Quaker conference confronts torture

Quakers tackled the problem of torture at a recent conference.

THE FIRST Quaker Initiative to End Torture (QUIT) conference to be held in Canada took place in Ottawa April 27 - 28. The event coincided with allegations in Parliament and the media that detainees captured by Canadian troops in Afghanistan were being handed over to the Afghani government and tortured.

Organizers presented the conference as a means "to raise awareness about torture in Canada and abroad" and "to inspire Canada's faith and activist communities to work together to monitor our complicity in torture, and to uphold and affirm our commitment to human rights and civil liberties."

The conference was sponsored by Inter Pares, a Canadian social justice organization; the Canadian Friends Service Committee, the peace and social justice arm of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada; and the Ottawa Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

It was modeled on the first ever QUIT conference, organized in North Carolina in June 2006 by John Calvi, a Quaker from Vermont. A second American QUIT conference will be held in June.

A beginning

Some 90 people attended the Canadian conference, including Quakers from throughout North America, several Mennonites, some Jews and some Muslims.

Main speakers John Calvi, Hilary Homes of Amnesty International, and Matthew Behrens of Homes Not Bombs talked about the alleged involvement of Canada and the US in torture. The conference highlighted specific issues such as the possibility that Afghani detainees have been tortured; the plight of suspected Islamic terrorists in Canada detained indefinitely under security certificates; the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian deported to Syria and tortured there; and the increasing use of solitary confinement in Canadian prisons. A workshop by Calvi presented ways to remain spiritually whole while dealing with "the most brutal of realities."

The conference opened and was interspersed with sessions of reflective silence. Anne-Marie Zilliacus, head of the organizing committee, said later that this is a practice with a long tradition: "As Quakers, we always start with silence to allow the Spirit to take part, by being still enough to hear what the Spirit might be saying to you." A group of a dozen elders sat on the stage throughout the event, praying for the conference.

Faith communities

Zilliacus said the organizers specifically invited people from faith communities because "churches have been very active in social justice issues in recent years." She said there are only approximately 1,000 Quakers in Canada, and about 50 in the Ottawa area -- but they play a role in various social action organizations, out of all proportion to their numbers.

Like many Christian groups, she said, Quakers became involved in helping others as a result of their own experience with suffering; almost all of the early Quakers in mid-17th century England were imprisoned for their faith at some time or other. "You have to be really grounded to work on an issue as difficult as torture," Zilliacus said. "You need a solid spiritual base to work from."

She said she was not disappointed that there were not more people from other churches at the conference -- since there are "many calls on people's time," and "it has to be an open-ended process." Noting that it took a century and a half to abolish slavery, she suggested it might take several generations to abolish torture.

Zilliacus said the first step is simply building awareness. "People need to learn what is going on before they can take action," she said, adding that torture "is not something that people want to admit is happening . . . The authorities are always saying it is not happening here."

Long-term goal

She said the long-term goal of QUIT is to eliminate the "culture of torture built up over thousands of years." She noted that waves of abuses such as witch hunts are usually sparked by a real-life catalyst. In the Middle Ages, that catalyst was the plague; for North Americans, she said, it was the September 11 terror attacks. However, she added, "if we are relying on torture to protect us, we are relying on an abomination that builds up the very things we want to be protected against."

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"Canada is just as culpable as the US in many ways," Zilliacus claimed. "We are just doing it on a smaller scale, because we are smaller."

Acknowledging that there may be worse human rights abuses in some other countries, Zilliacus said, "You have to start from where you are . . . How can you go out in the world and confront other people, if you are doing the same things yourself? If North America is [considered] a beacon of human rights, then let us be so."

Antithetical

Ed Fast, Conservative member of parliament for Abbotsford, BC and an evangelical Christian, told CC.com that torture "is antithetical to everything I stand for as a Christian."

Referring to the allegations regarding Afghani detainees, Fast said: "Our government does not hand over prisoners to be tortured. If torture is taking place, it would deeply concern me and would be a violation of our agreement [with the Afghan government]."

He said there has been no definitive proof that the detainees handed over by Canadian troops have been tortured, and that making such allegations is common practice for members of the Taliban insurgents. Nevertheless, he said the Canadian government is "taking the allegations very seriously" and will make whatever changes are necessary.

Fast noted that, "in countries like Afghanistan, it is always difficult to find things out and get access to the ones who made the allegations." However, he said, "I am confident that we will get to the bottom of this, and will act in accordance with our international obligations."

Fast said events such as the QUIT conference "are an encouragement for us, to make sure our structure is set up so torture can't take place."

On the larger goal of abolishing torture in the world, he added: "Anything we as Christians can do to reduce or eliminate the use of torture would be good. Whether we can achieve an end to torture in our lifetime is questionable, given that some parts of the world do not respect human rights in any way. I would absolutely welcome progress toward that goal.

"Quite frankly, that is the only response a Christian can have."

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Barbarians had higher standards
Barbarians do have their weaknesses. Dark Age law was afflicted by superstition -- trial by ordeal and elaborate oaths -- and by the ritualized warrior violence of trial by combat. But the approval of torture -- the prying out of confessions and other evidence by means of physical cruelty -- is characteristic of more sophisticated regimes. In the West, it is a proto-Renaissance and Renaissance phenomenon, appearing around 1468 in the precursor state to our own, England. Even after that, it remained an extraordinary measure, to be used only with royal warrant, typically by a cabinet committee acting as a criminal court with peculiar standards; this committee often sat in a room called the Star Chamber, which has become proverbial. . . . Not Enlightenment skeptics, but the earnest Puritans of the Long Parliament abolished the Star Chamber in 1641; thus the only body with jurisdiction to order torture was no more. This was part of a broader and permanent weakening of the Crown. You don't have to be modern to know that torture is simply wrong. Cicero, Seneca and Augustine all saw that it is wicked and fallacious. So did a Dark Age Pope, Nicholas I, writing in 866. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian's Digest of Roman law expressed grave misgivings about it, after the fall of Roman empire in the West.
Gerald Owen, National Post, April 27

May 3/2007