Activists

Activists protest in DC over Guantanamo prison

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Published January 11, 2010, in Activists, Guantanamo

By: NAFEESA SYEED

WASHINGTON — Dozens of human rights activists marked the eighth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay prison for detainees by protesting by the White House on Monday.

Members of Witness Against Torture, which is calling on President Barack Obama to follow through with his pledge to close the U.S. prison in Cuba, then marched to downtown Washington. The group also opposes holding prisoners without charge or trial within the United States.

Half of the approximately 40 demonstrators wore orange jumpsuits with black hoods over their heads as they marched with their hands behind their backs from the White House through downtown Washington.

They announced plans for a 12-day fast that will end on Jan. 22 — the original closing date for the prison ordered by Obama. But the government is still working to refurbish a prison in Illinois to hold some prisoners, put others on trial and send some abroad.

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Egypt: Prosecution asks death penalty for Hizbullah activist

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Published April 19, 2009, in Activists, Egypt, Mohammed Youssef Mansour/Sami Shihab

Egypt’s High State Security prosecution has asked the death penalty for a Hizbullah activist on charges of plotting attacks in the country with the purpose of “overthrowing the regime,” according to Sunday press reports. Defendant Mohammed Youssef Mansour, also known as Sami Shihab, was among 49 suspects detained over the past five months and accused of plotting attacks in Egypt on behalf of the Shiite movement.

The pan-Arab daily al Hayat reported Sunday that during a hearing on Saturday Egypt’s High State Security prosecution “officially charged Mansour with joining a secret and illegal organization with the aim of overthrowing the regime, endangering public peace and abusing the law.” The charge sheet added that the “secret organization used terrorism as a means to achieve its goals,” the paper reported. The detainees were also accused of “being in contact with a foreign organization identified as Hizbullah, providing it with censored information without prior authorization, receiving military and financial aid from a foreign party in violation of the law in addition to owning weapons and explosives with the aim of sowing fear among the public and committing crimes listed under the law.”

 

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Iraq veteran: Why I’m against Obama’s Afghanistan

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Published April 12, 2009, in Activists, Afghanistan

This article originally appeared on Courage to Resist

I am a veteran of Iraq who served two tours in the U.S. occupation of that country. I experienced firsthand the horrors of that war, and like many others, came to see it as nothing more than a chance for a very few to make vast profits in a short amount of time. Now, because of those selfish and irresponsible actions, the citizens of not only the U.S., but of the entire world, are asked to pay for the fallout of war in blood, sacrifice and currency.
But this is old news.

Yet, even as we deplore the war in Iraq and the unconstitutional actions of the former administration, we are sucked back into the propaganda of the ‘first war,’ the ‘good war,’ as if the Bush administration was so unpatriotic that it had no interest in Afghanistan. Even as we acknowledge that Iraq is a war for oil and profit, we ignore the history of Afghanistan and the oil resources of the Caspian Sea that would be opened up through this conquest. Even as we sit on the brink of a depression we are willing to pour our money and resources into a so-called ‘ten year plan’ that will cost unknown sums of money that we will not get back. Exactly as it is happening in the Iraq war, the fruits of our labor will be siphoned off into the banks of contractors and industrialists, and for whose benefit? Certainly not ours, for we have only some false hope of revenge to attain.
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Would you go to jail to protest torture

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Published February 27, 2009, in Activists, Torture

Written by Sherwood Ross

Are you ready to go to jail for what you believe? Would you stand up to the Pentagon by engaging in non-violent civil disobedience to protest torture?

 

Two men of faith who have done so, who have walked the same road of Mohandas Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King,  are Franciscan Louis Vitale and Jesuit Stephen Kelly. They were 75 and 58, respectively, when they were jailed.

 

They submitted themselves for arrest in November, 2006, as they knelt in prayer in the driveway at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

 

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Van Spirits Away Protester in Egypt, Signaling Crackdown on Criticism Over Gaza

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Published February 10, 2009, in Activists, Arrest, Egypt, Palestine, Philip Rizk

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — State security came for Philip Rizk on Friday night. He had just finished a six-mile protest walk with about 15 friends to raise support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip when he was detained for hours and then hustled into an unmarked van and driven off. He has not been seen or heard from since.

For two days the authorities denied that he was being held. Then on Sunday, at 10 p.m., a security official at the American University in Cairo, where Mr. Rizk studies, was able to confirm his arrest to his family. His mother and father tried to get some sleep, but at 1 a.m., security agents showed up at their door, five plainclothesmen and two guards carrying automatic weapons.

After searching their apartment, the security agents tried to take his father, Magid, away, too. He refused to go, and the authorities backed off when representatives of the German Embassy and Amnesty International arrived in the middle of the night. Philip Rizk’s mother, Judith, is German, and he has dual Egyptian-German citizenship.

“It’s like a bad movie,” Mrs. Rizk said.

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Bring Binyam Home [ACTION]

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Published February 4, 2009, in action, Activists, Guantanamo, Reprieve

Press reports on Sunday 1 February stated that Binyam Mohamed, on hunger strike and being force fed, is “close to death”. Yvonne Bradley, a US military lawyer who visited Binyam last month told the Observer that “he is just skin and bones. The real worry is that he comes out in a coffin“.

Also in the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1133514/British-Guantanamo-inmate-returned-UK-hunger-strike-brings-close-death.html?ITO=1490

Take URGENT ACTION for Binyam: write/email the Foreign Secretary to take IMMEDIATE action to bring Binyam back to the UK – we do not want him back in a body bag or a coffin or his blood on the FCO’s hands. Please write to the Foreign Secretary: private.office@fco.gov.uk – maybe send a few short emails.

In a further twist in the tale today, after an expedited judicial review to get the British government to disclose information about Binyam’s detention and torture, including his genitals being cut with a scalpel over and over again, in Morocco and Afghanistan, the High Court today, Wednesday 4 February, revealed at the end of the case that they cannot force the FCO to disclose this information as the Americans have threatened their best friends, the UK, that they will not share any more intelligence information if the information gets out and names their security agents. In a previous hearing, the High Court had described Binyam’s case. vis-à-vis UK and US intelligence, as “deeply disturbing”.

There is NO denial that Binyam was tortured and NO denial that both countries were knowingly complicit, the only questions are who and to what extent?

TAKE ACTION: write to President Obama and ask him to take action to allow this information to be disclosed:http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ . The High Court judges ended their judgment by asking Obama to make that information available.

More on this story in the press today:

NB: this isn’t the first time the UK has admitted to being complicit in US rendition and torture. Almost exactly a year ago, the UK admitted to allowing two rendition flights refuel on the UK-administered island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The government denied this for years and this is probably just a small part of our involvement. MP Andrew Tyrie filed an application to consider where the UK stands in view of such action under our international obligations under the UN Convention against Torture in the summer of 2008. Today’s Guardian newspaper also runs a story about M15 involvement in Pakistan.

Also note that President Obama did not outlaw the use of torture and extraordinary rendition in his executive order to close down Guantánamo Bay.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/guantanamo-torture

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7870049.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/senior-judges-attack-us-refusal-to-disclose-evidence-1545777.html

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Ex-inmate wants Guantanamo action

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Published January 21, 2009, in Activists, Close Guantanamo, Moazzam Begg

Barack Obama’s move to halt military trials at Guantanamo Bay is “too little too late”, according to a former detainee at the Cuban prison camp.

Moazzam Begg, 40, originally from Sparkhill in Birmingham, said trials had been suspended before but the facility had never been closed down.

He pointed out that former president George Bush had expressed his desire to see it shut but without success.

Mr Begg said he welcomed Mr Obama’s decision but wanted to see action.

until we see something tangible happening, we are going to reserve judgment
Moazzam Begg

Mr Begg, a former language teacher, said he was not convinced the new US president would do “the right thing” quickly enough.

“I’m not as euphoric as some people may be. There is no clear statement about this being stopped and the whole process being recognised as illegal, as it is.

“The fact is, saying this for me is too little, too late. We need to hear much more than the halting or suspension of this process.”

Mr Begg added: “He’s made his position on Guantanamo clear, and that is something we welcome.

“But as for myself and other former detainees, until we see something tangible happening, we are going to reserve judgment.”

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City plea to close Guantánamo Bay

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Published January 20, 2009, in Activists, Chris Arendt, Moazzam Begg

A FORMER prisoner and an ex-guard from America’s most notorious military prison stood laughing and joking side by side at the University of Nottingham.

But Chris Arendt, a former guard at Guantánamo Bay and Moazzam Begg, who was held there for two years without a trial, have an important message for the new American president as he moves into the White House today.

Barack Obama has pledged to close Guantánamo Bay, the prison that houses suspected terrorists at a US Naval base in Cuba, within his first week of office.

Mr Begg, who is from Birmingham and was detained by the US when he was in Pakistan with his wife and children in 2002, said: “Any statement that says Guantánamo will be closed is most welcome but the issue isn’t Guantánamo, but the concept of arbitrary detention without trial.

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British activists protest, call for closure of Gitmo

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Published January 13, 2009, in Activists, Close Guantanamo, Shaker Aamer, UK

By Charlie Reed, Stars and Stripes

LONDON — British activists rallied outside the U.S. Embassy on Sunday calling for the closure of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The late-afternoon demonstration — held on the seventh anniversary of the controversial site’s opening — drew several dozen activists, reporters and passers-by.

Some members of the London Guantanamo Campaign and the National Guantanamo Coalition donned orange jumpsuits and shackles and wore black bags over their heads to show the conditions under which detainees have reportedly been held. They contend that not only are some prisoners being held without charge in violation of the Geneva Conventions but many are also subjected to torture.

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World’s people rally to defend Iraqi journalist

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Published December 23, 2008, in Activists, Iraq, Muntadar al-Zaidi

By Cheryl LaBash

What sound do falling shoes make? How far can they be heard? Around the world is the answer in the case of the shoes hurled at outgoing U.S. president George W. Bush on Dec. 14 by Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi.

The determination of the Iraqi peoples’ resistance could not be denied, not even in a press conference held in the U.S.-fortified “Green Zone” in Baghdad where Bush and U.S.-puppet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki performed a ceremonial signing of the Status of Forces Agreement.

Al-Zaidi shouted, “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq,” as he flung his second shoe, projecting an extreme insult and expression of contempt in Arab culture. A global outcry is hailing his courageous act and demanding the safe release of the 29-year-old reporter, who has not been seen since his arrest.

On Dec. 19 thirty members of the al-Zaidi family, joined by a woman member of the Iraqi parliament, gathered to ask for his release outside the Green Zone, where both the Iraqi government and the prison holding the journalist are located.

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