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15 Arrested At White
House Protesting U.S. Torture
By Mike Ferner
03/02/06 "ICH" -- -Washington
– - Fifteen people were arrested yesterday in
front of the White House after winding their way for two hours
through the streets of the nation’s capital, demanding the U.S.
stop torturing detainees in military prisons.
Members of Witness Against
Torture began their protest at the steps of the U.S. Supreme
Court, continuing to the Capitol and the Department of Justice,
and ending at the White House where U.S. Park Police carried out
the arrests. Speakers called on officials in each of the
buildings to cease planning and executing policies that have
injured and killed people in prisons such as Guantanamo Bay,
Bagram in Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Arrested were Art Laffin,
of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, Amanda
and Matt Dalaisio, and Tania Theriault of the Catholic Worker’s
Mary House in New York, Susan Crane from Jonah House in
Baltimore, Matt Vogel, Mark Colville, Brian Kavanaugh, Carmen
Trotta, Jacqueline Allen-Doucot, Alice Gerard, Bill Streit, Tom
Feagley, Edith Tetaz and Jordan Manuel.
The march took place on
Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, an annual period when
Catholics pray and fast to repent for sins. Speakers included
many Biblical references in their remarks.
At the Department of
Justice, Bill Streit used passages from the Book of Isaiah to
condemn the DOJ’s role in torturing prisoners. “Your hands are
stained with blood, your fingers with guilt; Your lips speak
falsehood, and your tongue utters deceit…Right is repelled and
justice stands far off; for truth stumbles in the public
square. Honesty is lacking, and the man who turns from evil is
despoiled.”
Following Streit, Kristine
Huskey, an attorney just back from Guantanamo where she
represents a detainee, described torture methods prisoners have
reported to her and other attorneys.
The 38 year-old attorney
from the firm of Shearman and Sterling explained that some 30
detainees had been on a hunger strike since late last summer to
protest their treatment. Despite being roughly force-fed,
several others joined the strike on Christmas Day. At that
point, military officials at Guantanamo ordered even harsher
methods.
“Soldiers would strap a
prisoner to one of several specially-purchased metal chairs with
six-point restraints, insert an oversized tube through his nose
and purposely overfeed him, causing him to vomit, defecate and
urinate all over himself, and then leave him strapped in the
chair for hours like that,” Huskey stated.
Describing what happened
when the military “got serious about ending the hunger strike
after Christmas, she said, “They stopped using lubricant to help
the tubes go down, and began using tubes with metal tips.”
Despite the tortuous
forced feedings, she reported, four prisoners remain on hunger
strike at Guantanamo. Other speakers, citing reports from
Amnesty International, corroborated Huskey’s statements and
added that prisoners reported many instances of injuries,
bleeding, and unconsciousness from the torture-feeding methods,
plus numerous physical and mental injuries from torture
techniques such as sensory deprivation, beatings, and burning
with lighted cigarettes.
She told the protesters
and a small knot of bystanders who stopped to listen, that “One
of the most important things you can do is keep this issue alive
and not let the world forget. I was just in Guantanamo and I
can tell you that your actions provide a glimmer of hope to
these prisoners – something they’ve not had before. They are
aware of your actions and express their thanks.”
Escorting six fellow
protesters dressed in bright orange jumpsuits, hands tied and
hoods over their heads, the marchers proceeded along busy
sidewalks to the White House, carrying signs that read, “You can
deny it’s torture, but the world knows,” “Torture is killing a
person without them dying,” and “Ban all torture – no exception
for Bush.”
Asked for an opinion of
the procession that had just passed her, one woman replied
tersely, “I’m not interested.” A second, referring to a
reporter’s notebook, said, “I don’t do that..” A block later, a
third person claimed, “I didn’t even notice it.”
Several blocks further, an
employee of the National Association of Manufacturers, standing
in front of its headquarters, answered, “At first I thought it
was against the death penalty and then I saw what it was about.
Torture? Sure, I disapprove. This war is a lie. It’s a fake
that’s costing people’s lives. It’s terrible what’s going on.
I lost two brothers in Viet Nam. I know war is profitable, but
it’s wrong.”
Arriving at the White
House, the march was greeted by two patrol cars and a paddy
wagon, quickly augmented by another wagon and dozens of
uniformed and plainclothes U.S. Park Police and Secret Service
agents.
Tourists stopped to watch
and take pictures as the activists drew crosses made of ashes
from the wood stove at Jonah House, on the White House
sidewalk. Some of the tourists entered into conversation with
the protesters, most stood quietly.
A 17 year-old student from
California, asked what he thought about the event, said,
“Torture is still bad, but it’s sometimes necessary to save
other lives.” A passing youth slowed to inquire, “Are the
people being tortured American citizens?” When answered, “No,”
he replied, “then what’ve we got to do with it?” One young man
was overheard telling a woman he was with, “stick around here,
honey, and your face will wind up in a database.”
Francis Gabby, in
Washington from Maryland’s Eastern Shore for his job, began his
comments carefully. “They have every right to be here. I
happen to agree with the majority of what they say. I don’t
believe we should be torturing people.”
Asked to respond to the
California student’s assertion that torture is bad but sometimes
necessary, the 57-year old building management worker replied,
“It’s like the death penalty where innocent people have been
executed, and besides, it just doesn’t serve any purpose – in
fact, it’s doing the opposite. It seems like we’re getting bad
information anyway. I don’t have answers, but I don’t think
this is the way.”
Anne Montgomery, 79, a
participant in the march, said she had been to Iraq many times
with Voices in the Wilderness and Christian Peacemaker Teams.
She said, “The U.S. is exporting a tremendous escalation of
violence, feeding more violence in the world. Actions like this
are important so that people will know that not all Americans
are behind the war. Every action that says we disapprove of
what our government is doing helps.”
Referring to the four CPT
members still held hostage in Iraq, Montgomery said yesterday’s
demonstration and others like it may well be helping them stay
alive and contribute to their release.
Finished drawing the ashen crosses, 15 people stood with
banners and signs in the “no protest” zone along one section of
the White House fence and waited to be arrested. In the hour it
took the Park Police to begin that process, several of the
soon-to-be-arrested spoke.
Her back to the fence,
Theriault stated for all to hear, “Torture and indefinite
detention do not represent us and do not make us secure.”
In a voice fit for a
theatrical production, Trotta boomed, “I’m thinkin’ about lunch
counter sit-ins – deliberate, deliberate breaking of the
law. I’m thinkin’ about Martin Luther King, and the Catonsville
9. I’m even thinkin’ about the Boston Tea Party – that was
deliberate law-breaking.”
The police officers
arrested each person, methodically tying their hands behind
their back with plastic handcuffs. Three of the arrestees were
sitting on the sidewalk in orange jumpsuits, hooded, with their
hands tied in front of them. Officers removed the hoods and had
to unwrap the electrical cord binding their hands before placing
them in handcuffs.
With the arrestees in the
wagons, the police drove them to a federal booking facility in
Anacostia, charged them with demonstrating without a permit,
cited them into court at a later date, and released them.
After the action was over,
a safety officer wearing a haz-mat hood and gloves took samples
of the wood ashes on the sidewalk. As people left the area, a
motorized street sweeper cleaned the sidewalk of ash.
###
Note: Protest organizers
said that four days prior to the demonstration they sent out
approximately 1000 news releases, 100 to news media outlets in
the D.C. area. Reuters was the only news media outlet seen
covering any part of the actions yesterday.
Ferner
is a freelance writer from Ohio
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