Letter to President Obama Regarding Accountability for Torturers
11 December 2015
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Obama,
As a person of faith working
toward humanized society and the diminishing of barbarity, allow me to recommend to you and your administration to act for and promote accountability per the
findings of the Senate Select Committee’s Report on Torture. It has been one
year since the report’s release, and the Torture Report has been reported to
remain unread in its entirety, while the designers and practitioners of illegal
torture have escaped legal and historical accounting for their actions. History
teaches us that in such an environment of unaccountability, torture and
associated illegalities done by US bureaucracies are almost certain to recur.
I stand fully in agreement
with the Physicians for Human Rights conclusions (page 15 at https://s3.amazonaws.com/PHR_Reports/truth-matters.pdf) regarding responses to the infamy
of torture done by and in the name of US Government personnel. Specifically, per PHR, I
request the following four actions by the United States Administration under
your direction and leadership:
1.
Based on a
thorough investigation, the Department of Justice should bring charges against
those individuals who designed the torture program, implemented the torture
program, and/or ordered torture be used.
2.
The U.S. government
should release the entire Senate torture report and allow investigators access
to other documents relevant to the investigation into the use of torture.
3.
Detainees
subjected to torture should be provided the means to seek redress against the
government and individuals who tortured them.
4.
Detainees
subjected to torture by agents of the U.S. government – regardless of where the
crime was committed – should be provided with a full range of reparations for
their suffering and rehabilitation.
I thank you for your
addressing the ongoing need for thorough accountability in this area of
depravity and illegality. I stand ready to assist you in any way toward this
goal.
Very truly yours in Christ,
Rev. Douglas Olds,
Presbyterian Church (USA)
