapped photos, and other participants watched from the park.
Police gave two more warnings, and the vigil participants began to sing: “We are singing, singing for our world.”
As an officer approached the first person to be arrested, protesters added to the song: “We are peaceful, loving people. We are singing, singing for our world.” The woman placed her possessions in a plastic bag, and her hands were bound with plastic cuffs. “We are justice-seeking people,” the protesters sang.
The 16 arrested people were led to a police van as other protesters applauded, shouted “Thank you” and beat on drums. Organizers said that those arrested were volunteers and that none was a torture survivor. They were charged with failure to obey a lawful order and released after about three hours.
After the arrests, the yellow tape was removed and tourists reclaimed their photo spots in view of the White House.
Ortiz said that the protest and vigil were significant and that her goal is to raise public awareness.
“When I first came back, very few people were speaking out,” Ortiz said. The torture survivors in this country “believe that we don’t have the right to be silent. We have the moral responsibility to speak the truth.”
© 2007 The Washington Post Company
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Grateful thanks to Sr. Ortiz and the other torture victims who relive the horror inflicted upon them (in Sr. Ortiz’s case very probably in coordination with the CIA) so that the rest of us will wake up.
And thanks to the 16 who were illegally arrested for protesting the criminal Military Commissions Act(MCA). They were illegally charged because they are bound by civil law, criminal law, basic human morality and decency to protest this henious and criminal piece of “legislation.”
The MCA is in violation of other US laws, the US Constitution, US treaty obligations and numerous international laws (including the Geneva Convections, UN Charter and rules set by the European Union and numerous individual nations).
It explicitly permits torture and abolishes the very basic legal principal of habeas corpus (have the body) which means that any prisoner, anywhere, at any time has the right to claim and prove that they have been illegally imprisoned. Pretty basic, if you are going to live in a world where law means something.
There are numerous other immoral and illegal provisions in the MCA as well. Among too many other Democrats and nearly all Republicans who voted for the MCA, Sherrod Brown, the Democratic Senator from Ohio who is a member of the Progressive Caucus of the Democratic Party, voted for the Act without challenge from the “progressive community.”
And don’t forget to contribute WHATEVER YOU CAN to the Common Dreams summer fund drive. The price of a few cases of beer. A couple of cartons of cigarettes. Whatever your poison, hold it off awhile and give the proceeds to CD. It may even be good for you.
This article is on page 6 of WaPo. If you can’t contribute money to this worthy cause, you can contribute a letter to the editor asking why it isn’t on page 1 and under a 24-point headline.
This is such a stupid practice (I am talking about torture not the protest). Except for those with psychopathic tendencies (who are the real movers and shakers in the policy area of the current administrations’s policy) everyone is destroyed by torture–the tortured and the torturers.
The other reason torture is such a stupid practice is that it does not work. If your suspect knows of something gong down they have only to wait for the deadline to pass before giving in. If they are ignorant, they will tell you whatever they think you want to know to avoid the torture. In either case the net gain is nothing.
I remember when G H W Bush (Bush # 1 )was in office and the media was discussing possibly using torture in the future, say for example- in case there was a terrorist attack. The consensus(of the Conservative media) was… that it was ok, after all, the Israeli secret police use it.
I myself survived a few days of beating/torture/rape at 13, in the USA.
Torture is NOT ok.
Anyone that promotes the use torture should allow themselves to be tortured first, then asked again if they think its ok to use as a tool.
Continual massive acts of civil disobedience is the only way we are going to rid our country of the henious laws and practices of the Bush Administration and the Compliant Dumbocrats.
Back to haunt the President.
Has anyone read Sister Dianna’s ordeal?
http://www.speaktruth.org/defend/profiles/profile_09.asp#
She has a great deal of courage!
Many people do not know that the United States tortures political activists in the United States. Several Food Not Bombs activists including myself were tortured in San Francsico with the aid of former CIA agent Tom Gerard. Some of us still suffer from the injuries inflicted on us. They were not trying to get information. They seemed to be sending a message that if you work for peace and you are effective you will go through pain like you could never believe. In my case they worked on me for three to four days. Food Not Bombs activist sare only one of several groups that have faced torture in the United States. When I went for treatment I learned that if a hospital dicovers you were tortured in the U.S. by law enforcement people their federal funding could be cut. If the U.S. tortures you in the United States don’t let medical personnel know the true story. Get a lawyer and take photos of the injuries. Thanks for your time and work to end torture. It shouldn’t happen and the United States needs to end this practice.