Protest Actions as Guantanamo Hunger Strike Passes 60 Days

Guantanamo Hunger Strike Passes 60 Days; Protest Actions Demand End to Indefinite Detention, Closure of Prison

What: Rallies, Protests, Visual Photo-ops
Where: 16 U.S. Cities including SF Bay Area (more to be announced)
When: Thursday April 11, 2013

San Francisco protest: 4:30 PM rally NEW Federal Building, San Francisco (7th/Mission);

“Prisoners’ Processional” march to Powell/Market: 5:30 vigil at Powell/Market

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 prisoners 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 Guantánamo” says a statement from World Can’t Wait and Witness Against Torture.

The prisoners’ action, described by a U.S. military spokesman as an “orchestrated event intended to garner media attention,” has begun to achieve “just that, and we intend to magnify their voices,” say the protesters. The Boston Globe has urged President Obama to close the prison because keeping Guantánamo 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 Guantánamo waiting for justice.

At noon in Washington, D.C. protesters will gather at the White House to focus on the president’s 2009 promise to close Guantánamo.

Full information on the protests nationwide.

ENDS

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