Alfred,
First, from the Guantanamo lawyers,
news came last month of the outrage from prisoners over a new regime of searches
and confiscation of family photographs and reading material. We've been hearing
for weeks now of a mass hunger strike, not only because of the insults and
deprivation of the few connections they have with loved ones, but mainly because
the prisoners are "buried alive" with no way to leave the illegitmate prison,
even if they have been cleared for release years ago.
Candace Gorman, who
gave up much of her practice in Chicago to represent men in GTMO,
wrote yesterday that flights to GTMO
have been suspended and asks whether that is
“Just to make sure that our clients do not have the
benefit of attorneys the new powers to be at Guantanamo have ruled that the
planes that most of us take to and from Gitmo can no longer fly to the base.
Perhaps it is because they don't want us reporting on the hunger strike as Jim
White over at emptywheel suggests here. Perhaps it is part
of the year long struggle we have been having with the powers to be in which
they tried to rewrite the protective order making it so that many of the
attorneys could only visit the base at the discretion of the military....I
covered that story here.
Or maybe it
is simply because Obama has given up on closing the base and hopes that if we
attorneys (and reporters) have enough trouble getting there maybe the coverage
of Guantanamo will disappear. IT WONT. We have not put in this much time to
just go quietly into the night.....Carol Rosenberg has more
here...”
In a piece
in Harper's on another subject, a passing statement to the effect that
everyone knows Guantanamo won't close until all the prisoners have died,
stopped me cold. Will we allow this?
Witness
Against Torture contacted us yesterday with a plan for mass protest, and a
support hunger strike. There are ALL KINDS of ways you can help focus public
attention — and thereby force the government to back off on
these measures at GTMO. I urge you to join us.
HUNGER STRIKE AT GUANTANAMO: Emergency Response &
Call to Action
Learn more:
The Price for Protesting War at U.S. Military Academy
 Six
anti-war activists and leaders, aged 30 through 75 were sentenced on March 19 to
eight hours “community service,” and $125 court costs for a disorderly conduct
conviction arising from a protest 300 people made December 1, 2009, when Obama
announced, inside the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a huge expansion of
US troops to Afghanistan.
Elaine Brower,
Matthis Chiroux, Tarak Kauff, Alison Beth Levy, and Richie Marini agreed to
serve the time, washing Highland Falls, NY, ambulances and police cars, and pay
the fee. Beverly Rice asked that she be able to send funds instead to the
National Lawyers Guild, and when that was denied, she took jail time, on the
basis of conscience. Her sentence was ten days at the Orange County jail, where
she was taken immediately. The sheriff says Bev, 75, will be released
early.
The case had gone on for more than 3 years. After one of two
disorderly conduct convictions was overturned on a pro se appeal, a new judge
delayed sentencing because court records were “lost” in Hurricane Irene. He
then forced the defendants to appear two more times with an attorney before
sentencing. The courtroom in Highland Falls was packed with mostly young people
charged with traffic and other violations, at least one in an Army uniform.
Everyone listened quietly as most of the defendants made pre-sentence statements
to the judge.
Elaine Brower said she had been outside the gate at West
Point to “petition my government” to stop the war. “My son did ten years in the
Marine Corps, two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He has done horrible
things” as part of the U.S. war on those countries. She said “I am seeing that
injustice in the eyes of my son who is emotionally wounded.”
Elaine went
on to say that “we have no recourse” to get the government’s attention except
our legally permitted right to assemble. “They keep sending young men and women
to kill. We protested at West Point when Bush was president, and we had to be
there when Obama expanded the war on Afghanistan. And we’ll be here when the
next president invades a sovereign nation. Humanity and the planet come first.
Crimes are crimes, no matter who does them.”
Richie Marini’s
statement
included:
The United States has an incredibly violent history
as we stand here today on land acquired through Genocidal means and can claim
title to the only country to ever use an atomic weapon of mass destruction
against another. The United States government continues down this trajectory of
violence today with it’s use of torture, extraordinary rendition and drones that
murder innocent civilians every day. It commits these violent acts to sustain
itself by creating new markets, obtaining resources and enslaving people into
it’s system in order to prevent itself from collapsing at the expense of
innocent lives abroad…
Despite the penalties imposed upon me here today I
will continue to work effortlessly to organize the citizens of Highland Falls
and elsewhere to put stop the crimes of this government. As an Humanitarian,
this is the greatest service that I can do for the citizens of Highland Falls,
the United States, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere…
Read more
 Bev Rice said she would not
apologize for the protest:
A total of 2177 American soldiers have been killed
during the eleven years we have been fighting in Afghanistan.
1230 have
been killed since we were arrested three years ago? How many more have been
wounded? How many more have been sent home suffering emotional and mental
illnesses? Consider, 22 veterans commit suicide each day! Consider also the
sorrowful loss for the family and friends of our dead and wounded soldiers. I
consider these each and every day.
I am proud
to have been involved in the protest, and to have participated in the defense of
the West Point Six. We need more people willing to speak the truth, and put
themselves on the line to stop the crimes of our government.
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