Tag: Islamophobia

WAT responds to Trump’s executive order on Guantanamo

In Focus - Front Page // Film

It was with heavy hearts that we, as members of Witness Against Torture, listened to Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday evening. We heard him attempt to stoke fear in his listeners with wave after wave of references to terrorists and criminals. He began by linking terror to “illegal immigrants,” border walls, “chain migration,” and visa lotteries, before moving on to ISIS, Al Qaida, rogue regimes, unlawful enemy combatants and more.

By the time he mentioned the prison at Guantanamo, he had already clearly connected the foreigner and the immigrant with the idea of danger in his listeners’ minds. He had already skillfully set the stage when he announced his executive order to keep open the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay. In Guantanamo, he reassured his listeners, we would “have all necessary power to detain terrorists — wherever we chase them down.”

The prison at Guantanamo has always depended for its existence on xenophobic fear, fueled by racism and Islamophobia. Stoking this fear helps leaders aggrandize their power, as the history of authoritarian regimes has amply demonstrated.

Witness Against Torture from its founding has sought to counter this hatred by recognizing the human dignity of each prisoner, beginning with our attempt to visit the prisoners in 2005, to fast in solidarity with their hunger strikes, and to lift their names, faces, and stories in the public eye and before the seats of power in Washington year after year. We have spoken up relentlessly for the right of every detainee to trial or release.

We continue to stand against the horror of the torture these men have suffered. We regard as an ominous warning Trump’s stated resolve to bring more “unlawful enemy combatants” to Guantanamo where “they should be treated like the terrorists they are.”

And so we resolutely continue. We turn our eyes with hope to the major legal challenge to Donald Trump’s continued detention of the men at Guantanamo, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Reprieve, and co-counsel on the 16th anniversary of the opening of the prison. We are deeply grateful to our friends and allies who continue to plan rallies and actions in support of closing the prison.

New Yorkers gather to protest Trump’s Guantanamo policy

On Thursday, Feb. 1, human rights activists from Witness Against Torture, the Justice for Muslims Collective, World Can’t Wait, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other groups gathered at Grand Central Station to protest Trump’s recent Executive Order on Guantanamo. Announced in the State of the Union address, the Order directs that the detention camp remain open, reversing the policy of President Obama to try to close the prison.

The camp at Guantanamo has been a place of torture and other gross human rights abuses. It continues to imprison 41 men — including 26 held without charge or trial and 5 whom the US government had already cleared for release. Trump’s policy also freezes any releases from the prison and orders that new captives can be brought there.

Guantanamo remains a blight on the US Constitution, the rule of law and basic democratic values. Trump’s policy, as challenged in a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, is based in his well-documented racism and Islamophobia.

“Trump’s Executive Order brings us back to the darkest days of the Bush administration, when lawlessness and cruelty ruled,” says Jeremy Varon, an organizer with Witness Against Torture from Brooklyn. “President Trump is an anti-Muslim bigot, pro-torture, and favors keeping a torture prison open forever,” says Maha Hilal of the Justice for Muslims Collective. “With the Guantanamo policy, New Yorkers and the peoples of the world now have another reason to loathe this terrible leader.”

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Day 4,5 Update – 16 years of Guantanamo

Fast for Justice 2018 // Film

January 11-12, 2018

Rally and Action marking 16 years of Guantanamo
“Forty-one hearts still beat in Guantanamo prison cells. That’s forty-one too many,” writes Kathy Kelly in The Progressive on January 11th, the 16th anniversary of the prison.

Marking that sad anniversary, we gathered once again along with 15 coalition organizations for a rally at the White House to call for the closure of Guantanamo and an end to torture and Islamophobia.  Read Witness Against Torture’s press release about the rally and arrests that followed.  For photos from the rally and WAT action, please see our Flickr page.  AJ+ did an excellent, short video about the event.

WAT member Mike Fiala writes about the action and arrests and reflects on the ritual we incorporated.  Following his reflection is another written by Lu Aya Nephew.

 

J11 Action Reflection:  A cup of tea
by Mike Fiala

It moves fast here with Witness against Torture, though not our fast from food – that languishes like waves lapping on Lake Erie.

We continue fasting though most of our actions are completed for the week. Continuing the fast is a way to keep remembering the men in Guantanamo. Just because we have accomplished something this week with our witness, they are still there, another day, and another day.

SO, the news here:
5 people from WAT were arrested at the Jan 11th action in front of the White House.
5 Muslim men have been cleared for release and remain in Guantanamo.

Solidarity. FIVE.
Of 41.

Ridah Bin Saleh Al-Yazidi (Tunisia) – Detained for 15 years; Cleared for 10 years
Muieen Adeen Al-Sattar (United Arab Emirates) – Detained for 15 years; cleared for 7 years
Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani (Saudi Arabia) – Detained for 14 Years;  Cleared for 7 years
Abdul Latif Nasir (Morocco) –  Detained for 15 Years; Cleared for 1 year
Sufyian Barhoumi (Algeria) – Detained for 15 Years;  Cleared for 1 year

The five from WAT,  Ken Jones, Manijeh Saba, Helen Schietinger, Beth Adams,  and Brian Terrell, were arrested by the Secret Service after they crossed a police line, and were then handed over to the DC police.  It now appears that even walking on to Pennsylvania Avenue which runs in front of the White House and across from Lafayette Park, can get you arrested.  Yellow police tape is ready to be rolled out frequently around Pennsylvania Avenue.

At the rally at the White House Jan 11th for the men in Guantanamo, one lawyer shared a letter, message, from her client in Guantanamo. He appreciated our work and effort at support and solidarity. He indicated the importance of it to him, and others there.

The strength of WAT’s nonviolent actions is to use our bodies as the way to connect with the men in Guantanamo. If they are fasting, we must be. If they are imprisoned, we must be too.

And so, when you imagine the beauty of them being released, you imagine what it would be for them to come home to their families.

It is among the ordinary things that families do: to serve tea. It’s the essence of refreshment of friendship. warmth and commensality.

So, after the rally, with speakers addressing the awful injustice done to these men with their continued imprisonment, we had a tea ceremony as though they were returning home.

Each of us from WAT in our orange jumpsuits with black hoods received tea in a cup. We pushed up our black hood at the offer of tea to reveal a person under the hood, and we were served tea, with each man’s name still in Guantanamo called out.

Then we placed our cup, with the man’s name penned on it, on the sidewalk at Lafayette Park, in a row. 41 for the 41 men.

Simple acts, simple hospitality. It is the core of being human.

The men in Guanatanamo, their simple humanity, remembered and called out that they may be released to return to their families, to provide for them, to love them, to eat and drink with them.  We sang with passion:

We hear a beautiful sound
It is the breaking of chains.
We see a path full of hope
We have found the way
Let them go home!
Let them go home!
Let them go home!
Let them go today.

And we could see/believe it happening if only for a moment, in hope. It will happen. It’s hard to trust. To trust that the arc of the universe bends towards justice.

So we do something with our bodies to give it a push, to em-body it before it happens. It will be. It will.

So, what kind of tea would you serve the men in Guantanamo when they come home?  If/when they come to your home?
And would you fear it, its fierce reality?
What kind of tea did we serve in preparation for their homecoming?

WHOSE AIR?
Reflection by Lu Aya, fka Luke Nephew
January 11 th, 2018

Martin wants to know who owns Pennsylvania Avenue. Fair question. Because
after a procession flowed into a speak out that sang into a ritual of remembrance,
something happened. Five friends slowly turned around and stepped off the
sidewalk and peacefully and strongly walked under the police tape and out into that
very avenue. And then…
Well, let’s go back to the mourning in the morning.
The church basement. The imperfect circle. The solemn song.
Actually, let’s go back to the slaughter of human rights that is occurring during each
second of the day a few miles away in DC Jail and a few hundred miles away in
Guantanamo and in so many more prisons. Let’s return to the breath of the tortured.
The unheard words upon their tongues. The forty-one beating hearts in their chest.
Yes. Let’s return to them.
Wait.
Let’s stay here for a moment.
Right here. Heart. Beat beat. Heart. Breath. Breath. Breath.
Breathe.
Yes.
Let’s stay there.
Even as we go on.
Knowing that the air there is the same air as we breathed here. In and out. Slowly as
we stare across the circle in the church basement. Slowly as we step by step by step
sweeping through the streets of DC with our long line of loved ones. Single file. In
orange jumpsuits and black hoods. Detainees forward. Into a city of fear. Through
the capitol of crushing callous capitalist brick and stone and cold. Let us return to
where we hold a sign saying, “It Would Take A Genius To Close Guantanamo”. Let us
break the park department rules and fill the sidewalk while the park police freak out
over nothing. Lets remain calm. Let’s begin the rally with song. Lets go back to the
faith leaders praying, that comfort may never seduce us away from the struggle for
liberation. And let’s back to the booming voices of comrades catapulting beautiful
cries for justice and freedom in the sky of all those listening. Lets go to the tea
poured
Cup,
By cup
By cup
By 41 cups
That rose up higher and realer and wider than the white house.
And let’s go now
To our family
Who were arrested
For walking
Onto Pennsylvania Ave
And realizing that maybe the streets are actually theirs…

But the air.
The air, my beloved friends,
The air
Is definitely
Ours.

CCR files first major challenge to Trump’s Guantanamo policies
From the Center for Constitutional Rights:

On January 11, CCR and co-counsel filed the first major challenge to Trump’s Guantánamo policies, in federal court in Washington, DC. This collective filing is on behalf of nearly a dozen prisoners who are detained without charge, all for more than a decade. In this court filing, we argue that the petitioners’ perpetual detentions violate the Constitution and the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), and ask the court to intervene on behalf of the men who have been deemed “forever prisoners.”

Media coverage
The following links give media coverage on the CCR legal challenge and the J11 anniversary:

Statement by Sen. Feinstein
Op-ed by Sharqawi Al Hajjj
Baher Azmy on Slate
Aziz Huq on Guardian
Steve Vladeck on CNN.com
Laura Pitter/HRW on HuffPo
AP
Buzzfeed
The Guardian
Washington Post
McClatchy
AlterNet
HuffPo (news article)

On Friday, WAT members traveled to Baltimore for the opening rally of the Conference on U.S. Foreign Military Bases, organized by the U.S. Coalition Against Foreign Military Bases.  Sr. Paulette Schroeder reports back:

Today A group of us had a real desire to travel from D.C. to Baltimore for a rally against the U.S now having close to 800 military bases around the world. The first people to congregate were three well-dressed men from Nepal who will be speakers in the conference to follow on Saturday and Sunday.  Folks representing Japan were there. Demonstrators from Code Pink and “No War,” Our Buddhist monk friends, NCNR and many more peace organizations were represented. Witness Against Torture also spoke up urging our country to finally close the base we’ve been fasting to close all week long.  A beautiful sense of solidarity pervaded the crowd of about 50 people. Longtime activists in the anti-war movement stood in hope and endurance beside young people entering activism.

This weekend we finish our week-long Fast for Justice with a WAT community retreat ending with a fast-breaking dinner celebration.  We offer our readers deep gratitude for accompanying us on this week’s journey.

We close with a poem by Towfiq Bihani, a Guantanamo detainee represented by Reprieve.

Go everywhere you would like my darling.
Don’t look behind.
Don’t fear the sight.
Live in happiness.
In gladness.
Sing as loud as you can,
Dance as much as you would like.
Enjoy all the fun you can.
My darling, forget your past.
And go ahead to start,
A new way, another way
Don’t look back on yesterday
Don’t feel sorry about me,
Or even worry about me
Don’t think who you left behind
Go everywhere you would like
Don’t look behind

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Press Release: Rally and Arrests at the White House to Close Guantanamo

Fast for Justice 2018 // Film

January 11, 2018
For immediate release

Contact: Jeremy Varon, 732-979-3119; Josie Setzler, 419-559-3759

Rally and Arrests at the White House to Close Guantanamo
Attorneys Files Major New Guantanamo Lawsuits

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Human rights activists, attorneys, ex-military investigators, faith leaders, and torture survivors rallied today at the White House to mark the 16th year of the operation of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where “war on terror” detainees were first brought in 2002. Five people — Beth Adams, Ken Jones, Manijeh Saba, Helen Schietinger, and Brian Terrell — were arrested at the White House, representing the five men still held at Guantanamo despite being cleared for release by the US government years ago.

Thirty-six other men remain at the island prison, most of whom have never been charged with any crime. Earlier in the day the Center for Constitutional Rights filed in federal court a major new lawsuit — the first under the Trump administration — challenging the legality of arbitrary and indefinite detention at Guantanamo.

The rally speakers blasted the existence of Guantanamo as a terrible experiment in lawlessness and torture, driven by hateful suspicion of Muslims as agents of violence. In tones mournful and angry, they called for the prison to close immediately and for those who designed and executed torture policies to be held to account. Sharp words for reserved for Donald Trump, who has threatened to bring new men to Guantanamo and to bring back torture methods such as waterboarding.

Maha Hilal of Muslims for Justice and Witness Against Torture spoke out against the growing climate of Islamophobia, which has deprived Muslims of basic rights, in Guantanamo and in the United States.  Attorney Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, who represents men currently held in Guantanamo, read a statement from one of her clients testifying to the importance of rallies like this in showing the world that the men at Guantanamo are not forgotten.

Mark Fallon, the former lead Navy investigator first responsible for building cases against the 9-11 perpetrators, recited at the rally his military oath to uphold the US Constitution.  Author of a new book detailing CIA torture, Fallon said that loyalty to the Constitution requires that he work to expose and end torture and to close Guantanamo. Terry Rockefeller from September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows test inveighed against the Military Commissions as a sham system of justice that has mangled the rule of law in its failed bid to provide closure for the families of 9-11 victims. The five activists were arrested for breaching a police line outside the White House.

At the National Press Club that morning, attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights announced the filing of new litigation on behalf of eleven men held at Guantanamo. The lawsuit seeks relief from the courts, given the stated decision of the Trump administration not to release any men from Guantanamo, no matter the security determinations of the US government and the particulars of their cases. This policy, the lawsuit argues, makes the detentions at Guantanamo wholly arbitrary, based in President Trumps avowed hatred of Muslim and wish to deprive them of rights. The lawsuit also mounts a new challenge to the legality of indefinite wartime detention, arguing that the hostilities following September 11 are now over, removing legal rationale for continued imprisonment at Guantanamo. The filing has already  been reported on in major media, including The Washington Post and CNN.

All those at the rally pledged to continue to do their work to close Guantanamo and end US torture.

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16 years of Guantanamo and a year of Trump: The work for justice continues

Fast for Justice 2018 // Film

 

Close Guantanamo, Stop Torture:
Seeking Justice and Resisting Islamophobia in the Age of Trump

We invite you to join us in community in Washington, DC,  January 7 – 14, for Witness Against Torture’s 2018 Fast for Justice.  Please let us know you’re coming– for the week or any part of it– by sending an email to witnesstorture@gmail.com.

We will gather for a week of events marking a tragic and ongoing history:  After 16 years, the US detention camp at Guantanamo remains a living symbol of US torture and human rights abuses and a place of misery for the 41 Muslim men it still houses. Five of the men have been long cleared for release and yet still languish there.  The Trump administration is holding 26 of the detainees for indefinite detention without charge or trial. The Pentagon has plans to try only a small handful of the prisoners.

It is easy to lose hope in these troubling times.  Yet we know that hope resides not in calculating future probabilities, but in bearing witness to injustice in this present moment.  It resides in lifting up human dignity. It resides in imploring our fellow citizens not to turn their eyes away.  And so, once again, we gather.

Highlights of WAT’s 2018 Fast for Justice

Here is a preliminary skeleton structure for the week (Jan. 7 – 14):

Sunday evening: arrive anytime after 3; settle in and gather for evening circle
Monday:  share the morning meal and begin the fast; opening circle; begin planning the week’s actions
Tuesday:  morning circle; plan and carry out actions; evening event (Mark Fallon talk: see below)
Wednesday:  morning circle; plan and carry out actions; evening event (Book launch and Peace Poets: see below)
Thursday:  11:30 am White House rally with coalition partners; action; possible evening vigil
Friday:  morning circle; afternoon No Foreign Military Bases demonstration in Baltimore; possible evening circle
Saturday:  all-day retreat to examine our capacity and how to move forward; evening meal to break the fast together and celebrate our community
Sunday morning:  breakfast, circle and closing ceremony; depart.

January 9 – Mark Fallon Event

Author Mark Fallon presents Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture, at Kramerbooks at 1517 Conn. Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.  6:30 pm.

Mark Fallon is a former intelligence officer and investigator at the heart of America’s “war on terror.”  Karen Greenberg, Director of the Center on National Security, calls his book “Essential reading for those who wish to understand this dark period in American history.”

January 10 –  Book Launch, Performance, and Speakers

There is a Man Under that Hood: Closing Guantánamo and Stopping Torture in the Age of Trump

The Impact Hub
419 7th St. NW, Washington, DC
Jan. 10, 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, collects highlights from eight years of anti-torture photography curated by Justin Norman, and pairs them with Luke Nephew’s powerful poem by the same name. The contents are book-ended by a foreword from WAT’s Jeremy Varon and an afterword from 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.

New book from Witness Against Torture on Guantanamo activism

The 72-page book is available for pre-order in hardcover for $25. Release is set for January 10th, 2018. The proceeds will be used to further the human rights work of the creators.

January 11 – Rally Marking 16 years of Guantanamo

Please join human rights activists, torture survivors, Guantanamo attorneys, 9-11 family members, ex-military officials, and members of diverse faith communities in Washington, D.C. on January 11, 2018 as we rally against Guantanamo, indefinite detention, and Islamophobia and call for the immediate transfer of the cleared detainees. The rally at the White House will begin at 11:30 am.

Muslim Ban

Just days after Donald Trump retweeted anti-Muslim propaganda, the Supreme Court decided to implement Muslim Ban 3.0 while the lower courts adjudicate the ban’s constitutionality, by kicking the case back to the 4th and 9th Circuit courts.  However, they have allowed the racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and anti-Muslim ban to go into effect in the meantime. See this op-ed from the ACLU.

In response, the Justice for Muslims Collective organized an emergency rally at the Supreme Court on December 7th. Co-directors Maha Hilal and Darakshan Raja MC’d the event that highlighted the voices of inspiring Muslim women speaking truth to power:

Here’s a link to the livestream video of the rally.

North Carolina Torture Accountability Hearings

On November 30 and December 1, several hundred people gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina for an extraordinary event: the public hearings of the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture.  Over two days, eight commissioners heard riveting and often heart rending testimony about the global rendition and torture program undertaken by the United States following the 9/11 attacks.  The witnesses included the world’s leading rendition researcher; military, ex-military, and ex-intelligence officers outspoken against torture; legal experts on human rights; psychologists who treat torture victims; and, via Skype, survivors of US torture. The Commission grew out of local, North Carolina efforts to protest Aero Contractors — a private airline company contracted by the CIA to carry out likely hundreds of rendition flights ferrying US captive to torture by the CIA or foreign governments.  The commissioners will author a report based on the hearings.

The NCCIT hearings were a landmark event.  The Bush administration sought to define out of existence, conceal, and immunize grave crimes. The Obama administration chose not to prosecute potential perpetrators of torture operating under legal directives from Bush’s DoJ.  Several lawsuits targeting torture policies have been dismissed from federal and international courts for reasons of executive privilege, state’s secrets provisions, and pressure from the US government. It has therefore been up to civil society actors like the NCCIT to provide at least symbolic forms of accountability for years of US torture.  The hearings further educated the public about US conduct, solidified the legal case that torture occurred, and may help to deter future uses of torture by fortifying a public narrative that it happened and that it was wrong.  The hearings also brought victims of torture into a judicial-style inquiry, simulating forms of due process that has been denied them.

For more on the hearings, including links to media and video archive of them, go to the NCCIT website.

We Must Resist: Join WAT in DC in January!

For 13 years Witness Against Torture has championed the cause of the Muslim men unjustly imprisoned at Guantanamo, also using our witness to shine a light on other U.S. institutions of racist, Islamophobic state violence.

Now, as our outrageous Narcissist-In-Chief distracts the world, those very institutions are quietly cementing into place and strengthening the security state that is stripping entire groups of people of due process rights and protection under the law.

We must resist: come to DC in January to witness in community with us and to engage the future together!

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.

 

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Join us in DC this January

Fast for Justice 2017 // Film

Please note:  RSVP is required – email us: witnesstorture@gmail.com

Fast for Justice Schedule

Jan. 11 Rally info

WE FAST BECAUSE YOU HUNGER STRIKE. WE STRUGGLE UNTIL YOU LIVE FREE

We come together not only to call for the closure of Guantanamo and its legacy of institutionalizing Islamophobia, but also to invite our government and fellow citizens to choose the side of love, mercy and justice.

We demand an end to policies that maintain racism, mass incarceration, and fear of our neighbors. We come together to envision the world we want to live in where justice and equality reign.

We hope you will join us for a week of actions and fasting from January 3-12, 2017 in Washington, DC and our presence at the presidential inauguration January 19-21.

We will start fasting from the evening of Jan. 3rd and break our fast on January 11 in the morning. If you cannot make it to DC, but are considering fasting during this time – let us know. We will organize a conference call for everyone fasting across the country and we want to include you.

If you can only come for one day, join us for the rally with our coalition partners on January 11th.  Location is TBD. We will also engage in creative actions around DC between Jan. 4-12 – contact us if you are interested in participating.

Jan 10 we will host a cultural event in collaboration with the Tea Project – more details coming soon.

We also invite you to join us from afar, to participate in our solidarity actions and to organize actions in your own communities to raise awareness of torture and indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay.

January 8 – Workshop on tear gas use in prisons with War Resisters League – https://www.facebook.com/events/226640994413157/

January 9 Action with War Resister League : https://www.facebook.com/events/210198856106456/

You can join us for our annual rally on January 11 at noon at the Ellipse. More information here : https://www.facebook.com/events/1818873991715572/

Jan 10 we will host a cultural event in collaboration with the Tea Project – Space is limited so please RSVP here : https://ccrjustice.org/wordsfromthegrassroots#.

For more info and to RSVP, email us: witnesstorture@gmail.com.

The latest updates are on our Facebook event page.

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