Major Anti-Torture Demo/Arrest Action at White House Set for Thursday!

Protesters will demand prosecution of US torture and the release of innocent detainees this week when Witness Against Torture’s 100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture concludes Thursday with a rally at Lafayette Park and a noon protest at the White House. Sixty activists – each representing one of the Guantanamo inmates cleared for release but still imprisoned – will risk arrest: the first arrest action of this magnitude at the Obama White House.

Organizers cite their mounting frustration at Obama’s failure to live up to his campaign promise to break with the Bush administration’s detention policies and bring accountability to government. “Despite early, encouraging signs,” says Matthew Daloisio
of Witness Against Torture (WAT), “the first months of the Obama administration have been a grave disappointment with respect to detainee issues and torture.”

Witness Against Torture demands the Obama administration investigate and possibly prosecute alleged acts of torture by CIA officers operating under the cover of Bush administration internal memos. They want a Department of Justice (DOJ) inquiry that extends to the architects of the torture policies as well as widespread use of “enhanced interrogations” beyond the CIA’s program. International and domestic law requires that the U.S. investigate evidence of the violation of bans on torture, according to the information WAT provides.

The protesters intend the April 30 actions to draw attention to the ongoing plight of detainees still at the Guantanamo detention center. Many of the current detainees are innocent of allegations of terrorism and have been cleared for release. The 17 Uyghur Muslims, for instance, who last October were ordered by Judge Ricardo Urbina to be released immediately into the U.S. remain at Guantanamo.

“Obama must know the Civil Rights-era slogan, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’” comments historian and WAT activist Jeremy Varon. “It’s time for him to honor those words and not repeat the last administration’s callous disregard for the lives of these men.” Witness Against Torture has called for the release of the Uighurs in the daily vigils it has held at the White House since President Obama’s inauguration.

A final theme of the 100 Days Campaign to be highlighted on April 30 is the continued denial of the rule of law and abuse of detainees under the Obama administration at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The DOJ recently indicated it will challenge the April 3 ruling by conservative U.S. District Judge John Bates that habeas corpus rights, affirmed for Guantanamo inmates by the Supreme Court (Boumediene v. Bush), extend to Bagram inmates not captured on the Afghani battlefield.

“Bagram is fast becoming Obama’s Guantanamo,” says Witness Against Torture’s Tanya Theriault, “where the same violations of American law and values take place. Closing Guantanamo but doing nothing about Bagram mocks the message of real change.”

Related posts:

1. Will the new Bagram detention facility be humane? The old detention facility was a nightmare that many referred...
2. Take advantage of the openings President Obama continues to have opportunities to come down on...
3. Senate passes bill to allow Gitmo prisoners to be tried in US The yahoo’s in the House passed their version last week....
4. Well…Thats A Refreshing F*(k Yoo! Guatanamo Bay, Cuba and the horrible prison there has...
5. CIA-OLC-Gitmo Primer It took a large number of people and organizations to...