Anti-Torture Activists to Rally, Engage in Civil Disobedience at the Obama White House to Protest the Continuation of Bush Detention Policies and Refusal to Prosecute Torture

Witness Against Torture’s “100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture” will conclude on Thursday, April 30th with an 11:15 am rally at Lafayette Park and a noon protest at the White House, in which 55 activists, representing the 55 men cleared for release but still in Guantanamo, will risk arrest-- the first such arrest action at the Obama White House. The demonstrations reflect mounting frustration at President Obama’s failure to live up to his campaign promise to break with the Bush administration’s detention policies and bring accountability to government. “Despite early, encouraging signs,” says Matthew Daloisio of Witness Against Torture (WAT), “the first months of the Obama administration have been a grave disappointment with respect to detainee issues and torture. Many of the immoral and illegal policies of the Bush administration remain in place, and President Obama has been reluctant to investigate possible past crimes. We are demonstrating at the White House to push Obama to fully reverse the Bush policies and commit to a criminal inquiry.”

Witness Against Torture demands, with a growing chorus of voices, that the Obama administration investigate and possibly prosecute alleged acts of torture by CIA officers operating under the pseudo-legal cover of Bush administration internal memos. A Justice Department inquiry must also extend to the architects of the torture policies, as well as to the widespread use of “enhanced interrogations” beyond the CIA’s notorious program. International and domestic law in fact requires that the United States investigate evidence of the violation of bans on torture. “President Obama cannot restore the rule of law,” says Matt Vogel of WAT, “while failing to enforce the law. We need accountability, not immunity.” In line with the Bush administration before it, the Obama administration has twice invoked the “state secrets” defense in efforts to dismiss lawsuits seeking redress for those rendered and tortured and damages against private companies participating in rendition (Arar v. Ashcroft et al; Mohamed et al v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc).

The demonstration also draws attention to the ongoing ordeal of the detainees still at Guantanamo, which Obama’s pledge to shut down the detention facility has done nothing to relieve. Many of the current detainees are innocent of allegations of terrorism and have been cleared for release. This is true of the 17 Uighur Muslims, who were ordered by Judge Ricardo Urbina in October 2008 to be released immediately into the United States. Yet the Obama Justice Department pursued a challenge to the ruling by the Bush administration, and the Uighurs remain at Guantanamo. “Obama must know the Civil Rights-era slogan ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’” says historian and WAT activist Jeremy Varon. “It is time for him to honor those words and not repeat the last administration’s callous disregard for the lives of these men.” Witness Against Torture has called for the release of the Uighurs in its daily vigils at the White House since President Obama’s inauguration.

The April 30th demonstration will highlight a final theme of the 100 Days Campaign: the continued denial of the rule of law and abuse of detainees under the Obama administration at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The DOJ recently indicated it will challenge the April 3rd ruling by the conservative U.S. District Judge John Bates that habeas rights, affirmed for Guantanamo inmates by the Supreme Court (Boumediene v. Bush), extend to Bagram inmates not captured on the Afghan battlefield. “Bagram is fast becoming Obama’s Guantanamo,” says Witness Against Torture’s Tanya Theriault, “where the same violations of American laws and values take place. Closing Guantanamo but doing nothing about Bagram mocks the message of real change.”

Background

Witness Against Torture was formed in 2005 when 25 activists went to Guantanamo Bay to hold a protest outside the detention facility. In 2008, 80 members were arrested at the Supreme Court demanding that habeas rights be granted the detainees, and took the names of detainees at their arrests. In the resulting trial in Washington, D.C. in May 2008, the defendants put Guantanamo itself and Bush’s torture policies on trial. This last January 11th, Witness Against Torture led more than 100 people in a nationwide, nine-day fast in protest of Guantanamo and in recognition of the detainees’ hunger strikes there.

The 100 Days Campaign began on Obama’s inauguration. During it, WAT activists-- many of whom came from distant cities to Washington D.C. for a week or more-- have held a daily vigil at the White House, brought protest signs to confirmation and other congressional hearings, lobbied lawmakers to change detention policies, and hosted numerous lectures and other public events in the Washington, D.C. area. The group will continue its activities until torture is decisively ended, its victims are fully acknowledged, Guantanamo and similar facilities are closed, and those who ordered and committed torture are held to account.

The April 30th events will begin with a rally at the Capital Reflecting pool at 10:15 am, followed by a detainee procession to Lafayette Park. There, Witness Against Torture and other human rights groups will speak out about Guantanamo, torture and accountability. The action at the White House gates will begin at noon.

Event: Rally at Lafayette Park and Protest at the White House

Date: Thursday, April 30

Time: 11:15 am-- Rally at Lafayette Park; Noon-- White House Protest

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - APRIL 24, 2009

CONTACT:

Matthew Daloisio, 201-264-4424, daloisio@earthlink.net

Frida Berrigan, 347-683-4928, frida.berrigan@gmail.com