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Re: المجموعة السودانية لمناهضة التعذيب --بيان صحفي (Re: Kostawi)
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: The Center for Constitutional Rights
Oppose the Gonzales Nomination: Tough Questions Are Not Enough President Bush has nominated the architect of his Administration's unlawful torture policy to be the next Attorney General. White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales's confirmation hearing begins on January 5. Please tell your representatives, Tough questions are not enough! and send a message to the Bush Administration and the world that the American people do not condone torture.
In his infamous torture memo, Alberto Gonzales called the Geneva Conventions "obsolete" and "quaint" and paved the way to the systematic abuse of detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, many of whom are represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights.? At CCR, we have seen the terrible effect of his policies on human beings first hand. Gonzales and his circle discussed the use of specific torture techniques like mock burial and "water boarding," where the victim is made to feel that he is drowning, and approved the use of dogs, hooding, and extreme sensory deprivation, all forbidden by the Geneva Conventions and the International Covenant Against Torture. Experts in interrogation have long known that torture elicits false confessions and bad intelligence, while Americans can now no longer expect to be protected by the Geneva Conventions: the policies devised by Mr. Gonzales and his advisers?have endangered our own troops the world over for decades to come.
In their scathing editorial on the nomination, The Washington Post linked Mr. Gonzales directly to the torture at Abu Ghraib and called his legal positions "damaging and erroneous." Newsweek wrote that "Gonzales ultimately signed off on all of the administration's most controversial legal moves."
Yet many members of Congress have said they will not oppose Mr. Gonzales's nomination that he will only be made to answer tough questions before sailing through the confirmation process. We at the Center for Constitutional Rights object to giving an architect of torture a promotion. We reiterate, tough questions are not enough. Please ask your Senators, Representatives and the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to stand up and oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General. We hope you will join us in declaring that this man and his policies do not represent our American values!
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