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Close Guantánamo and End U.S. Torture Policies
Close Guantánamo and End U.S. Torture Policies Everywhere
EVENT: Guantánamo Day Processional March and Street Theater
WHEN: SUNDAY January 11
1:00 PM till
3:30 PM
WHO: World Can't Wait, Cindy Sheehan, Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee, FireJohnYoo.org, Code Pink
WHERE: Rally: Powell
and Market (San Francisco)
March: Through downtown San
Francisco
An orange jumpsuited "procession of prisoners" will march through downtown San Francisco to mark the 7th anniversary of the infamous U.S. torture and interrogation center at Guantánamo.
Marchers' costumes will represent the prisoners subjected to torture and rendition by the U.S. The demonstration is to denounce U.S. practices of rendition and detention in Guantánamo, prisons in Iraq & Afghanistan, and the CIA "black site" secret prison network. The torture state built under Bush, of which Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib are the only visible parts, now runs a detention system holding over 50,000 in Iraq alone.
World Can't Wait organizer Giovanni Jackson said today: "Obama may promise to close Guantánamo – but will he repeal the Military Commissions Act which legalizes the war crime of torture? Will he end the Democrats' secret rendition program, which began under Clinton in 1993? Unless and until there is a battle in this society over whether torture is permissible in our name, it will remain an active part of the 'war on terror' that President Obama is now commanding."
The demonstration also calls for the prosecution of war criminals, and precedes upcoming protest actions against torture and war planned by World Can't Wait and others in Washington D.C. during the inauguration ceremonies Jackson said: "Obama refused to filibuster the Military Commissions Act, and he has already promised that no war criminals responsible for the torture will face prosecution during his first term. This is an outrage, and people cannot stand by silently and allow the torture to continue – no matter who the president is."
ENDS
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