“Jumah believes that he has been condemned to live forever on an island where there is no law. He may well be right.”
Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, lawyer for Jumah Al Dossari, a prisoner at Guantánamo.
TORTURE IS CRUEL, INHUMAN AND DEGRADES US ALL.
Shut Down Guantánamo
As we march through Washington , DC today, nearly 400 people—grandfathers, fathers, sons, boys who have grown up and grown old—remain imprisoned at Guantánamo.
The U.S. prison at Guantánamo is a site of national shame. In an attempt to sidestep the Geneva Convention protections for prisoners of war, the Bush administration created a new category of "enemy combatant" for these men captured in the "war on terror." Accounts of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment have been condemned by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and other reputable bodies. The prisoners have resorted to hunger strikes as a way of protesting their treatment.
Five years later, only one prisoner, David Hicks, has been convicted after a hearing that failed to meet basic legal norms. Many prisoners have been released but close to 400 men remain in indefinite detention without the hope of release.
Today, we are marching from the U.S. Federal Courthouse to the White House with stops at the Supreme Court, the Capitol and the Justice Department. These are the sites of political power that over the last five years: created a whole new set of laws to mask the lawlessness of indefinite and illegal detention; hidden torture and abuse in euphemism and lies; stripped people of their rights; and stood by in silence and complacency while law and justice are trampled.
We stand with the prisoners at Guantánamo—many whom have been cleared by the Department of Defense of any wrongdoing, all of whom are (minimally) entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions10 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO
SHUT DOWN GUANTANAMO
¦ GET INVOLVED ! Join Witness Against Torture (East Coast). Contact us for more information
¦ BUY AND WEAR orange “Shut Down Guantánamo” t-shirts. Made in the Bronx on sweatshop free t-shirts.
¦ EDUCATE yourself and others. Visit www.ccr-ny.org for more info.
¦ ORGANIZE a talk or forum on torture in your community. Witness Against Torture has many articulate and passionate members that are eager to spread the word about US torture and what people can do about it.
¦ DISPLAY a “Guantánamo cage”!
¦ SEND a letter to your member of Congress.
¦ GO SEE the film The Road to Guantánamo . This award winning documentary about three British prisoners premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
¦ WRITE the prisoners and send them seeds. CagePrisoners.com has collected addresses for Guantánamo prisoners and their families. Reprieve has a Seeds of Hope campaign to send seeds to prisoners of Guantánamo who have begun to grow a garden.
¦ TELL a friend about our website and encourage them to subscribe to our announcement list. Our website is an important resources for building a campaign to shut down Guantánamo.
For complete details visit
www.WitnessTorture.org
or email info@witnesstorture.org