Five arrests at the White House on Guantanamo anniversary

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

Human rights activists, attorneys, ex-military investigators, faith leaders, and torture survivors rallied on January 11 at the White House to mark the 16th year of the operation of the U.S. 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 U.S. government years ago.  The five are members of Witness Against Torture, an activist movement resisting Guantanamo and torture.

The five activists were arrested for breaching a police line outside the White House.

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 U.S. 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. 

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.

xxx

Solidarity from Central Cellblock to Guantanamo 

by Brian Terrell

On Thursday, January 11, the sixteenth anniversary of the opening of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was marked by a coalition of 15 human rights organizations gathered in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House in Washington, DC. An interfaith prayer service was followed by a rally featuring song and poetry and addresses by activists from the sponsoring organizations, including attorneys for some of those detained at Guantanamo, few of these charged with any crime and some cleared for release years ago. Despite his declaration that “In the dark halls of Abu Ghraib and the detention cells of Guantanamo, we have compromised our most precious values,” President Obama failed to fulfill his promise to close the prison and days before his inauguration last year, Donald Trump tweeted, “There should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.”

I participated in the day’s events as part of the Witness Against Torture community. This was our fourth day of fasting, reflection and action together and many of us wore orange jump suits and black hoods representing the 41 Muslim men still held there. After the rally, WAT performed a simple ritual, serving 41 cups of tea one at a time to “detainees” who each lifted their hood to accept their cup and take a sip before laying it down in a row on the sidewalk. The names of the men were spoken aloud and had been written on each of the styrofoam cups, remembering that drawing and writing on such cups has been one of few outlets for expression for many detainees.

Immediately after the tea was served, five of us, Ken Jones, Manijeh Saba, Helen Schietinger, Beth Adams and I, stepped into Pennsylvania Avenue, walking toward the White House with a banner calling for the release of these 41 along with the thousands imprisoned in immigration detention centers and the millions of victims of hyper-incarceration in the US. To approach the White House, we needed to cross under yellow police line tape and were immediately arrested by uniformed Secret Service police.

I have been attending protests at the White House since Jimmy Carter lived there and with each succeeding administration, the space allowed for political discourse has been reduced and the once protected free speech of citizens increasingly criminalized there. Under Trump, half the width of the formerly public sidewalk in front of the White House is fenced off, the inner perimeter now patrolled by officers armed with automatic weapons. Pennsylvania Avenue, long ago closed to vehicular traffic, is now closed off to pedestrians at the hint of a demonstration. This public forum, a place of protest and advocacy for more than a century, the place where the vote for women and benefits for veterans were won, has been strangled to the point where no dissent is tolerated there.

The five of us were vigorously searched and taken to a local DC Metro Police station where we were photographed, finger printed and charged with “crossing a police line.” My four friends were released from the station after a few hours with a pending court appearance date, as is usual for such petty crimes as ours. I, on the other hand, was transferred by the Secret Service to the Central Cellblock to be brought before a judge the next day.

The booking sergeant told me that if it were up to the Metro Police, I would go home with my friends. The arresting authority, however, was the Secret Service and they wanted me held over due to an apparent outstanding case from Las Vegas. Last April, I was arrested at the armed drone operation center, Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, for the alleged crime of disturbing the peace. The District Attorney in Las Vegas declined to file any charge against me (maybe because I was disturbing the war?) but the chief judge of the Las Vegas Justice (sic) Court summoned me to appear before him on September 25 anyway. I made a motion to the court for clarification and received a response from another judge that I was not required to appear in answer to the summons. I also got official notice from the DA’s office that they had “determined not to file formal charges at this time.” Apparently, the chief judge was not happy with that decision and decided to take the role of prosecutor himself and issued a warrant for my arrest.

Central Cellblock is a crowded, noisy, roach infested hot box where all those arrested and held for various crimes around the city are collected for their initial appearances in court the next day. I was one of more than 90 men who spent the day shunted in chains from cell to cell between the jail and the court. Of these, there was one Latino and a young man from Mauritania, the rest African American. I was the only white man arrested in all of Washington, DC, on January 11 that the authorities chose to keep in jail.

Late Friday afternoon the United States Attorney decided not to press the “crossing a police line” against the five of us and so I was released before coming to court. Had I appeared before a judge, the government would likely have asked the court to hold me over for extradition as a fugitive from justice in Nevada. If this were granted, the Las Vegas authorities would then have had three days to come to DC to fetch me if they cared to.

In our group planning the events of January 11, the question came up about the usefulness of risking arrest for this cause. For myself, beyond strategic benefits, is the issue of solidarity. Just as we fast for a few days as a small gesture of sharing the suffering of the brothers in Guantanamo on hunger strike, so arrest and a few hours in a police station cell can bring us closer to understanding their unjust confinement. My intention was more than realized this time! The suppression of free speech in front of the White House is not the crackdown on the Arab Spring in Bahrain and Central Cellblock is not Abu Ghraib. My would-be extradition to Las Vegas is not “special rendition” to Jordan or to Guantanamo. These evils, small or large, are all growing from the same roots of imperial arrogance and in our different places and conditions, we are in this struggle together.

Brian Terrell is a co-coordinator for Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

xxx

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?

xxx

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.