4th QUIT Conference - Quaker Initiative to End Torture

Dear All,

Thank you for all your notes and for holding the QUIT conference in the
Light. The conference was excellent! All 4 presenters outdid themselves in
presenting current information from their fields.

Terry Kupers, author of Prison Madness, gave us clear information about how the use of torture in
American prisons results in deformed people unable to live as whole humans.

Fr Roy Bourgeois explained the history of the School of the Americas and the
torture training for more than 60,000 Latin American military and police
that continues.

Scott Horton, lawyer and Harper's magazine writer of the No
Comment column, explained the legal context in which Obama not only
continues Bush policies but in some instances makes things worse regarding
torture.

And Hector Aristizabal, Columbian therapist and torture survivor,
showed us how movement and play can help us integrate all the information
and subsequent emotions after learning so much about torture.

California has good and active groups working against torture and we heard of several
actions taken in recent years- everything from clown protests to
legislation. Friends from Durham, North Carolina and Bosie, Idaho and
Eugene, Oregon along with mostly Californians attended, plus several
non-Quakers joined us. Meeting for worship in the Redwood forest was
as amazing as one might imagine

Thanks again for your good care and support, John