Prisoner abuse: ethics, morals and religion
Prisoner abuse in Iraq has is raising wrenching questions, all related to how
humans treat each other. It is an essential moral, ethical and religious issue
that millions of experts, scholars and advocates devote their lives to. ReligionLink
offers extensive background and expert interview sources.
Why it matters
Religions advocate care for the powerless and the imprisoned. Christians point
out that Jesus himself was a torture victim.
Angles for reporters
There are lots of opportunities for local, national and international angles
on stories related to prisoner abuse in Iraq. Here are some places to start:
- Human rights advocates, organizations and research and teaching centers
have extensive experience dealing with similar issues. Sources are provided
throughout this issue. - Torture survivors’ treatment programs, advocacy centers, and research institutions
exist in every state. Sources are provided throughout this issue. Some may
be able to recommend victims of prisoner abuse who are willing to be interviewed. - Religious organizations, both national and local, have always been involved
in caring for the imprisoned and working for their fair treatment. Many local
congregations of all faiths have active prison ministries. How do members’
experience in U.S. prisons shape how they react to what’s happened in Iraq? - Ethicists can address what is morally right and wrong, either from a secular
or religious perspective, depending upon their background. Military ethicists
study what is appropriate during times of war. Ethicists can be found at
seminaries, universities and other organizations. - Some of the prisoners mistreated in Iraq are Muslim. An Oct. 9, 2003, ReligionLink
tip about Muslims in U.S. prisons offers resources - Psychiatrists and psychologists can talk about the mental effects of prisoner
abuse on both victims and perpetrators.
Skip to background
National sources
• James Turner Johnson teaches religion at Rutgers University in New Jersey
and has written extensively on just war, morality and warfare and Islam. He
is a former editor of the Journal of Religious Ethics and an editor of the
Journal of Military Ethics. Contact 732-932-9637, jtj@rci.rutgers.edu.
• Sanford
Levinson is W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial
Chair in Law and Professor of Government at the University of Texas School
of Law and editor of the forthcoming book Torture (Oxford University
Press, 2004). Contact 512-232-1351, slevinson@mail.law.utexas.edu.
• Taha Jabir
Alalwani is president of The Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences
in Leesburg, Va., and holds the Imam Al-Shafi’i Chair in Islamic Legal Theory.
His expertise includes human rights in Islam. Contact 703-779-7477.
• M.
Cherif Bassiouni is president of the International
Human Rights Law Institute and law professor at DePaul University in Chicago.
Read about the institute’s International
Criminal Court-Arab World Project. Read about the institute’s
efforts to educate people about human rights in the Arab world. Contact
312-362-5919, cbassiou@depaul.edu.
• Glen H. Stassen is a professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological
Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., who specializes in war, peace and ethics and
the author of Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War (Pilgrim
Press, 2004). He says that policies encouraged pressure on prisoners and removed
needed checks and balances. Contact 626-304-3733, gstassen@fuller.edu.
• Albert C. Pierce is the director of the Center
for the Study of Professional Military Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy
in Annapolis, Md. He served in the U.S. Defense Department and was a defense
correspondent for NBC News. Contact 410-293-6085, acpierce@gwmail.usna.edu.
• David L. Perry is a professor of ethics at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle,
Pa. Contact 717-245-4815, david.perry@carlisle.army.mil.
• Psychologist Philip Zimbardo is one of the authors of the 1971 Stanford
Prison Experiment and retired professor of psychology at Stanford University.
Read “A
Situationist Perspective on the Psychology of Evil: Understanding How Good
People Are Transformed into Perpetrators,” a 2003 paper by Zimbardo, past
president of the American Psychological Association, on the Stanford University
Web site. Contact Zimbardo through Jack Hubbard at Stanford News Service: 650-725-1294, jhubb@stanford.edu.
• Human Rights Watch is an
independent, nongovernmental organization that investigates human rights abuses
and advocates for their end. Read Human Rights Watch’s compilation
of background information on U.S. detention facilities in Iraq. See links
and reports about torture.
Human Rights Watch is based in New York, with offices in
Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. It lists human
rights information by country. Contact 212-290-4700.
• The National Council of Churches USA sent a letter May
11, 2004 advising changes in Iraq to end the violence. The NCC represents 36
Protest and Orthodox member communions. Contact media liaison Carol Fouke,
212-870-2252, cfouke@ncccusa.org
• The Anti-Defamation League,
the National
Congress of Jewish Women (contact Sammie Moshenberg 202-296-2588; sammie@ncjwdc.org)
and the Action
Center of Reform Judaism (contact Alexis Rice or Beth Kalisch 202-387-2800)
all made statements condemning prisoner abuse in Iraq.
• Mahdi Bray is executive director of the Freedom Foundation, the public affairs
arm of the Muslim American
Society, a national grassroots religious, social, and educational organization.
Contact 202-496-1288.
• Sayyid M. Syeed is secretary-general of the Islamic
Society of North America, which condemned the killing of Nicholas Berg.
Contact 317-839 -8157, syeeds@isna.net.
Background
TORTURE
• Read a Feb. 20, 2004, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly story about
the ethics of torture.
• Read a Jan. 9, 2003, story in The
Economist, “Is Torture Ever Justified?”
• Read an October 2003 Atlantic Monthly story: “The
Dark Art of Interrogation.”
• Read a March 13, 2003, story in The
Nation, “In Torture We Trust?” about reports of systematic abuse of Iraqi
prisoners.
• The U.S. Congress first passed the Torture Victims Relief Act in 1998 and
reauthorized it in November 2003. Read information
about it from the Center for Victims of Torture.
• Read the U.N.
Convention Against Torture.
• A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Oct. 5-6, 2001, found that
many Americans supported extraordinary measures as means of dealing with terrorism.
The United States has an official policy against assassinating or torturing
foreign leaders or non-American citizens suspected of criminal activity. There
has been some talk of changing this policy in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
This CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows 77 percent of Americans would
be willing to allow the U.S. government to assassinate known terrorists, and
52 percent would be willing to allow the government to assassinate leaders
of countries that harbor terrorists. Americans were less supportive of torture
than of assassination, as 45 percent said they were willing to allow the government
to torture known terrorists if they know details about future attacks in the
United States.
• U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement includes treatment
of torture survivors.
• Read a report on
torture in the United States prepared by the Coalition Against Torture and
Racial discrimination, a working group of non-government civil and human rights
groups in the U.S.
• Christians
Against Torture, a nonprofit based in Wales, lists Bible
references on why Christians’ faith calls them to care for the conditions
in which prisoners are held and for those who are tortured.
WORLDWIDE
• The U.S. State Department publishes human
rights reports by country. The latest report documents human rights conditions
for the year 2002.
• Amnesty International is
a worldwide movement that promotes universally recognized human rights. Contact
212-807-8400.
• The Torture
Survivors Network lists links to torture survivors’ organizations and resources
around the world.
• The Immigration and Refugee
Services of America (IRSA) defends human rights, builds communities, fosters
education, promotes self-sufficiency, and forges partnerships through service
and advocacy programs.
• The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provides protection and
assistance to the world’s refugees. When first created by the United Nations
General Assembly in 1951, UNHCR was charged primarily with resettling 1.2 million
European refugees left homeless in the aftermath of World War II. Today, 22.7
million people in over 140 countries fall under UNHCR’s concern.
• The United Nations Children’s
Fund (UNICEF), founded in 1946, advocates and works for the protection
of children’s rights. UNICEF “is guided by the Convention on the Rights of
the Child and strives to establish children’s rights as enduring ethical principles
and international standards of behavior towards children.”
• Since 1958, the U.S. Committee
for Refugees (USCR) has identified refugees at greatest risk and given
them a voice. Refugees are people who have lost everything: their homes, their
belongings, their freedom, and their loved ones. Often, all that they have
left are their inherent rights as human beings. The work done by USCR helps
refugees get the protection and assistance they need to survive.
• The World Organization Against Torture, USA is based in Washington, D.C.
Contact 202-861-6494 , woatusa@woatusa.org.
STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT
• Read about the Stanford
Prison Experiment in 1971 and view a slide show of the experiment, which
put ordinary Stanford University students in the position of guarding “inmates” -
other students – while, unknown to the participants, their behavior was videotaped.
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo, one of the experiment’s authors, says today that
the sexual degradation of Iraqi prisoners of war by guards reminds him of the
behavior of the “guards” in the experiment. As the guards on the night shift
became bored, they used the prisoners for amusement. Zimbardo recalls that “guards” got “prisoners” to
simulate sodomy and other homophobic behaviors, stripped them naked for various
offenses, removed their sheets and mattresses and put them in solitary confinement
for excessive periods. The researchers ended the study a week early because
of abuse by the student guards.
• Read a 1997 Stanford
University press release describing the experiment and telling what became
of the researchers who conducted it.
Regional sources
STATE BY STATE
• The National Consortium
of Torture Treatment Programs has links to members and associate members
in states across the country.
• Saul
Kassin, professor of psychology and chair of legal studies at Williams
College in Williamstown, Mass., studies the interrogation and confessions -
particularly false confessions – of suspects in the criminal justice setting.
Contact 413-597-2253 (office), 413-597-3549 (lab), skassin@williams.edu.
• Martha
L. Minow is professor of law at Harvard Law School in Massachusetts. She
has expertise in human rights and transitional societies, and religion. Contact
617-495-4276, minow@law.harvard.edu.
• Reuven Kimelman is associate professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies
at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. He has written about Jewish understandings
of war. Contact 781-736-2963, kimelman@brandeis.edu.
• Omer Bartov is professor of European history at Brown University in Providence,
R.I., and has expertise in issues of war and killing. Contact 401-863-1375, Omer_Bartov@brown.edu.
• Susan Niditch is professor of religion at Amherst College in Massachusetts
and has expertise in Hebrew Bible, war and women. Contact 413-542-2270, sniditch@amherst.edu.
• Lori Fisler Damrosch is Henry L. Moses Professor International Law
and Organization at Columbia University Law School in New York. She is a member
of numerous international law and human rights organizations and has published
extensively. Contact 212-854-7946, damrosch@law.columbia.edu.
• Michael W. Doyle is Harold Brown Professor of U.S. Foreign and Security Policy
and professor of international and public affairs and of law at Columbia University
Law School in New York. Contact 212-854-3239, md2221@columbia.edu.
• Hadar Harris is executive director of the Center
for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University’s Washington
College of Law in Washington, D.C. She is an international human rights attorney
and has specialized in issues of civil and political rights, gender equality
and fighting impunity for torturers. Contact 202-274-4180.
• Diane Orentlicher is a professor at the Center
for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University’s Washington
College of Law in Washington, D.C. Her scholarly work has focused on issues
of accountability for human rights crimes, transitions to democracy, corporate
responsibility in a transnational context, and the relationship between ethnic
identity and political participation. Contact 202-274-4180.
• Martha
Huggins is Roger Thayer Stone Professor of Sociology at Union College in
Schenectady, N.Y. She is the author of Political Policing: The United States
and Latin America (Duke, 1998). Contact 518-388-6131, hugginsm@union.edu.
• Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr. is president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee
Service, which sponsors the Detained Torture Survivor Legal Support Network.
Contact him in Baltimore through director of communications Susan Baukhages,
410-230-279, sbaukhages@lirs.org.
• Harry Dammer is an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice
at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. He is expertise is in the role
of religion in prisons. Contact 570-941-5853, dammerh2@scranton.edu.
Jefferson McMahan is professor of philosophy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick,
N.J. He has written about war, killing and morality. Contact 732-932-9862 ext.
155, mcmahan@philosophy.rutgers.edu.
• Julie
A. Mertus is assistant professor at American University’s School of International
Service. She has expertise in women, human rights and war. Contact 202-885-2215, mertus@american.edu.
• Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trauma http://www.astt.org/ is
a Baltimore treatment center. Contact 410-464-9006.
• The Carter Center in
Atlanta is involved in human rights worldwide. Read their May 14, 2004, publication “Human
Rights Defenders on the Frontlines of Freedom: Protecting Human Rights in the
Context of the War on Terror“. Contact public relations director Deanna
Congileo, 404-420-5117; dcongil@emory.edu.
• The Inter-American Center for Human Rights at Nova Southeastern University
in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is “a response to the profound need in South Florida
for an organization that is committed to furthering the civil and human rights
of our diverse communities.” Law professor Charlene Smith is executive director.
Contact 954-262-6100, smithchar@nsulaw.nova.edu.
• John Kelsay is professor of religion at Florida State University in Tallahassee
and has written extensively on Islam, war and human rights. Contact 850-644-0209
ext. 1020, jkelsay@garnet.acns.fsu.edu.
• James F. Childress is professor of religious studies at the University of
Virginia in Charlottesville who has written about the ethics of war. Contact
434-924-6724, Childress@virginia.edu.
• Forrest
E Harris Sr. is president of American Baptist College in Nashville, Tenn.,
and director of the Kelly Miller Smith institute on African American Church
Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. As a member of the Human
Rights Commission, he traveled to other countries to speak about human rights
and ethnicity. Contact 615-343-3963, forrest.e.harris@vanderbilt.edu.
• Hugh Thompson was a helicopter pilot who protected Vietnamese civilians during
the My Lai massacre. He received a medal for heroism in 1998 and works as a
veterans assistance counselor supervisor in the Louisiana Department of Veterans
Affairs in Lafayette, La. He says poor leadership is responsible and that if
people started thinking and applied something as simple as the golden rule,
abuse would not happen. Contact 337-262-5628.
• George
E. Edwards is director of Program in International Human Rights Law at
Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis. Contact 317-278-2359, gedwards@indiana.edu.
• David Weissbrodt and Kristi Rudelius-Palmer are co-directors of the Human
Rights Center at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Contact Weissbrodt
at 612-625-5027, krp@tc.umn.edu and Rudelius-Palmer
at 612-626-7794, weiss001@tc.umn.edu.
• The Center for Victims
of Torture is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in
1985 in Minneapolis. It provides treatment, training, education and research.
Contact 612-436-4800.
• Doug Cassel is director of the Center
for International Human Rights at Northwestern University and a frequent
commentator on human rights issues. He called for independent inspection of
U.S. interrogation centers in a May 9, 2004, article in
the Chicago Tribune. Contact 312-503-2224 (office),773-750-5387 (cell).
• William Eckhardt of the University of Missouri Kansas City Law School prosecuted
Lt. William Calley for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and taught at the U.S.
Army War College. Contact 816-235-2377, eckhardtw@umkc.edu.
• Ann Annis and Michelle Loyd-Paige are co-authors of Set Us Free: What
the Church Needs to Know From Survivors of Abuse (University Press of
America, 2001), together with Rodger R. Rice, a sociologist who is now retired.
The book cites dozens of interviews from a 1990 survey of the incidence of
child abuse among members of the Christian Reformed Church who felt religion
played a part in their abuse. Annis is a researcher at the Center for Social
Research at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. Contact 616-526-6420. Loyd-Paige
is a professor of sociology at Calvin. Contact 616-526-6239, lopa@calvin.edu.
• Louay Safi is a political scientist who has written and taught internationally
on the Islamic world. He works in leadership development for the Islamic Society
of North America in Plainfield, Ind. Contact 317-839-8157, ext. 247, louay@att.net.
• Oren Gross is a professor at University of Minnesota Law School. He is author
of the paper, “The
Prohibition on Torture and the Limits of the Law.” Contact 612-624-7521.
• Regina Schwartz is director of the Institute for Religion and Global Violence
at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Contact 847-491-5588, regina-s@northwestern.edu.
• Manuel Balbona is executive director of the Center
for Survivors of Torture in Dallas, Texas. He is an adjunct associate professor
in Psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and also
in private practice. Contact 214-827-2314.
• John A. Wood is professor of ethics and religion at Baylor University in
Waco and has written about the ethics of war. Contact 254-710-6327, John_Wood@Baylor.edu.
• Robin Lovin is an ethicist at Southern Methodist University, the author of Christian
Ethics: The Essential Guide (Abingdon Press, 2000) and a frequent commentator
on war and peace issues. 214-768-4134, rlovin@mail.smu.edu.
• Martin L. Cook is the author of “Ethical
Issues in War: An Overview“. He teaches philosophy at the U.S Air Force
Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. His book The Moral Warrior: Ethics and
Service in the U.S. Military (SUNY Press) is forthcoming. 719-333-8664, martin.cook@usafa.af.mil.
• The International
Human Rights Advocacy Center is at the University of Denver in Colorado.
Sharon Healey is director of its Asylum Project and has expertise in human
rights and humanitarian law.
• Khaled Abou El Fadl is professor of Islamic Law at the University
of California-Los Angeles’ School of Law. He has written extensively on war,
Islam and terrorism. Contact 310-206-5401, abouelfa@law.ucla.edu.
• Craig Haney, an author of the 1971 Stanford
Prison Experiment, is professor of social psychology at the University
of California at Santa Cruz. Haney went on to earn a law degree from Stanford
and a doctorate in psychology. He has been a leading legal consultant on prison
reform litigation. He teaches psychology and law and the psychology of institutions.
Contact 831-459-2153.
• The Simon Wiesenthal
Center in Los Angeles is an international Jewish human rights organization
dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust by fostering tolerance
and understanding. The Center contemporary issues including racism, antisemitism,
terrorism and genocide. Contact executive director Rabbi
Meyer H. May at 310-553-9036.
• Eric Stover is Director of the Human
Rights Center at the University of California-Berkeley. The center’s research
focuses on war crimes, justice and postwar reconstruction, health and human
rights, and globalization. Contact 510-642-0965.
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