Lost in the flurry of bills passed as Congress ended was the inclusion in the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act of language that forbids any Pentagon funds being used to transport any detainee from Guantà ¡namo to the U.S. for any reason. There's no evidence that the Obama administration really opposed this language; they've accepted that detainees such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed won't be tried in federal courts. They've delineated a group of detainess for indefinite detention for the reason that they've been tortured, and such information, from the government's standpoint, can't be made public.
So still, 174 men sit in Guantà ¡namo, including the large group of Yemenis who are caught between denunciations by the U.S. authorities of the anti-government forces in Yemen, and U.S. support for same. The hope many felt two years ago, in anticipation of an end to the Bush torture regime is dead. Yet courageous lawyers, writers, and activists still struggle for humanity to know the truth about the illegal prison Bush built in Guantà ¡namo, and the need for the wider complex of Bush-era torture, indefinite detention, rendition, and secret prisons to really end.
Andy Worthington, who will be in the States next week to participate in protests of Guantanamo, wrote today, in Christmas at Guantà ¡namo :
I thought I'd take this opportunity to remind readers who may be searching the Internet because they need a break from eating and drinking, or because they want to get away from their families for a while, or because the TV is so relentlessly pointless, or because they don't celebrate Christmas, about some of the 174 men still held in Guantà ¡namo , for whom concern is particularly appropriate right now, as, between them, the Obama administration and Congress seem to have ensured that the majority of them will be spending many more Christmases at Guantà ¡namo""
It's not only that Guantà ¡namo should have been closed, and isn't, but that the virulent Islamophobia, the illegitimate "war on terror;" the secret renditions begun under Bill Clinton; the covering for torture by the allies in Iraq and Afghanistan continue. I thank Glenn Greenwald for pulling our attention yet again to Wikileaks, for what they revealed this year on the crimes of our government, past and current, as regards torture, rendition, and detention, in What Wikileaks Revealed to the World in 2010 " a pattern of utter suppression of peoples' rights, outside the law.
In two weeks, we'll be in Washington with Witness Against Torture , the Center for Constitutional Rights, and activists who won't let this issue go, no matter who the president, or what the promises are.
Please join us in Washington, or where you are, in making visible resistance and protest. Guantà ¡namo, and the whole torture regime that brought it, must be ended!
to the Department of Justice, followed by non-violent direct action.
Date and Time: Tues, Jan. 11, beginning at 11 am
Location: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON -- The prison at Guantanamo will enter its 10th year of operation on Tuesday, January 11. Witness Against Torture is working to make sure this second decade never begins.
Starting at 11am that morning at the White House, Witness Against Torture launches a Daily Vigil and Fast for Justice that will continue for 11 days and include demonstrations throughout Washington. The days of action will begin on January 11th with a rally of a coalition of human rights and grassroots groups, including the Center for Constitutional Rights and Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, followed by a "prisoner procession" to the Department of Justice, where members of Witness Against Torture will engage in nonviolent direct action"
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