What: Rallies, Protests, Visual Photo-ops
Where: Across U.S.
When: April 11, 2013
Across the U.S. on Thursday, street protests will support prisoners detained at the U.S. prison in Guantánamo who are engaged in a large-scale hunger strike, which began in early February. Some are now in critical condition.
“The vast majority of the 166 men have been held for more than eleven years without any charge or fair trial, with no end to their detention in sight. The Obama administration must take swift measures to humanely address the immediate causes of the hunger strike and fulfill its promise to close the Guantanamo” says a statement from World Can’t Wait andWitness Against Torture.
The prisoners’ action, described by a U.S. military spokesman as an “orchestrated event intended to garner media attention,” has begun to do “just that, and we intend to magnify their voices,” say the protesters. The Boston Globeurged President Obama to close the prison because keeping Guantanamo open is “a challenge to our reputation around the world.” The New York Times said the prisoners’ action is “exposing the lawlessness of the system that marooned them there,” describing the indefinite detention of men long cleared for release as the “essence of what has been wrong with Guantánamo from the start.
Protesters demand that action be taken by the U.S. government in time to save the lives of the prisoners, with the aim of closing the prison. In Chicago and San Francisco, nine protesters will wear orange jumpsuits to represent the nine men who have already died in Guantanamo waiting for justice. At noon, protesters will gather at the White House to focus on the president’s 2009 promise to close Guantanamo.
Full information on the protests.
Press release in Spanish:
Comunicado de prensa: Huelga de hambre en Guantánamo pasa los 60 días; Acciones de protesta para demandar un fin a la detención indefinida y el cierre de la prisión