Shut Down Guantanamo

I observed the tenth anniversary of Guantanamo along with hundreds of others in front of the White House. Our group had placed a wheeled cage, with someone dressed as a detainee (black hood, orange jumpsuit) inside, outside the White House 90 hours before the big demonstration began, and the goal was to keep the cage vigil going until the demonstration, and the following march to the Supreme Court, were over.

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Here’s a video recapping Witness Against Torture‘s January 2010 efforts to close Guantanamo. WAT will be back in DC in 2011, and you’re invited.

It’s tricky to make an issue video that focuses on the activism rather than the issue, doesn’t involve anyone directly affected by the issue, and ends with the problem unsolved. Potentially unsatisfying from every angle.

Anyhow, this video’s for those of you thinking of joining WAT’s work for the first time January 2011. Wish I could be with you next year.

Saying that “In my opinion, the defendants were not properly charged in this case,” D.C. Superior Court Judge Russell Canan today acquitted 24 activists of unlawful assembly in connection with civil disobedience this past January 21 at the U.S. Capitol.

Happy defendants Mark Colville and Paul Thorson
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On the 11th day of our 12-day fast, and the eve of President Obama’s missed deadline to close the Guantanamo prison, Witness Against Torture held 2 coordinated protests at the U.S. Capitol.

On the steps outside, 28 people dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods, many wearing the names of current detainees cleared for release on their backs, held signs reading “Broken Promises, Broken Laws, Broken Lives.”

Inside, our Capitol tour group turned into a memorial service as 14 Witness Against Torture members placed the names of three detainees who died at Guantanamo in the spot in the Rotunda where presidents lay in state. (Revelations published by Harpers this week strengthen the suspicion that the detainees were tortured to death.)

We’ll be breaking the fast tomorrow evening, after everyone has been processed and is out of jail.

Beth Brockman photo

Today there was a vigil at the Pentagon (which I missed) as well as the standard White House vigil with the mostly-Christian group singing to their Muslim brothers.

Today was free from public protest, though there was a “public presence” at one of the museums. The day ended solemnly with stories from torture survivors. It began with surprising joy as we chatted with Afghani youth and sang Civil Rights hymns to them. Pretty weird and pretty great.

Posted today at Harper’s, evidence from a soldier that three Guantanamo detainees said to have committed suicide may actually have been tortured to death:

. . . new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

In which Witness Against Torture visits a John Yoo talk, and random passersby insult him.

(If my summaries are a little sparse for you, Kate Cowley has been writing excellent, detailed summaries of each day at the Witness Against Torture website.)

I spent the day messing with cameras and computers in a cafe, and reading about the earthquake in Haiti. My companions meanwhile walked the halls of the Senate offices in black hoods and orange jumpsuits. Remarkably, there were no arrests or evictions.

Thanks for all the kind messages of support. Did some good traditional and non-traditional lobbying today. And Carmen Trotta and I returned to the White House for our sadly long-running series of Guantanamo vigil videos.

“It’s not just fasting from food—we’re not supposed to be some sort of athlethes of fasting. It’s also fasting from our own egos.” –Bill Streit, from our morning reflection. We’ll see how the ego fasting goes…

Reminded today that this time last year in DC we were told dozens of times a day, “Go home! It’s closed! He closed it!” We’re pretty far from that now.

Had an evening discussion at Georgetown Law School with lawyers, activists, and curious passersby about “Where do we go from here?” My favorite comments were about “the importance of telling stories,” of not just piling on the facts and logic but engaging the imagination.