Dear Friends,

Today, December 10, marks the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, commemorating the first time the international community agreed on a set of common values affirming that rights are inherent to every single human being without exception. It’s also the 40th anniversary of the UN Convention Against Torture.

On this important day in the struggle for universal human rights, we invite you to donate to NRCAT’s year-end campaign, My Faith Says “No” to Torture. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar as a part of our matching gift campaign, enabling us to continue our interfaith work to equip and mobilize torture survivors and faith allies in local, statewide, and national campaigns to end torture.

This Human Rights Day, the UN has put forth three messages: human rights are preventative, human rights are protective, and human rights are transformative. At NRCAT, we work to prevent and protect all people from harms as well as to transform and build a fairer world, guided by the moral compass central to our faiths. Each day in our work, we affirm the UN’s value that “upholding human rights isn’t only about addressing present injustices, it's about reshaping unjust societies and empowering marginalized groups.”

Since 2015, our effort to end the torture of solitary confinement has been informed and bolstered by the United Nations’ “Nelson Mandela Rules” which prohibit the use of solitary confinement beyond 15 consecutive days in all circumstances and call for its abolition entirely for women, children and individuals with mental and physical disabilities. These moral standards for prisons are the blueprint for 23 state campaigns working to end solitary confinement.

Faith leaders, in solidarity with solitary survivors, are working together on the frontlines in state campaigns, urging Governors and state legislatures to end the torture of solitary confinement in their states and to faithfully implement passed legislation. And now, this coalition is rallying around the End Solitary Confinement Act, which would abolish long-term solitary confinement at the federal level.

Your donation today will allow us to continue to ensure the human rights of everyone, particularly those who are among our society’s most oppressed and forgotten. Let us stand together, renewed in our commitment and humanity, on Human Rights Day.

With gratitude for you, 
The NRCAT Team, Ron, Johnny, T.C., Laura, and Nicole