It seems that Judge Alito would regard the deliberate abuse of symbols of someone’s religious faith as arguably tantamount to “torture.” Since mockery of Islam has now been documented in many instances of the Cheney-Rumsfeld detainee-abuse policy, this strikes me as worthy of bringing up in Alito’s hearings. A legal reader discovered Alito’s opinion in Fatin v. INS, 112 F.3d 1233, where Alito held that asylum might be available for an Iranian immigrant who refused to wear a veil. Money quote:
In considering whether the petitioner established that this option would constitute persecution, we will assume for the sake of argument that the concept of persecution is broad enough to include governmental measures that compel an individual to engage in conduct that is not physically painful or harmful but is abhorrent to that individual’s deepest beliefs. An example of such conduct might be requiring a person to renounce his or her religious beliefs or to desecrate an object of religious importance. Such conduct might be regarded as a form of “torture” and thus as falling within the Board’s description of persecution in Acosta.
Alito should be asked whether Koran abuse, the forcible eating of pork, the mandatory swallowing of liquor, sexual humiliation, and other documented anti-Muslim instances of abuse under the Cheney-Rumsfeld rules constitute “torture.” (In the end, Alito did not grant the woman asylum, however, because the record did not show that the exile refused to wear a veil under all circumstances. But he set a clear, new, progressive standard in asylum cases. More here.)
The Dish 