From the Archive

Witness Against Torture and HOOD share the Ally Award from CCR

Witness Against Torture is honored to receive this year the Ally Award of the Center of Constitutional Rights (CCR).  It will be presented at the Annual President’s Reception in New York City on May 6.   The award is a testament to the dedication of the WAT community and its close partnership with CCR. We are honored to share the award with the The National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms (HOOD), a Yemen-based human rights organization demanding an end to torture and the closure of Guantanamo, among many issues. . The following is a letter sent to HOOD about sharing this award with them.

Dear Members of the National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms,

We, members of Witness Against Torture, write to you to say we are deeply honored and humbled to share the Center for Constitutional Right’s ally award this year with your organization.  While we have never had the opportunity to meet in person, we have heard about and followed your courageous work defending the dignity and rights of so many in Yemen and around the world.  We thank you for this. It is knowing that organizations like yours continue to struggle for justice and human rights, that fuels our work inside the United States to demand the closure of Guantanamo and an immediate end to torture and indefinite detention.

Our group formed in 2005 when 25 United States citizens went to Guantánamo Bay and attempted to visit the detention facility. Since we returned from that journey, we have continued to organize more broadly to shut down Guantánamo, working with interfaith, human rights and activists’ organizations for the last ten years. Every January, we gather in Washington D.C. to fast and protest the continued existence of Guantanamo, a place that must be forever shuttered. Our work focuses on nonviolent direct actions to expose and decry the US administration’s lawlessness and build awareness about torture and indefinite detention.

As we write to you today. We remember the 122 men that remain in Guantanamo. We also remember that 76 of them are from Yemen. We remember that they are missed and loved by so many of the people that you work with.  We know that our government has stolen so many years of their lives.  The continued resilience, resistance, and hope for freedom expressed by the men in Guantanamo continues to guide our work. This year, we have particularly been moved by the words of our brother Fahd Ghazy.  We share his dream that one day he will taste freedom, walk once again upon his land, and be reunited with his loved ones.

We hope that sharing this award will bring us into closer relationship. Truly, it is an honor for us.  Knowing that we are in this work together will help us continue until torture is decisively ended, Guantánamo and similar facilities are closed, and drone strikes are unimaginable.

Finally, we would like to be able to cultivate a relationship with you all.  We are open to the many ways that this could happen.  Once simple way would be to share the work you are doing through our email, social media, and personal networks. Please feel free to share any other ways you believe that we could partner in this work. You can email us at witnesstorture@gmail.com

Humbly honored,

Chris Knestrick, Paula Miller, Matt Daloisio, Uruj Sheikh, Helen Schietinger, Jeremy VaronJerica Arents, Justin Norman, Chissy Nesbitt, Marie Shebeck, Mike Levingston, and all of Witness Against Torture