Today, North Carolina took one step closer to becoming the first state in the union to make torture and conspiracy to commit torture a crime. By a 4 to 3 vote, the Judiciary I Committee of the North Carolina House approved a bill meant to put a stop to the “extraordinary rendition” flights that begin in the Old North State.
Specifically, the bill would:
- Create a crime called “torture” in the North Carolina statutes, and include the concept of conspiracy to commit torture;
- Allow the Attorney General’s office to investigate conspiracy to commit torture as long as any part of the conspiracy was formed in North Carolina.
Supported by a tireless grassroots effort by NC Stop Torture Now and the American Civil Liberties Union, HB 2417 will now go to the House Appropriations Committee for a vote.
Funded by the Central Intelligence Agency and using local pilots, extraordinary rendition flights “disappear” individuals suspected of involvement in acts of terror. The detainees are brought to secret jails in countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, where torture is the norm.
Several cases have come to light that involve men innocent of any crime. Perhaps the best known involves German citizen Khaled El-Masri. Here’s the ACLU summary:
On January 23, 2004, El-Masri was taken from a hotel room in Skopje, Macedonia where he had been held for twenty-three days after being kidnapped by unidentified assailants. Mr. El-Masri was handcuffed, blindfolded and driven to a building where he could hear the sound of airplanes. There, he was beaten and stripped. Unidentified men wearing ski masks dressed him in a jumpsuit and a diaper, and he was forced to lie face down inside a plane spread-eagled and strapped to the sides of the fuselage. Mr. El-Masri was sedated and awoke in a country he later learned to be Afghanistan. For the next four months, Mr. El-Masri was held incommunicado in a secret prison north of Kabul known as the “salt pit” where he was repeatedly subjected to coercive interrogation. On the night of May 28, 2004, Mr. El-Masri was deposited on a hill in Macedonia. Mr. El-Masri was a victim of the “extraordinary rendition” program, but he was never charged with any crime. As best as people have been able to figure out, he was subjected to this ordeal because he shares the name of a person alleged by US authorities to have ties to Al-Qaeda. Aviation documents show that a Boeing business jet operated by Aero Contractors took off from the Skopje Airport on January 23, 2004, the day Mr. El-Masri says they left Skopje. It landed in Baghdad and then flew on to Kabul, Afghanistan, not far from where Mr. El-Masri was held.
Many of the flights start at the Johnston County Municipal Airport, about an hour south of the state capitol in Raleigh.
I’m proud to say that my representative, Paul Luebke, championed this bill. The plan is to get the House Appropriations Committee to approve the bill, then bring it to the House floor for a vote before the end of July.
If you support the bill, call the committee’s chair, Mickey Michaux, to ask him to schedule HB 2417 for a hearing in during the week of June 30. His number is (919) 715-2528.
North Carolina residents should also call their Representative and ask him or her to support HB 2417. To find out who represents you, click here.
Interestingly, the Fayetteville Observer, which covers three of the country’s main military bases — Ft. Bragg (Army), Camp Lejeune (Marines) and Seymour Pope (Air Force) — came out in strong support of the bill today. This continues a strong and principled editorial position against torture.
The editorial is worth quoting in full:
Who we are: Anti-torture bill tells other whether North Carolina ‘gets it.’
If the vote goes off as scheduled, check, at the end of the day, and see which of your elected representatives voted against making North Carolina a torture-free zone. See who voted not to make it a felony to kidnap people and whisk them away, possibly to be tortured elsewhere.
If you’re guessing that this bill had its origins in a dispute over anti-terrorism tactics, you’re right. Remember the fuss over those mysterious flights out of Smithfield? But here are the salient facts: The bill applies to everyone, not just to government officials and their hirelings. If it passes, you can’t commit torture in North Carolina; we can’t torture; they can’t torture. You can’t “disappear” anyone in North Carolina, nor can we, or they. And what is wrong with that?
The bill can do no harm. Even if it’s true that we can’t adequately defend ourselves without becoming just as low and brutal as our enemies, Congress can pass itself a bill explicitly permitting what this bill explicitly forbids, and federal law will, as usual, trump state law.
This bill doesn’t pretend to solve all problems or settle all debates. Its primary effect will be simply to let the rest of America and the world know who we are — and what we are not.
North Carolina cannot singlehandedly put a stop to “renditioning” and “enhanced interrogation” and all those other atrocities for which so many cynical euphemisms have been coined. But it can say “Not here” and “Not in our name,” then leave it to others, if they are so inclined, to explain why one state’s ban on a couple of police-state, goon squad tactics cannot be allowed to stand.
Actually, it’s not the bill that will make that statement. It’s the vote that matters, because we are making a statement about ourselves no matter which way it goes, just as preventing a House judiciary panel vote on it would make a statement.
At the end of this day, more people will know more about us — our values, our honor, our humanity — than they knew when they went to bed last night. And we’ll know more about ourselves.
This is no epic battle. Tomorrow will be much like today. The question, after trying to reconcile what’s been going on for the past half-decade with our history’s most famous declarations about the rights of men and our binding covenants with other nations, is how we’ll feel when next we look into a mirror.