[Ppnews] Anti-Torture Activists Convicted, Guantanamo Prison Put On Trial

[Political Prisoner News]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 29, 2008
Contact: Frida Berrigan (347) 683-4928
Frida.berrigan at gmail.com
www.witnesstorture.org

Anti-Torture Activists Convicted
Guantanamo Prison Put On Trial

WASHINGTON, D.C. - May 29, 2008

Thirty-four Americans arrested at the Supreme Court on
January 11, 2008 were found guilty after a three-day
trial which began on Tuesday, May 27th in D.C. Superior
Court. The defendants represented themselves, mounting a
spirited defense of their First Amendment rights to
protest the gross injustice of abuse and indefinite
detention of men at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo
Bay.

Charged with "unlawful free speech," the defendants were
part of a larger group that appealed to the U.S. Supreme
Court on January 11-the day marking six years of
indefinite detention and torture at Guantanamo. "I knelt
and prayed on the steps of the Supreme Court wearing an
orange jumpsuit and black hood to be present for Fnu
Fazaldad," said Tim Nolan, a nurse practitioner from
Asheville, NC who provides health care for people with
HIV.

Defendants and witnesses argued that they did not expect
to be arrested at the Supreme Court, "an internationally
known temple to free speech." Ashley Casale, a student
at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, told the court,
"I am 19-- the youngest person in this courtroom-and I
come on behalf of all the prisoners at Guantanamo who
were younger than I am now when they were detained.
According to the U.S. Constitution we have a right to
petition the government for a redress of grievances and
Guantanamo Bay prison is beyond grievous."

Historian Michael S. Foley, a professor at the City
University of New York, teaches the U.S. Constitution to
undergraduates. He testified that if "you told me that
the defendants would be arrested for 'unlawful free
speech' just twenty feet from where the Justices decide
First Amendment cases, I'd say you were 'crazy.'"

Those who stood trial this week were arrested (along
with 43 others) without their identification and taken
into custody under the names of Guantanamo prisoners.
This twist on traditional protest allowed the defendants
to symbolically grant the Guantanamo prisoners the day
in court that the Bush administration and the Pentagon
have denied them.

"I am not surprised at being convicted," continued
Nolan, "but I felt compelled as a medical professional
to speak out against torture that is facilitated by
medical personnel at Guantanamo. I have to act on my
ethical principles every day: if I know child abuse is
occurring, I am required to report it. The abuses at
Guantanamo must also be acted upon."

The defendants are common citizens: priests and pastors,
construction workers and farmers, schoolteachers and
professors. They come from Charlottesville, Des Moines,
New York City, Scranton, Saratoga, Worcester, and other
cities and towns.

Judge Wendell Gardner will sentence the defendants
tomorrow (Friday, May 30), in D.C. Superior Court
(courtroom 218, 500 Indiana Ave), and has indicated that
some are likely to receive prison sentences.

A number of the defendants waived their right to speak
during the trial, recognizing the near-total denial of
legal and human rights to the Guantanamo detainees. "We
could not in conscience exercise our rights," says
Matthew Daloisio of this courtroom witness, "when our
country continues to deny the rights of others. It was
powerful to hold the name of Yasser Al Zahrani in my
heart as I sat in a court of law. Yasser was a 22-year-
old Yemeni man. He was arrested at 17, and brought to
Guantanamo. He was never charged or tried. On June 10th,
2006, he apparently took his own life. He will never
have the chance to sit in this court room, and my
conviction today seems a small price to pay to bring his
name in court."

During the trial, some defendants took the stand to
testify to their motivations and intentions in acting on
January 11. They argued that they were there to appeal
to the Supreme Court Justices to rule against the Bush
administration in the cases of Boumediene v. U.S. and Al
Odah v. Bush. They contend that after all other
remedies had been exhausted; direct action and appeal
were the only options.

The judge refused to let Thomas Wilner, a partner at the
Washington law firm Shearman and Sterling, who
represented twelve Kuwaiti citizens detained at
Guantanamo Bay in the case decided in their favor by the
U.S. Supreme Court on June 28, 2004. Wilner's
descriptions of the predicaments of his clients, and
expressions of horror and dismay at the failure of most
Americans to act against the detainees' indefinite
detention and torture were part of forming many of the
defendants' motivation and intention. After his
testimony was deemed "not relevant" and "unnecessary" by
Judge Gardner, Wilner addressed defendants and
supporters outside the courthouse, saying: "Hopefully,
we'll end torture and indefinite detention as a matter
of law. And then, we need to work to make sure that
hysteria and false facts don't sweep away the soul of
the nation again." He then addressed those on trial
directly, saying, "You are standing up for the soul of
this nation."

In the defendants' first closing statement, Father
Emmett Jarrett, an Episcopalian priest from New London,
CT, told Judge Wendell Gardner, "we came to the Supreme
Court on January 11th with one intention-- to put
dramatically before the court-both the Supreme Court and
the higher court of public opinion and conscience-the
plight of the men and boys detained at Guantanamo. We
came to the Supreme Court on January 11th not to protest
but to present a letter to the justices, asking them to
act on behalf of detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo, to
restore their human and legal rights-to give a voice to
the voiceless."

Arthur Laffin followed with a closing statement that
touched on both legal and moral arguments for the
defendants' innocence, and pleaded with the court and
the prosecution to join the defendants in "ending the
horrors." "The Nuremberg Accords," he asserted, "state
that individuals have a duty to prevent crimes against
humanity and that if people don't act to prevent such
crimes, they are actually complicit in them." He then
concluded, "We, who are on trial today, along with many
friends, refuse to be complicit in these crimes."

After Laffin finished, Claire Schaffer Duffy, of
Worchester, MA stood and stated, "on behalf of Abbas
Hasid Rumi Al Naely, I stand by Art's closing
statement." And then, one after the other, each pro se
defendant also stood, stated their own name, the name of
the prisoner at Guantanamo they carried on January 11
and through the trial experience. Many were openly
weeping as they stood.

The action on January 11 was organized by Witness
Against Torture, a group that formed in 2005 when 25
people walked from Cuba to the U.S. detention facilities
to protest conditions there. January 11, 2008 marked
six years since the opening of U.S. detention facilities
at Guantanamo Bay. The Supreme Court demonstrators were
joined by protestors in London, Sydney, Edinburgh,
Istanbul, Barcelona and throughout the world.

Retired Admiral John D. Hutson, the former judge
advocate general of the Navy, said of the Supreme Court
demonstrators, "In the military, there is the concept of
'calling in artillery onto your own position.' It refers
to heroic action taken in desperate situations for a
greater good. That's essentially what these courageous
Americans are doing. They accept that there may be an
adverse consequence to them personally but they believe
drawing attention to the issue is worth the sacrifice."

Witness Against Torture will continue its efforts to
have the detention facilities at Guantanamo shut down
and torture by United States ended.



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