"Yes, We Can" Close Guantanamo In 100 Days:
Nine-day fast to close camp reaches 100, while 42 detainees hunger strike in Guantanamo
January 13, 2009: Witness Against Torture, a grassroots group dedicated to closing Guantanamo and ending torture, is
heartened by the announcement from unnamed members of Barack Obama’s transition team that the new President will sign an
executive order to close Guantanamo on January 21^st , his first full day in office.
But members of the group, which marked the seventh anniversary of the Guantanamo prison with a demonstration on Sunday,
January 11th , are alarmed that carrying out this order is likely to be a year-long process, or longer. “Guantanamo must
be closed not just on paper, but in reality. And for the 250 men still there, it has already been seven years too long,”
remarks Frida Berrigan, an organizer with Witness Against Torture.
More than 100 people around the country have joined Witness Against Torture in a Fast for Justice that began on January
11^th and will end the morning of President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
The Fast for Justice has grown in response to recent comments from Obama that a quick timeline for closing Guantanamo
would be a “challenge.” At the same time, the Pentagon is reporting that 42 men at Guantanamo are on a new hunger
strike, with most subject to force-feeding.
"With our fast, we join our voices and our bodies with these men on hunger strike in the sincere hope that President
Obama fulfills his promise and ends the injustice that is Guantanamo immediately," remarks Matthew Vogel, another
organizer who is also fasting. Half of the "Fasters for Justice" are in Washington, DC and will hold a vigil and march
starting from DuPont Circle Park and processing around the city, from 11am-1pm each day through Tuesday, January 20. The
rest of the fasters are participating from around the country.
The fast will be broken in a sunrise ceremony on Inauguration Day in McPherson Square, DC. (For details and updates,
visit http://www.100dayscampaign.org/fast).
For the first fifteen weeks of the new administration, Witness will maintain a daily presence in Lafayette Park across
the street from the White House, attempting to keep the plight of the men in Guantanamo in the forefront of both the
President’s and American Public’s mind.
ENDS