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Several years ago, members of human rights organizations and religious congregations in the United States declared the month of June to be Torture Awareness Month so as to highlight the blight of torture and to facilitate actions across the U.S. that call for an end to torture.
On June 30, 2011, the Benedictine Sisters of Chicago, the Clerics of St. Viator (Viatorians), White Rose Catholic Worker and 8th Day Center for Justice sponsored a presentation on U.S. sponsored torture and the effects torture has on the person tortured. Held at St. Viator parish in Chicago, the event featured National Campaign Against Torture’s film, Ending U.S. Sponsored Torture Forever, a personal testimony from Mario Venegas, a survivor of torture, and table discussions on the morality of torture. Participants signed postcards urging their U.S. legislators to create a bi-partisan Commission of Inquiry to investigate U.S. sponsored acts of torture.
For more information on the issue of torture, please visit www.nrcat.org and www.tassc.org. |
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Viatorians endorsed and participated in a June 21, 2011 vigil condemning U.S. sponsored torture. Beginning at President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters at Prudential Plaza, participants walked silently in a solemn procession to the Federal Building where they participated in a prayer service, led by Jerica Arents, remembering those who have been tortured both at home in U.S. prisons and abroad in such places as Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo Prison.
During the prayer service, excerpts of a letter to Senators Richard Durbin and Mark Kirk was read. The letter was co-signed by the Provincial Council of the Clerics of St. Viator. Sr. Benita Coffey offered a reflection on the blight of torture. An excerpt from a letter of a former detainee at Guantanamo Prison preceded a final prayer.
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