Press Release
April 25, 2013

Contact: Samantha Friedman, Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications
Office: (202) 265-3000 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

National interfaith anti-torture group applauds Senator Feinstein’s letter to the Administration about Guantanamo

Washington, D.C. – Today, provoked by the growing numbers of Guantanamo Bay prisoners on hunger strike to protest their conditions and indefinite detention, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Thomas Donilon, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, calling on the Obama Administration to “renew its efforts to transfer out the 86 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay who were cleared for transfer.” Matt Hawthorne, Policy Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, released this statement thanking the senator for her letter:

The prison at Guantanamo Bay remains open more than four years after President Obama promised to close it. As Senator Feinstein says in her letter, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the desperation among detainees there is reaching “unprecedented” levels. Over half of the detainees are on hunger strike.

In earlier times, our government used Guantanamo Bay as a place to torture prisoners.  Now, it continues as a place where prisoners are indefinitely detained without trial. 86 of the 166 detainees there continue to be detained despite having been cleared for transfer more than three years ago.

It is time to close this symbol of torture and indefinite detention. As an organization comprised of hundreds of diverse faith-based organizations across the country, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture thanks Senator Feinstein for her letter and joins her call for the Obama Administration to renew its efforts to transfer prisoners out of Guantanamo. We also ask President Obama to keep his promise and close Guantanamo Bay for good. Our moral legacy depends upon it.

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is a membership organization committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Since its formation in January 2006, more than 320 religious organizations have joined NRCAT, including representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Baha’i, Buddhist, and Sikh communities. Members include national denominations and faith groups, regional organizations and local congregations.
www.nrcat.org

 ###