First PA Conference on Torture
October 28th and 29th
2011 at Market Square Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg
Seven inches of snow did not prevent forty two
of the sixty registered to attend the First PA Conference Against
Torture. Sixteen brave folk drove through sleet, snow, rain and fog
over the mountains from Western PA at 6:00am on Saturday morning.
Friday night Dr. Kate Porterfield gave a talk,
that was open to the public, on the “Phobia of Hope: Reflections
from a Psychologist in Guantanamo”. Kate is a clinical psychologist
at the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture and has a long
history of working with people who have experienced trauma and
torture. In recent years she has spent hundreds of hours at
Guantanamo Bay evaluating and getting to know a number of the
prisoners especially Omar Khadr and Mohammed Jawad. She spoke of the
impact of the incarceration on Omar and Mohammed, both of whom were
juveniles when they were confined to Guantanamo.
After that many years in
Guantanamo there is a fear of doing anything which will raise the
expectations of release. Sometimes it is easier just not to hope.
The poignant moment for everyone was when she shared a message from
Omar Khadr thanking us for caring.
The format of the conference reflected the
interconnectedness of the issues. Prisoners in US prisons experience
many of the same trauma, fears and feelings of lack of powerlessness
as people incarcerated at Guantanamo. It was also clear that we are
looking at an environment of acceptance of torture in our country,
torture in our prisons and torture in places like Guantanamo and Abu
Ghraib.
Saturday we revised the schedule in order to
get people home before the snow became too deep. Instead of
workshops each presenter presented to the full group. This had the
advantage of exposing everyone attending to the breadth of the
issues, giving better understanding of the similarities in prison
abuse everywhere and a better understanding of the impact on people
of such abuse and incarceration.
Kate Porterfield shared her expertise in
working with people who have been traumatized in prison and
detention centers. Her presentation was very helpful in giving
advice on the barriers that might be faced for anyone doing this
work and strategize that might help.
A slide show of her talk is on our website
www.panetworkaginattorture.org.
Using a couple of quiz exercises John Humphries
from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, focused the
attention of the conference on the concerns of torture by our
Government. We acknowledged that work already being done by a number
of the participants and explored possible actions.
King Downing, American Friends Service
Committee’s Program Analyst for Healing Justice, followed this up
with a brain storming session on what we can do to address the
injustices of our prison system here in this country. He showed the
excellent Stop Max video on solitary confinement that the AFSC
developed. This can be viewed on our website.
By the end of the conference we had an
extensive list of possible actions for addressing both US sponsored
torture and torture and abuse in our prisons. Positive ideas for
actions included a training in Pittsburgh in the spring for working
with traumatized people, participating in the National Day of Action
Against Guantanamo in Washington DC January 11th 2012 and a campaign
to develop legislation to restrict prolonged isolation in PA
prisons.
Next steps will be to bring together a steering
committee to plan the campaign to restrict prolonged isolation in PA
prisons. Sandy Strauss will be contacting those registered to see
who is interested in being part of such a committee.
