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Groups launch torture probe petition

Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor April 28, 2009 02:17 PM

A coalition of 19 human rights, faith-based, and other groups today launched a petition drive to push President Obama to appoint an independent, nonpartisan commission to investigate the Bush administration's interrogations of terrorist suspects.

The online petition urges Obama to establish an “independent, non-partisan commission to examine and report publicly on torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in the period since September 11, 2001.”

Last week, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and MoveOn.org presented Attorney General Eric Holder with petitions bearing 250,000 signatures demanding that he appoint an independent prosecutor on the issue.

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