"Guantanamo Prisoners" Processional UC Berkeley

Monday January 16, 2012

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ATTN: Daybook/News Desk

"Guantanamo Prisoners" Processional to Confront UC Support for Torture (TUES)

Press Conference: 11 AM Tuesday January 17, 2012
UC Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall)

Boalt Hall Main Entrance (off Bancroft)

Protesters wearing the orange jumpsuits of prisoners at Guantánamo, Bagram and other U.S. torture chambers will leave immediately after the press conference, for a processional through the campus.

UC Berkeley’s first on-campus anti-torture protest action of the new semester is scheduled for Tuesday morning at Boalt Hall, where former Bush Justice Department lawyer John Yoo has been returned to teaching Constitutional Law.

“Under UC’s own rules, John Yoo’s case should be investigated and he should then be removed from the faculty,” said FireJohnYoo.org editor Curt Wechsler today. “Torture is a war crime, and Yoo is a war criminal by all legal standards. He should also have been disbarred, and criminally prosecuted, long before today.”

Protest organizers include World Can’t Wait, the Committee Against Torture (National Lawyers Guild SF Chapter), and Code Pink.

In addition to criticizing Yoo’s presence on the UC faculty because of his well-known role in the creation of illegal U.S. government programs of torture and rendition, protesters will also condemn Yoo's pro-war advocacy in the current U.S. belligerence against Iran.

Boalt Dean Christopher Edley has angered protesters and legal experts alike with his refusal to challenge Yoo’s UC employment Edley, who was Barack Obama’s law professor at Yale, claims that “academic freedom” shields Yoo’s work as a government attorney enabling the CIA and military to carry out illegal torture and rendition programs under color of law.

Protesters disagree, citing official UC policies governing faculty ethics and conduct which protect academic speech, not illegal government activity done while employed by UC. Stephanie Tang of World Can’t Wait noted today: “It is Yoo’s work, not his speech, that is criminal, and led to crimes which continue today because these illegal programs did not end with Bush. Obama is continuing the torture, rendition -- and even expanding it all.”

In a silent commentary on recent UC/Boalt administrative policy to keep Yoo’s classroom location secret from the public, a procession of Guantanamo and Bagram prisoners will be re-enacted immediately following the press conference.

ENDS

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