Today was my first day on the job at Global Centurion. There are a few other girls from TWC interning at the same place, so we traveled on the Metro together this morning. It's out in Arlington VA, so it takes about 30 minutes on the Metro to get there. But the office building is really close to a Metro stop, which makes life easy. So Global Centurion is a non-profit organization that works to end human trafficking. So the President of the organization is an Adjunct Law Professor at Georgetown, so all of us interns are going to help her do research on her International Case Law Database, which means doing research and collecting data on human trafficking cases. She also gave us a list of different projects, and we all picked ones that we were interested in. I'm going to be working on the Haiti and Human Trafficking Project. Tomorrow I'll start on that, so I'll tell you more about that when I start doing it.
So the day consisted of a few meetings with all the interns (there's 5 of us from TWC, and 2 law students from Georgetown University), and one-on-one meetings with our supervisor. Although the first thing I did when I arrived was make coffee, I have a feeling like there's going to be a lot of work I'll do directly. My supervisor today basically said, here's the outline I have for this Haiti Project, now go make it happen-challenging but exciting!
We were done at the office at about five, then one of the other interns and I headed to a panel discussion on torture. Now, to back up a little bit. The programming at TWC involves 3 pillars, Leadership, Professional Achievement and Civic Engagement. This event I went to tonight is apart of my civic engagement project. The syllabus basically says that we have to go out into the DC community, get involved and volunteer in some sort of non-profit project. I decided with this one. I'll try to remember all the details about tonight, because I really enjoyed it. The event was at a Lutheran Church, right downtown by the Capitol, and there was a small reception in the basement where they had some hors d'oeuvres (which I was thankful for, because I had come straight from work). Then the program started with Rev. Dr. Herbert Nelson II (a mouthful of a name) introducing the speakers. The first was Juan Mendez, an Argentinean working as a Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Basically, he was appointed to investigate torture issues. He explained the UN Convention Against Torture, which basically binds all countries to this as an International Law. All the states cannot use torture, and prohibition is absolute. These states have an affirmative obligation to investigate and prosecute individuals, and the must follow the exclusionary rule, meaning they can't use information gained through torture. Needless to say, the United States is not following this international law. Guantanamo is one very crucial example. Dr. Mendez has tried and tried to meet with people held in Guantanamo, but his request is still pending.
He also talked about Bradley Manning, who most of you might have read about, and he was a Private in the US Amy arrested for leaking information to Wikileaks and he explained the solitary confinement that he has been held in. A lady named Amrit Singh also spoke, and she's lawyer who's done a lot of work with national security-related human rights abuses. She spoke of Maher Arar, and even his Wkipedia site says hes one of the most famous cases of extrordinary rendition. She said point blank, that torture was made policy under the Bush administration, and she held the DOJ (Dept. of Justice) documents in her hand to prove it. The other speaker, was a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and she made us aware of the countless cases dismissed regarding Guantanamo, and lawyers and political leaders being held unaccountable to their actions. She even spoke of George W. Bush's book, and how he admitted using torture. Because American leaders seem so protected in the United States the CCR tried to pin Bush when he was planning on traveling to Geneva (I think it was last year?), but he cancelled his plans. Also, the CCR filed cases against Don Rumsfeld in Germany, but those were dismissed.
The church was full of people, and I thought hey, this is what civil society is all about. People, outside of government, stimulating each other, sharing ideas in order to keep our leader and government more accountable.This is the real DC. People gather here, to get their issued voiced to the federal government. June happens to be torture awareness month, so I'm going to stay plugged into these civil society groups, and hopefully make a difference speaking out against torture.
Here's some other great links: National Religious Campaign Against Torture
Amnesty USA
Alliance for Justice
