Remy Soni’s column criticizes the eight protesters gathered outside of the CIA information session on our campus. While he acknowledges their right to protest, he laments their supposed lack of respect for the agency. In particular, he objects to them dressing up as tortured prisoners, asking if this is “the kind of message” we want to be sending from our university. What seems to have upset Mr. Soni the most is the fact that the session had to be closed prematurely due to the disruptions.

I would suggest Mr. Soni read up on the extensive research that has been done on CIA’s torture of detainees. In particular, he should read Jane Mayer’s “The Dark Side” and the 2006 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, detailing the excruciating torture CIA interrogators imposed on the “high-level” detainees at CIA black sites. President Obama’s commendable decision to reveal the “torture memos” written by the Office of the Legal Counsel under President Bush confirms these reports. The memos, written by Bush lawyers, outline the torture methods which were authorized: water-boarding, slamming prisoners into walls, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, slapping, stomach punching, inclosing prisoners in small boxes, sleep deprivation. These actions amount to serious violations of the International Convention Against Torture and several articles of the Geneva Conventions, constituting a potential war crime.

In the light of these harrowing findings, it is completely inappropriate for Mr. Soni to criticize the protesters for their “lack of respect” for the agency’s representatives. Of course we do not want them on our campus!

These are the representatives of an agency which — in our collective name tortured people and committed war crimes. What is disheartening is not only Mr. Soni’s criticism, but the fact that there were only eight protesters.

We all should have been there, demanding that they leave the premises!

Fedja Buric

Graduate student