As Torture Survivors Watch . . . [View All]

[MountainLaurel]

The men and women who survived imprisonment, beatings and rapes knew ahead of time that yesterday's arrest of a group of their supporters in front of the White House was a symbolic protest to spotlight the continuing use of torture by governments around the world, including the United States.

Even though they were not among the nine people arrested, several survivors of torture who gathered to mark the eighth annual United Nations day of support for torture victims said just watching the planned act of civil disobedience triggered painful memories that caught them off guard.

Francisco Flores, a victim of torture in El Salvador, stood in the scorching heat amid a crowd of about 100 protesters and spectators. But shortly after noon, as police began handcuffing the nine demonstrators holding protest signs on the sidewalk in front of the White House, he became visibly upset.

Next to him stood Niky Stockhausen, an intern with the Washington-based group Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, which organized yesterday's protest. "You don't have to watch it," she told him. So Flores, 43, retreated across the street to Lafayette Square.

"I relive the moment," Flores said later in an interview, describing his earlier emotions. Twenty-five years ago, the church activist said he was arrested and tortured for three days by El Salvador's National Guard. He said he received electric shock to his genitals, was hung naked and was raped three times by a sergeant.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/26/AR2005062600955.html