STATEMENT TO THE COURT
United States District Court, Washington, DC
by Father Emmett Jarrett, TSSF
18 July 2007

My name is Father Emmett Jarrett. I am an Episcopal priest and a Third Order Franciscan. I live and work at St. Francis House, a Catholic Worker house in New London, Connecticut. I appear in the United States District Court today in response to a summons to answer the charge of “Demonstration in Restricted Zone,” issued by the police on 18 April of this year. I was one of fourteen persons who sat in front of or chained themselves to the fence at the White House on 18 April 2007.
My friends and I came to Washington that day to answer a similar charge based on an action in this courthouse on 12 January 2007 – the fifth anniversary of the use of the U. S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba, as a prison camp. We sought then to call attention of the court to the imprisonment of several hundred persons at Guantanamo – without charges or an opportunity to face their accusers, without adequate legal counsel, and without the privilege of habeas corpus as provided in the U. S. Constitution. It is widely reported that these prisoners have been and are being tortured. Their condition is a “legal limbo” – as they are not brought to trial in civilian courts for criminal acts, or tried under the Geneva Convention as prisoners of war. As a veteran myself, I am aware of the protections for persons accused under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But these persons – called “detainees,” by the government – have no such rights or protections. So we sought to speak on their behalf, and to ask the courts to insist that our country live up to its legal principles with regard to those held at Guantanamo.
Charges against us based on the 12 January action were dismissed on 18 April. Many of us then marched through the streets – to the Capitol, congressional office buildings, the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, and finally the White House – dressed in orange jump suit prison garb, some with black hoods over our heads – to call attention to the plight of the men imprisoned at Guantanamo. We ended our march at the White House, where we were arrested for “demonstration in restricted zone.”
Your Honor, I argue that the entire United States of America is fast becoming a “restricted zone,” where the actions of free citizens are repressed by military or police force, and the rights of free people are diminished, in an atmosphere of fear cultivated by the government. Martin Luther King, Jr., observed that injustice done to one person, is injustice to all. All of us are responsible for our government’s behavior to those least able to defend themselves.
My friends and I believe that terrorism is a crime against humanity, and support international efforts to stop terrorist acts whether performed by individuals, groups of people, or states. But we also believe that our government is practicing “state terrorism” as foreign policy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and against immigrants and dissenters, among others, at home. It is our duty as citizens and as Christians to speak out against torture, and to call our country to account for actions committed by military and civilian officers in our name.
The focal point and center of such illegal and immoral activity is the White House, where the prosecution of a failed war policy continues to damage not only our country’s reputation abroad, but our freedom at home, and our standing as a civilized people. We speak out against such terrorism at the Executive Mansion because it is from the White House that this policy comes, and at the White House that it must be stopped. We ask that this court, a federal district court of justice in the United States of America, dismiss the charges against us, and accept writs of habeas corpus on behalf of those who are unjustly confined at Guantanamo. We are prepared to suffer whatever penalties are involved in our action for justice, to share in a small way the suffering of injustice by those detained at Guantanamo by the United States government.
We ask the court, in the name of justice, and in the name of God, to stop the torture and shut down Guantanamo.