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NC Council of Churches

Strength in Unity, Peace through Justice

A Call for Accountability

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Why was the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry 0n Torture convened, and what did it conclude after 18 months of investigation? Have state and local officials looked the other way as the CIA retained a private airline operating out of two NC public airports to convey 49 detainees to sites where they were torture? Who were the people tortured, and what is our responsibility to them?

What does a former U.S. Army Colonel who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief say about the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation technique? On what basis has a former international war crimes prosecutor determined that CIA’s rendition and torture program was illegal? Do local faith leaders believe it was moral?

How can people of faith and conscience act to hold local, state and federal officials responsible for their collusion with the rendition and torture of CIA detainees? Will North Carolina’s U.S. Senators call for the release of the unredacted Senate Intelligence Committee Report? Will the Governor of North Carolina initiate a state inquiry into how public airports were used by the CIA?

These and other questions will be addressed at the Faith and Conscience Convocation: A Call for Accountability for Torture on Sunday, April 28 from 2-5 PM in the Blue Ridge Room South (Room 203) of the Highsmith Student Center on the Campus of UNC-Asheville.

Please join the North Carolina Council of Churches, the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina and other co-conveners in this exercise of the moral and civic responsibility to know the truth and act on it.

Click here to register today.

About Para Drake, NC No Torture Project Coordinator

Para Drake has served churches in the NC Conference of the United Methodist Church. Ordained elder in 1999, she has served as the Convener of Clergy Women, Chairperson of the Peru Covenant Task Force, Equitable Compensation Commission, and currently serves on the Conference Communications and Creation Care Committees. Her interest in this project comes out of her experiences in mission, recognizing the intrinsic value of human life in God’s eyes. She hopes to build upon the work of longtime advocates Allyson Caison, Christina Cowger, and Catherine Read who have laid a statewide foundation for connecting the people of NC to the Commission’s hearings and the final report, to be released September 27, 2018.

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