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National Council of Churches


Jan 6, 2017

The response to 9-11 by the Bush Administration included harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, placing prisoners in tiny enclosed spaces, slamming them against walls, sensory deprivation, and a host of other cruelties that were condemned by the world as torture.  The US Senate published a report almost two years ago that condemned these practices in the harshest of words.  But President-Elect Donald Trump stated in his campaign that the US would do things much worse than the Bush-era torture practices if he were elected.

Ron Stief is the Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, an interfaith coalition that works to end all kinds of torture, from cruel and degrading treatment of combatants to the inhumane practice of extended solitary confinement, which the UN classifies as torture.  What does the new political reality mean to the torture debate?  We’ll talk to Ron to see if we can find out.