Interfaith Group Runs Ad Condeming Iraqi Prisoner Abuse

June 16, 2004

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/8931909.htm?1c

On June 16, 2004 the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, "A month after President Bush appeared on Arabic television to express regret for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a U.S. interfaith group yesterday began running an independent ad on the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya TV stations condemning 'the sinful and systemic abuses committed in our name.' The 30-second ad features four religious progressives including Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a longtime activist who heads the Shalom Center, a small Jewish peace center in Philadelphia's Mount Airy section. Waskow, 70, said in an interview yesterday that 'the words sinful and systemic were crucial' to the ad's message. The goal, he said, is for 'Arab-speaking people to understand the horror so many Americans and so many members of American religious communities feel about the torture.' And, he said, to understand that many 'view the abuses as systemic,' not limited to 'just five or six bad apples' as the administration has said."