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The Fourth
Quaker Initiative to End Torture
Conference
Keynote Speaker: Scott Horton Special Guests: Fr Roy Bourgeois Terry A Kupers Hector Aristizabal
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HOME Education Endorsements Archives About QUIT Donate Read on this page> Welcome to QUIT John Calvi on support of QUIT From the QUIT Blog |
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This is the Quaker Initiative to End Torture Website. QUIT is the spiritual work of Quakers to end torture. This website offers information and resources for learning and taking action. Our hope is that Friends and others will come together in this work as the next great abolition movement in the United States. We want to stop torture as policy and practice forever. As this field of work is ever changing, we hope you will check this website often for information updates as well as our blog for news stories. Please learn and choose ways to help. This is an historic time for America on this topic and large change is possible. But it may well take more than one generation of Quakers to carry this work. Ending torture is a good spiritual work to give yourself to. We welcome your donations and all efforts you can make locally.
It Takes Just a Little More Than A Minute Dear Friend, Our efforts in QUIT (The Quaker Initiative to end Torture) have been blessed with many minutes of support. One of the most recent came from Dallas Friends Meeting, which said, in part:
At QUIT we're grateful for that expression of support. We hope other Friends will follow its counsel and join together at the QUIT Conference at Quaker Center in California, Sept. 24-26 2010. The conference is important to further what Baltimore Yearly Meeting added to this chorus, when it urged Friends “to find ways take up such a witness, by public education and organized effort.” The QUIT conference will provide both. Besides compelling speakers such as Scott Horton and Roy Bourgeois, the conference will include opportunities to plan and strengthen the long work for accountability among Friends and others, especially on the West Coast. More details of the conference schedule are available here: QUIT Conference Speakers Online registration takes only a few minutes at: QUIT Registration
Help put these wonderful minutes into action. Please Join us at the Fourth Quaker Conference on Torture, Sept. 24-26. Peace, John Calvi, Founding convener of QUIT Dear Friend, Did you read about Jay Bybee's recent "admissions" regarding US torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other prisons? At the Quaker Conference on Torture, Sept. 24-26 at Quaker Center in Ben Lomond CA, seeking accountability for the actions of officials like Bybee will be part of the agenda. We hope you'll join us there, and support this work. Bybee is currently a judge on the US Court of Appeals in San Francisco. He holds this powerful post depite being one of the main authors of the notorious "torture memo," which formed the supposed legal basis for the US torture program. Bybee drafted his memo in 2002 for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. It was later withdrawn and repudiated by the same agency. At first glance, Bybee's recent admissions to a Congressional committee might seem startling and even incriminating: he acknowledged that detainees--most of whom were later released without charge--were tortured. And torture is (or at least once was) a crime under US law. Read more closely, all Bybee really said was that some torturers went too far in carrying out their orders. Went too far? How? Torture victims died, for one thing; and for another, word of the abuse leaked out, producing a rising chorus of calls for holding accountable those who built and ran this system --including Jay Bybee. Bybee regretted the negative publicity his own role has received -- but he said "I am going to stand by the memo." "We took a muscular view of presidential authority," Bybee said. "I wasn't running a debating society, and I wasn't running a law school." Instead, he was establishing torture as a policy of the US government. Unfortunately, that basic policy still stands, and Jay Bybee still sits on one of the highest courts in the land. A government that can torture with impunity has laid the foundation of tyranny. The Quaker Torture Conference is part of the work of overturning this torture policy, dismantling the torture network, and bringing redress to torture victims and justice to perpetrators. This effort ranks with the epic struggle against slavery in its importance. Please join us, Sept. 24-26. You can register online now at: http://www.quit-torture-now.org And please pass this message on to others. John Calvi
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Most Happy NEWS for those who think it's too late to go to QUIT4 We have been able to make arrangements at Quaker Center to extend registration for the QUIT4 Conference. Try to get those registrations in by September 15! If you have a special situation call the QUIT HOTLINE at the number shown on the registration page. One More Thing Is Needed – YOU! The 4th Quaker Initiative to End Torture Conference is all ready to go! The site is in the beautiful Redwood Forests of Ben Lomond, CA. We’ve leased the entire of Quaker Center, an intimate conference center known for good food and comfort in a quiet, natural setting. We’ve 3 renowned experts on American torture as our speakers.
Fr. Roy Bourgeois is the founder of School of the America’s Watch. For 2 decades he’s collected information about America’s instruction of torture and formed the largest annual protest in American history. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year by the American Friends Service Committee. Dr. Terry Kupers is the author of Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It. He’s expertise on torture and abuse in American prisons is known to Congress and courtrooms across the country. Hector Aristizabal, performance artist and creative director of ImaginAction, will present his latest interpretation of healing through art and communication. Hector is the author of Blessing Next to the Wound, his own story of transformation from torture victim to healer. This will be the best QUIT conference yet. Everything is set to go September 24-26. Except one thing--registration is lagging. If you’ve been intending to register- now is the time.If you register now (click REGISTER HERE at the top of this column), QUIT can be sure to go ahead. We want to share all we’ve organized for the past year. It’s going to be a great gathering of dedicated people doing good and important work. Thanks, John Calvi founding convener QUIT
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