Petitioning For A Special Prosecutor: The Expanding Universe

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

Tuesday afternoon the Center For Constitutional Rights (CCR), under President Michael Ratner, issued a Call for a Special Prosecutor to Investigate U.S. Torture, and over Executive Director Vincent Warren’s signature sent an emailed Action Alert to their large subscriber list, in which they also issued a…

…call to action to phone your senators with questions for Eric Holder’s hearing on his nomination to be the next Attorney General. The second is to send you a link to a report we released yesterday on the simple steps to closing Guantanamo.

While President-Elect Obama has said he will close the base, he has yet to say how or when, which are the most important questions. We are all excited at the chance for a new beginning: it is up to us to make it one we can be proud of. Please call your senators, and please download and distribute our report so we can end this terrible chapter in our history.

I. This Thursday, January 15th, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to decide whether nominee Eric Holder should be confirmed as the new Attorney General. While Holder’s public statements suggest he would be a marked improvement over Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey, it is critical that the American public be certain that our nation’s chief lawyer has an unwavering commitment to upholding the rule of law.

Senate Judiciary Committee members have a serious responsibility to put an end to subverting law to politics – and to ensure that President-Elect Obama appoints an Attorney General who will help him restore, protect and expand our human rights. And it is our responsibility to make our voices heard and stand against torture, racial profiling and other violations of human rights.

Please call the Senate Judiciary Committee members today and tell them that we need Eric Holder to make a clear statement against torture and racial profiling. Phone numbers are provided below. It will only take a few minutes to urge them to ask these two critical questions:

Are you, unlike your predecessor, willing to acknowledge under oath what U.S. military and civilian courts have recognized for over 100 years: that waterboarding is torture and therefore criminal? If so, will you fulfill your duty to ensure that justice and the rule of law apply to all by appointing a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute those who have used, ordered, and authorized the use of waterboarding and other forms of torture?

I’ve saved the CCR Action Alert email I received as a web document so that you can read it in full here, if you hadn’t received it. It includes the list of Senators you can call, with their contact phone numbers, who will be involved in Holder’s confirmation hearings later this week.

After I received the CCR Action Alert, I emailed both Executive Director Vincent Warren and Michael Ratner with the following email, to let them know what we’ve been doing here at Docudharma, and asked them if they would consider including mention of the Docudharma/Democrats.com Petition in future CCR Action Alerts to their subscriber base.

I’m very happy to report that Mr. Ratner replied almost immediately to to my email, saying: “Thanks… I am really happy about this, I will talk to people about it”.

Here is the email I sent to both of them.  

To: Vincent Warren, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)

First Vincent, I’d like to thank you and the CCR for your email Action Alert today, and for CCR’s push for demanding that incoming Attorney General Eric Holder appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute those who have used, ordered, and authorized the use of waterboarding and other forms of torture.

This is an issue close to my own heart and the hearts of many others.

Myself and a group of bloggers at Docudharma have since the middle of December 2008 been working closely with Bob Fertik at Democrats.com conducting a formal petition to Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes. Since December 18, 2008 we have accumulated more than 15,000 signatures to be presented to Mr. Holder when he takes office.

I wonder if you and CCR would be kind enough to include mention of the petition and a link to it for people to sign, in upcoming CCR Action Alerts, and if you are open to any other forms of collaboration between us all to help make this a reality.

There is also a “Petition Badge” available that can be embedded on blogs or websites that links directly to the petition page, that some of the people who receive CCR alerts may wish to post.

http://www.democrats.com/special-prosecutor-for-bush-war-crimes

Thank you in advance.

(signed…)