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Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) launched tearitdown.org, and with it an online movement to tear down the prison at Guantánamo Bay!!
Please pass this information on. It's easy to find tearitdown.org!!!
Today, I've watched as 4,000 pixels have been added in two hours and I REJOICE! Can we here at OpEd News spread the word and get many more added over the next few days ...?
Visitors to the new Web site can eliminate one pixel from a photo of Guantánamo by signing a pledge protesting the U.S. government’s detention center. This project is part of AIUSA’s America I Believe In campaign that seeks to restore America’s leadership on human rights and end abuses in the war on terror. All 500,000 petitions will be delivered in person to the president, encouraging the U.S. government to close the real prison.
One wishes that a similar site would be set up to watch the School of the Americas be torn down in a similar manner. I believe it would help restore America's leadership on human rights!!
“This new Web site pushes the limits of Flash technology,” says internet communications director Steve Daigneault. “Instead of merely signing a petition and spreading the word through e-mail, this site allows the user to actually ‘own’ the pixel that he tears from the photo of Guantánamo. Every pixel is different. Personalized, the pixel becomes part of a larger picture and vision of justice and the restoration of human rights.”
You may find your self thinking about you pixel for many hours afterward and networking this FAR AND WIDE so others can make a difference on this issue, too.
Signing the online pledge pulls a pixel from a photograph depicting hooded and handcuffed prisoners at the detention site. The pixel is replaced with the user’s name, serving as a permanent reminder of his participation in the project. After removing a pixel, each visitor will be given a badge that he can take and post on his social networking page.
I've placed the count of pixels made on my blog, right at the top!! You can do that to if you're a blogger.
The Web site also contains case studies, other actions and information about upcoming protest concerts happening around the country in the next six months.
In partnership with Amnesty International, HUGE Inc. of New York designed and produced the Tear It Down Web site. A well-respected strategic design organization that specializes in interactive Web sites, HUGE created this cutting-edge environment encouraging users to relate and interact with the message.
And interact you do. I found it set the tone for my entire day. The music is eerie and mood modifying. A sound track of marching boots is played in the background, the sound of clinking metal evokes powerful images that simply reading case stories has never produced in your mind. Stories on detainees are embedded on the website and by the time you read them they have since ceased to be "nameless faces" even though on the powerful page their heads are hooded. This says more about their torturers than it does about us.
“At HUGE,” said Gene Liebel, director of user experience, “we believe that a user-centered design is critical to the success of online campaigns today. The Guantánamo issue is especially engaging and has the potential to mobilize thousands of people from all political backgrounds. This Web site allows the user not only to rally around the issue, but take a concrete and real part in ‘tearing down’ this prison while ‘owning’ that piece that was torn away.”
The America I Believe In campaign has addressed issues such as the creation of the detention site at Guantánamo and the signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The campaign outlines the harsh, indefinite and isolating reality of life at Guantánamo, which amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and is in violation of international law, according to Amnesty International. A goal of the campaign is to ensure that all those who remain in detention either be charged with a crime and given a fair trial or released unconditionally. Closing the site would be the beginning of this process.
About Amnesty International
Amnesty International's 2.2 million members include people from all walks of life taking action to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied. Amnesty International, the world's largest human rights organization and winner of the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize, investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public and helps transform societies to create a safer, more just world.
While I am not as wild about Amnesty International as some people I really support this initiative. You can, too ... simply write an oped to your paper making sure they know that this happening, it might make a difference. And write CONGress and let them know .. we mean BUSINESS!! Guantanamo Bay must become a thing of the past.
