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Pacific Green Party of Oregon
www.pacificgreens.org
January 12, 2005
Contacts:
George Hutchinson, PGP Media Coordinator, gbhutch@charter.net
Matt Donohue, PGP Co-Chair, donohmat@earthlink.net
PGP: http://www.pacificgreens.org
USGP: http://www.gp.org
Greens call on senators to reject Mr. Torture
The Pacific Green Party urges Oregon's U.S. Senators to reject the
appointment of Alberto Gonzales to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney
General and head of the Department of Justice. Gonzales has served as
the White House counsel, where he wrote a series of infamous memos that
justified the administration's policies of detention and torture in the
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft war on terror. The most telling of the
memos refers to the Geneva Convention's prohibitions against torture to
be "quaint" and "obsolete."
Gonzales' legal opinions helped set policies that allowed torture and
gross human rights abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, at Guantanamo, and in
Afghanistan. These policies make America's servicemen and women, and all
Americans, less safe.
For his extensive work in the rationalization of torture by the
executive branch, many around the world and in America have come to call
him Mr. Torture.
George Hutchinson, PGP Coordinating Committee member, points out that
Professor Marjorie Cohn of the Thomas Jefferson Law School states that
Gonzales has concurred in, even commissioned, advice that led to
barbaric treatments such as sodomy with a chemical light or metal
object; severe beatings; water-boarding (simulated drowning); forced
masturbation; pulling out fingernails; torment with loud music and
strobe lights; sleep deprivation; hooding; subjecting to
freezing/sweltering temperatures; dietary manipulation; hanging by arms
from hooks; permitting serious dog bites; shooting into containers with
men inside; keeping prisoners in small, outdoor cages; rape; murder; and
numerous other blatant violations of the Geneva Convention.
Gonzales' disregard for the rule of law and contempt for the
Constitution of the United States demand that he be rejected for the
position of Attorney General. The Pacific Green Party affirms its utmost
regard and respect for individual liberties and human rights, as
guaranteed by the Constitution and Geneva Convention protocols for the
treatment of prisoners of war.
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