In Focus
There is a Man Under that Hood: Book launch, performance and more news
There is a Man Under that Hood: Closing Guantanamo and Ending Torture in the Age of Trump
January 10, 2017 – The Impact Hub
419 7th St. NW, Washington, DC
6-8 pm
Please join Witness Against Torture, the Peace Poets and friends for a book launch and performance on the eve of our annual January 11 demonstrations against Guantanamo. The book — “There is a Man Under that Hood” — sets the words of Luke Nephew’s (Peace Poets) remarkable poem of that title to images of anti-torture demonstrations: photographs taken or curated by Justin Norman (WAT). The afterword is written by Omar Farah, Senior Staff Attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The Peace Poets will perform pieces from current human rights struggles. UK author Andy Worthington will address the state of Guantanamo in the era of Trump. And legal advocates will report on the fate of their clients still in the prison. Together, we will celebrate our resistance to torture and work to close Guantanamo.
January 2018 Fast for Justice
The January 10 event is on Day 3 of the WAT Fast for Justice, January 7 – 14. We invite you to join us in community in DC — for the week or any part of it. Please let us know you’re coming by sending an email to witnesstorture@gmail.com.
Here is a skeleton structure for the week: Sun evening: arrive; Mon: share morning meal and begin fast, planning and week’s activities; Wed evening: Book launch and Peace Poet performance; Thu: Guantanamo rally and action; Fri afternoon: possibly join No Foreign Military Bases rally; Fri/Sat: strategic planning; Sun morning: final circle and depart.
North Carolina Torture Accountability Hearings: Nov. 30 and Dec. 1
You are invited to attend public hearings on the U.S. torture program and North Carolina’s involvement, to be held in Raleigh, NC on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. The North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture (NCCIT) is conducting the nation’s first state-level, non-partisan, blue-ribbon examination of the record of U.S. torture, in particular of the role played by North Carolina in the Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation program. That role involves hosting CIA aviation infrastructure that accounted for the renditions of fully 30% of the black-site prisoners listed in the Senate torture report.
The list of witnesses for the two days includes Alberto Mora, Juan Mendez, Mohamedou Slahi, Lt. Col. Sterling Thomas, Steve Kleinman, and Mark Fallon. Fallon has written a controversial new book on torture, “Unjustifiable Means.” NCCIT is a nonprofit organization established to investigate and encourage public debate about the role that North Carolina played in facilitating the U.S. torture program carried out between 2001 – 2009.
Guantanamo authorities no longer force-feeding hunger strikers
According to the anti-torture organization Reprieve, medical staff at Guantanamo are no longer force-feeding hunger striking prisoners. Will the U.S. government allow prisoners to suffer organ failure or even death? WAT organizer Dr. Maha Hilal in her recent article for Newsweek, poses the prisoners’ dilemma in this way:
“But of course, what the prisoners are ultimately asking for is justice, not force feeding — something that seems to be increasingly out of reach under the Trump administration.”
Maha goes on to describe the nature of the prisoners’ act of resistance:
“Muslim prisoners who have constantly been vilified in the War on Terror are using this last, dangerous form of resistance — despite the personal harm it’s causing them — to re-claim ownership over their bodies in a system that has denied them all other levels of agency.”
Ever since WAT formed in 2005, traveling to Cuba to attempt to visit hunger-striking Guantanamo prisoners, fasting in solidarity with them at the prison gates, we have denounced force-feeding as an act of torture. We call upon U.S. authorities to listen to the hunger strikers’ desperate pleas: Try the prisoners or release them. End indefinite detention and torture. Close Guantanamo.
The military commissions at Guantanamo have reached a “new low”
Andy Worthington details the latest absurdities in the war court at Gitmo. A New Low for Guantánamo’s Credibility: The Brief But Absurd Imprisonment of the Military Commissions’ Chief Defense Counsel
Julia E. Rodriguez, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, writes in the New York Times that the military commissions have “yielded nothing” for Sept. 11th families. Guantánamo Is Delaying Justice for 9/11 Families
And lest we forget, the military base where the commissions are taking place is itself illegal, as WAT member Martin Gugino points out in his recent letter to the editor: The U.S. has breached Guantanamo agreement
We Must Resist: Come to DC in January!
For 13 years Witness Against Torture has championed the cause of the Muslim men unjustly imprisoned by the our government at Guantanamo, using the prison to shine a light on the other U.S. institutions of racist, Islamophobic state violence. But now, as our outrageous Narcissist-In-Chief distracts the world, those very institutions are quietly cementing into place and strengthening the security state that deprives entire groups of people of due process and protection under the law. We must resist: come to DC in January to witness in community and to build bridges with our allies as we engage the future!
Donate to support our work
Please consider a donation to help fund our annual Fast for Justice this January. We are completely volunteer driven and run. We have no paid staff; all of the money you donate goes to funding the work we do together. We are fiscally sponsored by the Washington Peace Center. The Washington Peace Center is a verified US-registered non profit. If you are able, click here to donate.
Witness Against Torture formed in 2005 when 25 Americans went to Guantánamo Bay and attempted to visit the detention facility. They began to organize more broadly to shut down Guantánamo, end indefinite detention and torture and call out Islamophobia. During our demonstrations, we lift up the words of the detainees themselves, bringing them to public spaces they are not permitted to access. Witness Against Torture will carry on in its activities until torture is decisively ended, its victims are fully acknowledged,Guantánamo and similar facilities are closed, and those who ordered and committed torture are held to account.
Join us on social media