Torture Awareness Month may end, but torture will not

The month of June comes with many designations. National Gay Pride Month. National Dairy Month. National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month. Even National Iced Tea Month.

Perhaps lost in the shuffle of recognizing persimmons, gorgonzola or Tetley is that June is also Torture Awareness Month. It marks the month where torture survivors from around the world renew their commitment to ending torture in the 150 countries where (we know) torture is practiced, including the United States. Sister Dianna Ortiz, the founder of the Torture Abolitionist and Survivor Support Coalition (TASSC), is one of those torture survivors.

Sr. Dianna’s story is captured in her 2002 book “The Blindfold’s Eye,” including her kidnapping and torture at the hands of the Guatemalan government in the 1980s, and the complicity of the U.S. government in her torture. While in captivity, Sr. Dianna was burned with cigarettes on her breasts, forced to dance naked, raped by four men and impregnated.

The reason for rehashing her horrific story in a memoir? In Sr. Dianna’s words: “To fulfill a promise to speak for those who have no voice.”

Last week there was a vigil outside of the White House (the 10th annual vigil), at which Sr. Dianna and 75 other torture survivors participated to cry out against the practice of torture, and speak for those being tortured today who have no voice. This year the vigil had a specific focus: to demand the repeal of the Military Commissions Act that was signed by President Bush in October 2006. The Military Commission Act built procedures for conducting military investigations for suspected terrorists.

Of course, the Act also violates provisions of the Geneva Conventions on prisoner rights, and the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act. Among those include the potential to authorize beatings severe enough to cause bruising, and the legal cover the Act provides for techniques such as water-boarding, which have long been considered in violation of international law.

Sixteen people were arrested for committing civil disobedience in front of the White House during the vigil – a nonviolent response to a potentially very violent piece of law. They were processed and released, the vigil ended, and sure enough, the next day was here before we knew it.

Now, as we move into the first week of July, Torture Awareness Month comes to an end. Sadly, thanks to the Military Commissions Act and the 149 other countries where torture is practiced (perhaps even reinforced by the United States’ willingness to condone torture), torture does not come to an end. The nightmare that Sr. Dianna went through is still recreating itself in the lives of thousands of “suspected terrorists,” each day creating more victims of torture.

This is no less recognized by thousands of activists, academics, lawyers and religious figures who make up the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT...which is tempting to pronounce as “NarCat,” but that sounds a little Battlestar Gallatica). Among the religious leaders quoted on NRCAT’s Web site include the rather conservative pastor of Saddleback Church in California, Pastor Rick Warren. Though I might not agree with Pastor Warren on many things, he’s spot on here:

“If we condone torture, we yield the moral high ground to our enemies and encourage anyone who hates us to stoop to using that subhuman level against us. We reap whatever we sow.”

That’s a lesson worth remembering 12 months a year.