"30,000 Christians Want Churches To Do More To Stop Torture"

Torture is not a thing of the past but is regularly inflicted in more than half the countries of the world today, according to an international Christian organization representing more than 30,000 people around the world campaigning against torture.

The International Federation of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (FI.ACAT) links 28 national "ACATs" around the world. The movement is particularly strong in France, where the first ACAT was founded by two Protestant women after Amnesty International held the world's first international conference against torture in Paris in 1973. Twenty-seven other countries now have ACATs, including 12 in Africa. The world's newest ACATs have been recently set up in the Czech Republic and Haiti. All are autonomous organizations, with the federation, based in Paris, playing an information and co-ordination role.

Patrick Byrne, a Scottish-born translator based in Luxembourg who is president of FI.ACAT, told ENI in an interview at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva on March 23 that his organization believed that churches should be doing more to fight torture. As its contribution to Amnesty International's campaign against torture, launched last October, FI.ACAT is inviting "all Christian churches to reiterate their condemnation of torture and all inhuman or degrading treatment, and to renew their commitment to their abolition."

FI.ACAT has published a 100-page booklet, Hope in the Darkest Night, in English and French to assist congregations during the campaign. The booklet mentions specific cases of torture in six countries—Iran, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, Kenya and Hungary—and includes a prayer about what is arguably history's most famous example of torture—inflicted on Jesus Christ and culminating in his crucifixion.

Byrne told ENI that an important part of the work of the ACATs was calling Christians to pray for both the victims of torture and for "the torturers—that they will have a change of heart."

Another element of the work was education to eliminate social attitudes that allowed torture to continue. "You have to change attitudes, public opinion and traditions which tolerate torture," Byrne said. "In France an opinion poll found that 25 percent of people believe that torture can be accepted in some circumstances. We believe the message we need to get across is that torture is never acceptable, even in the case of the worst possible criminal. It's a denial of that person's humanity, and of the humanity of the torturer.

"We insist," Byrne added, "that there is always a danger of torture occurring in any country. The goal is to build up mechanisms that ensure that torture cannot happen. The presence of closed environments such as prisons means that there is always the possibility of torture."

FI.ACAT's goal during the campaign, which is also supported by five other international organizations campaigning against torture, is, Byrne said, to "make the churches more outspoken on the issue, to make it part of their daily lives. The issue of torture is sometimes perceived by churches as being too political for them to touch. So at present the issue is not always a part of church life."

He said the booklet would help parishes to see the matter as a central Christian concern and integrate it into church life.

Byrne, who is Catholic and married to a Protestant, told ENI that ACATs worldwide were firmly ecumenical. In some countries national ACATs deliberately elected three vice-chairpersons—Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox—to stress the ecumenical nature of their work.

Both the World Council of Churches and the Vatican have issued statements in support of the Amnesty International campaign and of the work of FI.ACAT. The WCC's general secretary, Konrad Raiser, urged the WCC's member churches "to work even more vigorously for the elimination of torture in all its forms, both where they live and witness, and internationally. In so doing we stand in solidarity with FI.ACAT and the many civil society organizations working to abolish torture."

Archbishop Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said in a letter to Byrne that "Christians, in particular, should be outraged at [acts of torture], which cannot be justified on any grounds whatever." He also quoted a speech by Pope John Paul II to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva in 1982, in which the pope stated that "the thought of Jesus being stripped, beaten and derided until his final agony on the cross should always prompt a Christian to protest against similar treatment of his fellow beings. Of their own accord, disciples of Christ will reject torture, which nothing can justify, which causes humiliation and suffering to the victim and degrades the tormentor."

FI.ACAT is asking churches around the world to include concern over torture in their prayers and other activities throughout this year, in particular on June 24, 2001, the Sunday closest to the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture (June 26).

Byrne was in Geneva for a meeting of FI.ACAT's seven-member international board, which normally meets in Paris or Luxembourg but was in Switzerland for discussions with the World Council of Churches.

He told ENI that he first found out about ACAT after he moved to Luxembourg in 1985. He was interested in working for human rights in an ecumenical context, so he joined the local ACAT. Later he became chairman of the Luxembourg ACAT. He has been president of FI.ACAT for two years.

Copyright © 2001 ENI.

Related Elsewhere

Christianity Today regularly covers cases of torture, such as in our article, "The Torture Victim Next Door | Hidden victims of religious persecution find refuge in America" (Mar. 17, 2000).