Activists plan multiple Guantánamo protests

Think of the past five years. Remember the birthdays, weddings, births, deaths and other milestones. Now imagine spending the past half a decade serving an indefinite sentence, subjected to torture, without ever being charged with a crime. The US detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is home to 380 "enemy combatants" living such an ordeal. Organizers of a global protest hope to draw attention to the prisoner's situation, with the ultimate goal of forcing the jail to close. Thursday, Jan. 11, marks the fifth anniversary of the first captives being brought to the detention center in Cuba. Underscoring the date, legal, civil liberty and anti-war groups have staged a worldwide day of protest, dubbed the "International Day to Shut Down Guantánamo." With the prison located beyond US borders, the legal status of the detainees is ambiguous, and the plight of the men remains largely unnoticed. Organizers hope to shed light on what is seen as an affront to basic human rights and international law, and force the prison to close. Demonstrations and vigils will take place in cities throughout the world, including London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Sydney, San Francisco and New York. In Washington, activists wearing orange jump suits, black chains and hoods, and bearing the names of actual prisoners, will march in silent procession to the Federal Courthouse. The march on the US federal court is meant to remind the public that these men have not had their day in court, yet remain jailed in a state of legal limbo–not prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, and not defendants under the Constitution, just men jailed and interrogated for an indefinite period. Protest organizers are calling on the US government to repeal the Military Commissions Act, which ostensibly legitimized the practice of extrajudicial prisons; to charge or release the detainees at Guantánamo; have a ban on torture written into law; pay reparations to victims; and close all US prisons overseas. The White House refers to the detainees as "enemy combatants," but protest organizer Frida Berrigan insists the label is misleading the world community. She said many of the men were not picked up on the battlefields in Afghanistan, but were locals turned over to US authorities by opportunists cashing in on the $5000 bounty offered by the military. Many of the detainees may have never been a threat to the US. "When these cases finally see the light of day," said Berrigan, "the [Bush administration's] fiction will crumble in the face of an actual judge." The shady prisons, and claims of detainee torture, continues to draw condemnation from the United Nations Human Rights Commission, US allies such as Britain, and a litany of religious and political leaders from around the world. Joseph Margulies, an attorney challenging the Guantánamo detentions, believes the prisons will stain the nation's legacy. "There is little question of how history will respond to Guantánamo…. It will be looked back on with condescension and bemusement. How could we be so foolish, misguided, cruel," he said on witnesstorture.org, the campaign's website. Berrigan said the detention center represents exactly what the US should stand against. "This shows something really awful about our country," she said, "How can we think of ourselves as a democracy, as a free and just nation, when we allow this to continue?"