Dear QUIT Conferees,

The Quaker Initiative to End Torture is gaining momentum through 
the
good works of many and Friends are taking up the spiritual work to 
end
torture. This message reaching all attenders of the 2006 conference
begins our preparation for 2007.

I enclose a few reminders- Here is the First QUIT conference report.
Please consider offering it to your meetings with a request for
spiritual, financial, and representative support for the June 1-3,
2007  2nd QUIT conference at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC.

There are also instructions for joining the QUIT list server where
news of events, actions, and updates can be shared.  It is important
for us all to have news and encouragement as we go forward.  Every
action moves us closer and shared news increases awareness and
learning.

Two new minutes have just arrived showing the growing tide among
Friends in Pacific and New England Yearly Meetings. I include them
here.

I am very happy to announce that our planning team will be joined by-
Karen Hanscom, Exec Dir of Advocates for Survivors of Torture & Trauma
and Stephen McNeil, Assistant Regional Director for Peacebuilding,
Relief and Youth Work in San Francisco AFSC and co-clerk FCNL.

Our website has been updated and will soon have new pages of links,
resources, and suggested actions.  Please share news of this with
others. www.quit-torture-now.org <http://www.quit-torture-now.org/>

I hope this finds you all well and work is going smoothly.

Thanks, John Calvi
QUIT convener

John Calvi
calvij@sover.net
802/387-4789
PO Box 301 
Putney VT 05346 USA
www.johncalvi.com
www.quit-torture-now.org

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The Quaker Initiative to End Torture- First Conference Report

Friends from 18 yearly meetings including Canada, Britain, and Rwanda,
gathered on June 2-4, 2006, at Guilford College in Greensboro, North
Carolina to learn about United States-sponsored torture and to plan
how to end it.  Several non-Friends worshipped and worked with us, as
well. Sixteen speakers, including three survivors of torture, provided
information and inspiration to 126 conference attenders.

After a period of welcome and worship, Jennifer Harbury gave a
riveting keynote on Friday evening, giving us a brief but
comprehensive overview of U.S. torture.  She spoke from her personal
experiences with CIA-sponsored torture of her deceased Guatemalan
activist husband in the 1980s through the May 2006 United Nations
hearings on United States compliance with the Convention Against
Torture. This was followed by the film, ³Hidden in Plain Sight,² which
gave a vivid history of the School of the Americas and the twenty-year
struggle to close the school that has trained Latin American military
officers since World War II.  The film and the question and answer
session offered by two survivors brought participants a sense of
immediacy and responsibility.

On Saturday morning, a panel of three speakers introduced us to the
topics of direct action, legislation and executive monitoring, and
treatment, which were followed by more intensive workshops providing
in-depth information to conference participants on these topics, and
on strategic planning. On Saturday afternoon, Hector Aristizibal using
the techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed depicted his own
experience as a survivor of torture and then engaged the audience in a
powerful interactive movement that moved us toward hopeful engagement
to end the practice of torture.  Chuck Fager and Bal Pinguel then took
the stage to exhort us towards the long work ahead to abolish torture,
moving us from learning to action.  Conferees next joined in a town
meeting to brainstorm ideas in the five categories of education,
legislation, treatment, prisons, and media/strategy.  After supper,
work groups in those categories met to plan actions.  A hard day¹s
work closed with a folk music concert donated by the Short Sisters, an
amazing a capella group of three women.

Sunday worship was led by our five elders, who held the conference in
the Light throughout the weekend and attended every session, workshop,
and work group.  The conference culminated in a second town meeting in
which we heard from each work group and then discussed the future of
QUIT.

There was a clear sense of the meeting towards the following actions:
-educating our meetings and others; -asking for monthly, quarterly,
and yearly meeting support (minutes, donations, conference
attendance); -using the QUIT website as a resource of information and
events (http://www.quit-torture-now.org); -joining the QUIT listserv
via the website to share news and ideas.

Conferees appreciated the QUIT planning team¹s care in creating an
excellent conference on a difficult topic presented with a tone of
reverence, and they thanked the five elders for their prayerful
attention in setting the tone for spiritual work.  The planning team
was asked to bring in more members and plan a second conference at
Guilford College, June 1-3 2007.

We ended with worship that was deep in silence and full of gratitude
and expectancy.

Save the date QUIT 2nd Conference June 1-3 2007  
www.quit-torture-now.org <http://www.quit-torture-now.org/>

*******************************************************************

The listserver of The Quaker Initiative to End Torture ­ QUIT
is up and running! This will offer all an opportunity to share
information, news of actions and events.

To subscribe, send a message to the listserver manager software at

listserv@mtsac.edu 

In the body of the message type
SUBSCRIBE QUIT-L   firstname  lastname
replacing "firstname" with your first name and "lastname" with your
last name (no quotes). 

If you've been successful you will get a confirmation request email in
return with the subject heading COMMAND CONFIRMATION REQUEST Then
simply type "ok" in that message (without the quotes) and hit your
reply button. You will then hopefully be subscribed to the list and
both of us will receive a confirmation that you've subscribed.  Every
confirmation also comes to me. That way I'll keep track of who's on
the listserver. I decided to add the confirmation feature so that no
one can subscribe someone else. You must reply to the message to join
the list. If you fail to reply with an ok, the request will be deleted
within 24 hours.

After you're subscribed, try sending a message and we'll see if it
goes out to everyone. Once you're subscribed, messages are sent to the
list at

QUIT-L@mtsac.edu

Joe Franko,
QUIT Webmaster

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New England Quaker Initiative to End Torture- QUIT- Minute

Minute Approved by New England Yearly Meeting at annual sessions
August 9, 2006

New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends finds
torture immoral, illegal, and abhorrent. Torture- in wars, in prisons,
and in homes ­ steals the humanity of the tortured, the torturer, and
those who have knowledge of it.

We believe in the sanctity of life, a faith that arises from our
experience that there is that of God in everyone.  This Light helps us
to see our face in the stranger¹s face. Fear and denial cause us to
forget our deep connections with one another.  Only when we are
willing to surrender to the Light, individually and corporately, can
we eliminate the roots of torture.

New England Yearly Meeting calls upon members and monthly meetings to
seek Light and act to end torture.

************************************************************
AUGUST 5, 2006

PACIFIC YEARLY MEETING OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

MINUTE AGAINST TORTURE

Thirty years ago, the Friends World Committee for Consultation stated:
Both tortured and torturer are victims of the evil from which no human
being is immune.  Friends, however, believe that the life and power of
God are greater than evil, and in that life and power declare their
opposition to all torture. The Society calls on all its members, as
well as those of all religious and other organizations, to create a
force of public opinion which will oblige those responsible to
dismantle everywhere the administrative apparatus which permits or
encourages torture, and to observe effectively those international
agreements under which its use is strictly forbidden. (FWCC, 1976)

Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends was moved
by the March 2006 Santa Monica Monthly Meeting minute that notes that
³our Quaker faith is based on the conviction that Œthere is that of
God in everyone.¹ We are therefore convinced that everyone is entitled
to humane treatment and due process of law.  We utterly oppose any
form of torture and illegal detention, whether perpetrated by our
government or by any other power or group.²

We call on our elected representatives to hold the executive branch of
the U.S. government accountable for any actions that violate the 1949
Geneva Conventions and their 1977 Protocols, or the United Nations
Convention Against Torture, or any other treaties binding upon the
United States.

Pacific Yearly Meeting, joining with Humboldt Friends, San Jose and
Palo Alto Meetings, supports the leadings of the six Humboldt Friends
to travel with a concern for the condition of all who are involved in
the conflict at the Guantanamo Bay Prison.  Fred Adler, Andrea
Armin-Hoiland, Carol Cruickshank, Margaret Kelso, Richard Ricklefs,
and Karin Salzmann are called to journey to the prison to meet with
and witness to both prisoners and prison personnel. The concern for
the well-being of both prisoners and military personnel at Guantanamo
Bay is one shared by many Friends in our Yearly Meeting.  

Further, we ask that members, Monthly Meetings and Worship Groups
familiarize themselves with the work of the Quaker Initiative to End
Torture (www.quit-torture-now.org <http://www.quit-torture-now.org/>
), considering both minutes of support and encouragement of
participants in the next conference in June 2007 at Guilford College,
North Carolina.

As people of faith, we believe that the United States must set a high
moral and ethical standard in its treatment of its captives, whether
foreign or domestic.  As William Penn wrote: ³A good end cannot
sanctify evil means: nor must we ever do evil, that good might come of
it.²