Priests Protesting Torture Jailed

[Echo In Light]

Priests Protesting Torture Jailed
By Bill Quigley

10/18/07 "ICH" -- Louis Vitale, 75, a Franciscan priest, and Steve Kelly, 58, a Jesuit priest, were each sentenced to five months in federal prison for attempting to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Both priests were taken directly into jail from the courtroom after sentencing.

Fort Huachuca is the headquarters of military intelligence in the U.S. and the place where military and civilian interrogators are taught how to extract information from prisoners. The priests attempted to deliver their letter to Major General Barbara Fast, commander of Fort Huachuca. Fast was previously the head of all military intelligence in Iraq during the atrocities of Abu Ghraib.

The priests were arrested while kneeling in prayer halfway up the driveway to Fort Huachuca in November 2006. Both priests were charged with trespass on a military base and resisting orders of an officer to stop.

In a pre-trial heating, the priests attempted to introduce evidence of torture, murder, and gross violations of human rights in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib in Iraq, and at Guantanamo. The priests offered investigative reports from the FBI, the US Army, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Social Responsibility documenting hundreds of incidents of human rights violations. Despite increasing evidence of the use of torture by U.S. forces sanctioned by President Bush and others, the federal court in Tucson refused to allow any evidence of torture, the legality of the invasion of Iraq, or international law to be a part of the trial.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18584.htm

[ladjf]

1. We are already living in a police state.

[annabanana]

2. See Truthout video for background

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081307J.shtml

This guy has major guts. A former military man who became a fighter for peace. A major fighter against torture.

on edit: recommended... this is important

[mmonk]

3. This has been an ongoing story for a long time.

Priests and Nuns are regularaly shuttled off to jail for protesting places here that teach torture. The mainstream media is seldom there to show it as usual. Most have been arrested at The School of the Americas. It's good to see someone is covering the protests of Fort Huachuca. More people need to sacrifice I suppose to try and put an end to the dark stains on the soul of this country.