Category: Fast for Justice 2013

Dear Friends:

As I write this email, Guantanamo has been open for 4,177 days.

In a major speech on national security on May 23, President Obama promised to begin releasing the 86 prisoners still held at Guantanamo Bay who were cleared to leave by his inter-agency task force in January 2010 but are still held.

It has been 27 DAYS since President Obama’s speech.  0 men have been released.

There can be No More Excuses on Guantanamo.  We will be judged by our actions, not our speeches.

Please JOIN US TO ACT on behalf of the men who remain detained.

Witness Against Torture and allies are making plans to mark June 26, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, by calling on our political leaders to close Guantanamo in a fair and just way, end US torture, and begin making amends to those persecuted by US detention policy.

Join us on June 26^TH in DC or your own community.  Sign yourself and your community up to participate in the rolling fast.  Support those in the US who are engaging in an open ended fast in solidarity with the men in Guantanamo.  Visit the new Guantanamo Grassroots Coalition website www.closegitmo.net for news, videos, and lots of information.

Through our relationships with lawyers traveling to Guantanamo, word of our work has been reaching the men detained there.  Their sacrifice has provided the space for this movement to grow.  Now our work continues, and it is more crucial now than ever before to keep the pressure on.

Peace-

Matt Daloisio
for Witness Against Torture

*for those in NYC tonight, join us for an important event at Cooper Union focused on Snowden, Manning & Guantanamo (info below).
Continue reading Hunger Strike – Day 134 Update

Dear Friends,

We hope you all enjoyed a nourishing meal today and are feeling renewed. For those of us in D.C., the breaking of the fast followed a vigil at the CIA organized by a local chapter of Pax Christi and others. This was WAT’s second time bringing the presence of jumpsuit and hood to the CIA and many were pleasantly surprised by the favorable response of those passing by. Not far from the CIA, a very different organization welcomed us. With weary bodies and growling stomachs we stumbled over to the Langley Hill Friends Community for a sumptuous pot-luck style fast-breaking meal.
Continue reading Fast for Justice 2013: Day 7

*small disclaimer: it is late/early, and six days into the fast. please forgive our fasting brains if we do not make complete sentences… or sense!

Dear Friends,

Chantal, Jerica and Amy brought folks together this morning with a rousing version of “Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.” We gathered today to prepare to mark the eleventh anniversary of the Guantánamo Bay detention center. Our mood was both somber and ready – there was much work to do: speeches, a long procession, the risk of arrest at the White House. And to gather courage for a long day ahead, we reflected on the following words of Fr. Daniel Berrigan:
Continue reading Fast for Justice 2013: Day 6

Dear Friends,

Early this morning, a small group of fasters reflected on the daily scripture readings from the Catholic lectionary. Frank commented that he was seeing a connection between these readings and Chrissy’s sharing yesterday about the integration of the micro and macro.  We have a political agenda, he said, but we begin with coming together, taking care of each other; we identify with the humanity of individual detainees and of others who are oppressed, and that is what drives us.

Gathering together with the larger group for the day’s opening circle, Luke led us in a poetic reflection that demonstrated how the personal can indeed influence and integrate with the political when what we love moves us to action.  “What I have to say is basically a series of questions,” he said, and this is what followed:
Continue reading Fast for Justice 2013: Day 5

Dear Friends,

Brian Hynes from New York will be happy to know that this year we have recreated his “Plato Meter” – a clever system of gauging (mimetically, not ideally) how far we have come in our fast and how far we have yet to go. In short, in the corner of the main room there is a table with two stacks of dinner plates. For each potential meal during the day, we pass one plate from the larger stack on the right over to the ever-growing stack on the left. Friends, yes indeed, today we have passed the halfway mark!
Continue reading Fast for Justice 2013: Day 4

Dear Friends,

Beth B. opened our first circle of the day reminding us to take care of ourselves during this fast that challenges our bodies and our spirits. “In taking care of ourselves, we take care of the rest of the world. Our own suffering is linked to the suffering of all. Our own liberation is linked to the liberation of all.” Her words encouraged us not only to self-care, but to remembering again the interconnectedness of all lives. And her words were echoed in the lines of a poem by Abdulla Majid al Noaimi, “The tears of someone else’s longing are affecting me; my chest cannot take the vastness of emotion.” So we were reminded too of the suffering that can arise from connection, and from connections severed, as the two poems by detainees that we read over the course of the day speak of longing for loved ones far away:
Continue reading Fast for Justice 2013: Day 3

Dear Friends,

Today is the second day of our fast, our first full day without food. We began the day early, rising to be at the Pentagon when the morning shift came in to work. The Pentagon was the first of three vigils today. After coming back for some rest and some reflection on our time together, we went out for a second time — this time to the White House. We processed as far as we could around the perimeter of the White House grounds, weaving in between recently erected fences that surround the grandstands, bleachers, and viewing stands that are being set up for the inauguration.
Continue reading Fast for Justice 2013: Day 2