U.S. Torture from Central America to Abu Ghraib

With Human Rights Activist Jennifer Harbury

Sunday, April 3, 3-5pm
First Unitarian Society of Rockland County
130 Concklin Road, Pomona, NY. (North on Palisades Parkway, right after Exit 12)
Admission: Free

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States government has created human rights crisis.  Jennifer Harbury, a Connecticut-born, Harvard-educated human rights activist and attorney, knows all too well.Ms. Harbury’s husband, Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, was secretly detained and tortured to death in Guatemala in the early 1990s. Her long efforts to save his life led to the startling official disclosure that his killers were Guatemalan intelligence officers serving as paid CIA informants or “assets.” Since then, Ms. Harbury has investigated and reported the links between U.S. intelligence networks and the Latin American death squads.

Ms. Harbury published her story in a book Searching for Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala.  In 1997 she received the Cavallo Award for moral courage.  Recently she finished writing a book on torture after extensive research and field studies around the world. 

Currently Ms. Harbury is with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, serving as the Director of the STOP (Stop Torture Permanently) Campaign in response to the human rights crisis created by the U.S. torture and abuse of detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Gauantanamo Bay. The STOP campaign urges people to call or write members of Congress to support "The Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act" introduced by the U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, a senior member of the Committee on Homeland Security.

This event is sponsored by the Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice, and cosponsored by the First Unitarian Society of Rockland County, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Rockland Sister Cities Project, Amnesty International Group 359 and the New York Civil Liberty Union - Lower Hudson Valley Chapter.

Contacts:

Hossein Alizadeh, FOR Iraq Coordinator. (845)358-4601 iraq@forusa.org 

Nancy Tsou, Rockland Coaliition for Peace & Justice (845) 634-4082 (evenings) lythrn@aol.com  

Cleta Ciulla, RCP&J  (845)-358-1741

 

©2004 Fellowship of Reconciliation