Center for the Victims of Torture

We were blessed — and challenged — this week at Luther to have Douglas Johnson speaking in chapel (go here and then click on October 13 under archives). He is the director of the Center for the Victims of Torture. He was very compelling and persuasive in his attempts to help us understand that the new pressure within the US to use “coercive tactics” in interrogation is actually an old, old form of resorting to torture. I’ve been skeptical of what’s been going on at Guantanamo Bay, but I’ve been oblivious to the reality that the US is maintaining camps in Afghanistan to which international observers still have no access. Who knows what’s going on there! Which is, in part, Johnson’s point. He noted that there are new efforts underway all over the world to end torture, and spoke of the “New Tactics” website, which is developing new ways to work on human rights issues.