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U.S. Christians March on Guantanamo to Visit Prisoners
on Hunger Strike
Take Action to Stop the Torture, Abuse & Illegal Detentions
Please forward this information to your friends, families, organizations
and other contacts.
Twenty-five U.S. Christians in the nonviolent tradition of Dorothy Day
and the Catholic Worker are setting out from Santiago, Cuba today (Dec.
6) on a solemn 50-mile march to Guantanamo Bay. They seek to "defend
human dignity" by visiting with the hundreds of detainees who have been
held for more than three years under horrific conditions by the U.S.
government. The group plans to arrive outside the gates of the U.S.
naval base and prison complex on Guantanamo Bay on December 10, International
Human Rights Day.
Participants in the group include a Jesuit Priest, Steve Kelly, a Catholic
Nun, Sr. Anne Montgomery, Frida Berrigan, daughter of the late antiwar
activist Phil Berrigan, and representatives of a number of Catholic
Worker Communities. They are requesting entry into the compound to visit
and interview the detainees as a "work of mercy" in keeping with their
faith. If refused, as United Nations inspectors were just two weeks
ago, they will hold a fast in solidarity and a vigil to pray for the
immediate abolition of torture by all nations.
Take Action!
Sign-on to a letter to President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, and Guantanamo Naval Base Commanding Officer Mark M.
Leary, requesting that the marchers be allowed to visit those incarcerated
in the Guantanamo Bay prison: http://www.witnesstorture.org/signletter - Organize a solidarity vigil to End Torture and Illegal Detentions
on International Human Rights Day, this Saturday, December 10. Register
your vigil online at http://www.witnesstorture.org/events. Call your
local media outlets to let them know.
- Donate to this effort at http://www.witnesstorture.org/donate
To stay informed, download factsheets and flyers,
and read the marchers' online blogs, visit www.witnesstorture.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 6, 2005
CONTACT: Witness Against TortureMike McGuire 347-683-4928 press@witnesstorture.org
U.S. Christians March on Guantanamo to visit Prisoners on Hunger Strike
"Witness Against Torture" Implores U.S. Military to Allow Access
So They Can Perform Work of Mercy: Bringing Comfort to Prisoners
Santiago, Cuba - Twenty-five Christians in the nonviolent
tradition of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker arrived in Cuba last
evening and plan to set out from Santiago today on a solemn fifty-mile
march to the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They seek to "defend
human dignity" by visiting with the hundreds of detainees who have been
held for more than three years under horrific conditions by the U.S. government.
"As a Christian, I feel compelled to reach out across national boundaries
to perform one of the most basic acts of faith- as described in the gospel
of Matthew 25, I was in prison and you visited me," explained Catholic
Worker Matthew Daloisio. "We want our fellow Americans to see the shameful
acts of torture and abuse taking place in this and other illegal prisons
hidden across the globe. We pray that others will join us in urging our
government to allow us to perform this act of Christian faith."
Participants in the group include a Jesuit Priest, Steve Kelly, a Catholic
Nun, Sr. Anne Montgomery, Frida Berrigan, daughter of the late antiwar
activist Phil Berrigan, and representatives of a number of Catholic Worker
Communities. The marchers plan to arrive outside the gates of the U.S.
naval base and prison complex on Guantanamo Bay on December 10, International
Human Rights Day.
They are requesting entry into the compound to visit and interview the
detainees as a "work of mercy" in keeping with their faith. If refused,
as United Nations inspectors were just two weeks ago, they will hold a
fast in solidarity and a vigil to pray for the immediate abolition of
torture by all nations.
A press conference at the St. Marks Church-on-the-Bowery will be held
on December 7 to call on the U.S. Government to allow Witness Against
Torture to visit the Guantanamo prisoners. Speakers will include Michael
Ratner, head of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and CCR's
Gitanjali Gutierrez, the lead attorney for Guantanamo Bay detainees. CCR
brought the landmark detainee right-to-trial case in which the Supreme
Court ruled that the U.S. Government had to allow federal hearings to
determine the legal status of detainees. Ratner will explain how the Bush
Administration has refused to comply with this ruling. Speakers will also
include relatives of a Guantanamo Bay detainee now on hunger strike. Sister
Diana Ortiz, a U.S. nun who was a victim of rape and torture in Guatemala,
will be joined by anti-torture activist Jennifer Harberry, to speak of
what it feels like to be a victim of torture.
A sign-on letter at http://www.witnesstorture.org
will allow Americans to join their call.
# # #
Letter to Friends and Activists:
Dear Friends and Fellow Activists,
On December 5th, a group of us from the United States embarked on an 11-day
journey to the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. We arrived in Santiago,
Cuba to begin a five-day, 77+ mile walk to the Guantánamo base, where
we hope to enter the detention facility to monitor the conditions and
meet with both guards and prisoners. We plan to stay until at least December
15th to maintain a vigil outside the gates of the base, having a presence
over International Human Rights Day on December 10.
It is our hope to be able to interview detainees about torture claims
and hunger strikes at the base. We also seek to initiate a credible, objective
and fair assessment of the situation of the detainees at the detention
facility. We have lawyers and doctors on call to join us, should we be
allowed in.
It was revealed in mid-November that the U.S. has detained more than 83,000
people in its four-year "war on terror" of which 14,500 remain in jail.
Some 108 are known to have died in U.S. custody, prompting 26 homicide
investigations.
Guantánamo is the closest-to-home location of some of these detentions
and alleged abuses. We believe that an ocean, or border, or travel restriction
should not stop us from standing us for what is right.
While we are in Cuba, we have a press team working here in the U.S. to
encourage media coverage of our walk and witness in order to keep the
plight of the detainees at the forefront of the public's mind.
To track our journey, see photos, access press releases, statements, and
trip updates, please see http://www.witnesstorture.org
This site will be updated regularly to keep you abreast of our journey.
There will be a sign-on letter on the website calling on the US government
to stop violating the prisoners rights and to let us into the base.
In June, President Bush countered questions about torture at Guantánamo
and the United States' commitment to human rights by inviting members
of the European Union to inspect the U.S. base at Guantánamo. He said,
"you're welcome to go down there yourselves... and take a look at the
conditions." We are hoping you will join in pressuring the Bush administration
to let us answer its invitation by signing the letter and publicly supporting
our request to be let into the base.
Feel free to forward this on to others as well.
In Peace,
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Jackie Allen
Hartford Catholic Worker
Matthew W. Daloisio Sr.
New York Catholic Worker
Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
Kairos Community, NY
Gary Ashbeck
Jonah House, MD
Amanda W. Daloisio
New York Catholic Worker
Grace Ritter
Ithaca, NY
Frida Berrigan
War Resisters League, NY
Thomas J. Feagley
Malden, MA
Patricia Santoro
Jersey City, NJ
Anna Brown
Kairos Community, NJ
Clare Grady
Ithaca Catholic Worker
William Streit
Little Flower Catholic Worker, VA
Dana M. Brown
Ithaca, NY
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Teresa Grady
Ithaca Catholic Worker
Sheila Stumph
Raleigh Catholic Worker, NCDaniel Burns
Ithaca Catholic Worker
Rev. Steve Kelly, SJ
Oakland, CA
Carmen TrottaNew York Catholic Worker
Mark Colville
New Haven Catholic Worker
Dina Khorasanee
Canada
Tanya Theriault
New York Catholic Worker
Susan Crane
Jonah House, MD Catholic Worker
Art Laffin
Dorothy Day Catholic Catholic
Worker, Washington, DC
Matthew Vogel
New York
Scott Langley Raleigh
Catholic Worker, NC
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Mary Anne Grady Flores
514 N. Plain St. Ithaca, N.Y. 14850 (607) 273-7437
mgrady@lightlink.com
St. Patrick's Four Support Group
http://www.stpatricksfour.org
Ithaca Catholic Worker
Vieques Support Group
La Cocina Latina Catering
*Specializing in Caribbean, Central & South American Cuisine*
"The poor tells us who we are, The prophets tell us who we could be,
So we hide the poor, And kill the prophets" - Phil Berrigan
"Because we want peace with half a heart, half a life and will, the
war making continues. Because the making of war is total - but the making
of peace by our cowardice is partial." Father Daniel Berrigan
"There comes a time when silence is betrayal." MLK "Those who make peaceful
revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK
"If you think you're too small to be effective, you've never been in
bed with a mosquito." -- War Resisters' League
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Address:
Maine Veterans For Peace
Chapter 001
13 Soper Road
Chesterville, Me 04938
e-mail:
rawlings@maine.edu
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