Religious leaders speak out against torture

WASHINGTON — A diverse coalition of religious leaders, including Baptists, has joined the State Department in criticizing the Pentagon for omitting a tenet of the Geneva Convention that would ban “humiliating and degrading treatment” from its new detainee policies. A paid advertisement, signed by 27 leaders, was slated to appear in The New York Times June 13 in response to a Los Angeles Times article that said the Pentagon would remove the Geneva Convention mandate. The advertisement expressed concern that torture could be conducted by American forces.

“We all feel that torture is dehumanizing and a terrible attack against human nature and clearly against the respect we hold for each other,” said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the outgoing archbishop of Washington. “It is something that we should never be part of.”

Other signatories included Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel; “Purpose Driven Life” author Rick Warren; Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; and former President Jimmy Carter. The decision will not be finalized until the Pentagon’s new guidelines are made public. One senior official said that the directive is being rewritten to assure that captives will be treated humanely but “can still be questioned effectively.”