Question: What is the significance of June? Answer: June is Torture Awareness Month.
Question: What is the significance of Guantanamo? Answer: Guantanamo is the symbol of American shame and self-degradation.
Fact: Our government has physically and psychologically tortured innocent men, and has kept them locked in a hellhole to the point that they are starving themselves.
Question: Why? Answer: The government fears that after the treatment those men have received at the hands of American henchmen, they may become terrorists if they return to their home countries.
Plea: Please watch this video and see the presentation of this infographic. Increase your awareness of what has been done by a government that is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Question: What does it take to get citizens to understand that torture, by any name, not only violates human rights, but also may be the most effective tool in the world for creating terrorists?
Answer: Recognition that the people being tortured are human beings, not animals, and they are being tortured not to get information but to terrorize groups of people designated as the “enemy” or “terrorist,” often on the basis of NO evidence but simply appearance.
Watch protest actions and “There is a man under that hood.”
Question: Does awareness of the inhumane and illegal behaviors of the U.S. government in Guantanamo lead to any sort of protest?
Answer: Yes. Many courageous Americans have undertaken efforts to keep this particular group of torture victims in the public eye. For example, watch this brief video showing what a group of American high school students have done to make a difference.
And visit the sites of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and Witness Against Torture.
These are the beacons that can help us regain some respect within the international community and our own minds and hearts.
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology