"Guantanamo Prisoners" Walk Across Golden Gate Bridge (SUN)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, January 13, 2013

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“Guantánamo Prisoners” Walk Across Golden Gate Bridge
To Mark 11th Anniversary of Prison Known for Torture

Event: Protest Processional across SF Bay Golden Gate Bridge
When: Sunday, January 13

Start time: 12 NOON
(begin at both ends of the bridge, meet mid-span for short vigil)

Rally: Approximately 1:00 PM: After return to SF vista point, a mass reading of the 166 prisoner names

On Sunday protesters will walk the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, many wearing jumpsuits and hoods to symbolize the Guantánamo prisoners. Following similar events in Washington, D.C. and outside CIA headquarters in Virginia, this demonstration marks the start of Guantanamo’s twelfth year.
January 11, 2013 is the eleventh anniversary of the Guantánamo Bay prison. This legal black hole, an offshore experimental prison created to serve the U.S. “war on terror,” is infamous for the torture there of hundreds of prisoners, and its indefinite detention and other wholly illegal practices committed under the Bush-Cheney administration but continuing today despite Obama’s vow – the first of his presidency -- to close Guantánamo.
Organized by World Can’t Wait and Code Pink, the bridge action demands the closure of Guantánamo and all other U.S. facilities including Bagram, where prisoners are subjected to torture and other forms of coercion and abuse, and medical and psychological experimentation. At a closing rally marchers will read aloud the names of all 166 prisoners still held at Guantánamo today, in a public statement of refusal to let the thousands imprisoned and tortured under Bush and now Obama be forgotten.
“No person of conscience living in America today can claim ignorance or non-involvement with the crimes of our government from torture and illegal rendition, to targeted assassination and drone strikes against civilians. It is our responsibility to humanity to stop these crimes. Silence is complicity,” said Stephanie Tang of World Can’t Wait.
Recently returned from a peace delegation into war-torn areas of Pakistan, Code Pink member Toby Blomé added: “Obama promised to close Guantánamo in his first year. Yet he just signed the National Defense Authorization Act which adds even further restrictions on the ability to obtain transfers for Guantánamo prisoners! Secret Black sites and extraordinary rendition continue. SHAME!”.

For Background:
A recent interview (Amy Goodman) of a journalist tortured at G’MO for years before his release:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/8/exclusive_as_gitmo_turns_11_al
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/9/part_2_al_jazeeras_sami_al
Details on cruel forced feedings of Hunger strikers at Guantanamo during Obama administration:
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/08/25/ramadan-force-feeding-and-renewed-secrecy-surrounding-hunger-strikers-in-guantanamo/

ENDS

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