Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
January 12, 2008 Orange jumpsuits were the uniform of choice in a global day of protests, with demonstrators demanding Guantánamo prison camp be closed.
By Carol Rosenberg
From the gates of U.S. Southern Command in Doral to Europe and beyond, activists donned orange jumpsuits in an orchestrated global protest on the sixth anniversary of the establishment of the terror prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Amnesty International declared the day of demonstrations -- a call for the Bush administration to close the prison camps that opened Jan. 11, 2002.
And opponents from college students to veterans of sixties era protests responded with street theater.
87th Ave in Doral
In South Florida, about 60 protesters met morning rush-hour motorists with chants of ''Hey-hey, ho-ho, U.S. out of Guantánamo'' and waved signs declaring ''Torture is Terror,'' at a busy intersection at Northwest 87th Avenue and Doral Boulevard.
Some drivers hit their car horns as protester Rae Newman of Miami waved a sign declaring, ``Honk 4 Peace.''
''People are somewhat complacent,'' she said, adding that the horn-honking ``goes in waves, actually. When one person honks, it gives others the courage to honk.''
In Washington, reports said 80-plus protesters were arrested at the Supreme Court -- after chanting ''Shut it down'' -- and issued citations for violating an ordinance that prohibits demonstration on the court grounds.
In Brussels, Belgian activists crouched over in a long line, adopting so-called ''stress positions'' approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as an authorized interrogation technique.
In Istanbul, Turkish women in traditional garb stood in protest alongside a mock prisoner -- burlap bag on his head -- wearing trademark orange and chains.
Near the U.S. Embassy in London, Amnesty International demonstrators set up replica prison cages at Grosvenor Square -- and spent the night in them. Morning there brought a phalanx of protesters in orange jumpsuits guarded by mock soldiers in battle fatigues, and live leashed guard dogs.
275 held, 2 charged
The United States holds 275 foreign men as ''enemy combatants'' at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba -- among them alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and 14 other men once held in secret sites by the CIA until President Bush had them transferred to the base for possible trial.
Only two prisoners have been formally charged, none of them the former CIA held detainees. A third captive, Australian David Hicks pleaded guilty to being an al Qaeda conspirator under a deal struck at Guantánamo that let him serve a nine-month sentence, mostly in his native Adelaide. He was set free last month.
In Doral, former U.S. Army resister Camilo Mejia of Sunny Isles said he joined the morning protest not in solidarity with the detainees -- but to urge the U.S. to give them ``due process.''
''It's not about the people who are there. It's about us,'' said Mejia, 32. ``Everybody's entitled to their day in court. Give them an attorney and charge them with something.''
Mejia served nearly nine months in a Fort Sill, Okla., lockup for refusing a Florida National Guard call-up to a second tour in Iraq in 2004.
He was also busted from staff sergeant to private, and is presently appealing his conviction.
Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin led the group on a police-escorted march to the Southern Command, the Pentagon outpost that supervises the prison camps.
''We want the world to see another face of the American people,'' she said, ``one that believes in human rights and justice for all.''
January 12, 2008 Orange jumpsuits were the uniform of choice in a global day of protests, with demonstrators demanding Guantánamo prison camp be closed.
By Carol Rosenberg
From the gates of U.S. Southern Command in Doral to Europe and beyond, activists donned orange jumpsuits in an orchestrated global protest on the sixth anniversary of the establishment of the terror prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Amnesty International declared the day of demonstrations -- a call for the Bush administration to close the prison camps that opened Jan. 11, 2002.
And opponents from college students to veterans of sixties era protests responded with street theater.
87th Ave in Doral
In South Florida, about 60 protesters met morning rush-hour motorists with chants of ''Hey-hey, ho-ho, U.S. out of Guantánamo'' and waved signs declaring ''Torture is Terror,'' at a busy intersection at Northwest 87th Avenue and Doral Boulevard.
Some drivers hit their car horns as protester Rae Newman of Miami waved a sign declaring, ``Honk 4 Peace.''
''People are somewhat complacent,'' she said, adding that the horn-honking ``goes in waves, actually. When one person honks, it gives others the courage to honk.''
In Washington, reports said 80-plus protesters were arrested at the Supreme Court -- after chanting ''Shut it down'' -- and issued citations for violating an ordinance that prohibits demonstration on the court grounds.
In Brussels, Belgian activists crouched over in a long line, adopting so-called ''stress positions'' approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as an authorized interrogation technique.
In Istanbul, Turkish women in traditional garb stood in protest alongside a mock prisoner -- burlap bag on his head -- wearing trademark orange and chains.
Near the U.S. Embassy in London, Amnesty International demonstrators set up replica prison cages at Grosvenor Square -- and spent the night in them. Morning there brought a phalanx of protesters in orange jumpsuits guarded by mock soldiers in battle fatigues, and live leashed guard dogs.
275 held, 2 charged
The United States holds 275 foreign men as ''enemy combatants'' at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba -- among them alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and 14 other men once held in secret sites by the CIA until President Bush had them transferred to the base for possible trial.
Only two prisoners have been formally charged, none of them the former CIA held detainees. A third captive, Australian David Hicks pleaded guilty to being an al Qaeda conspirator under a deal struck at Guantánamo that let him serve a nine-month sentence, mostly in his native Adelaide. He was set free last month.
In Doral, former U.S. Army resister Camilo Mejia of Sunny Isles said he joined the morning protest not in solidarity with the detainees -- but to urge the U.S. to give them ``due process.''
''It's not about the people who are there. It's about us,'' said Mejia, 32. ``Everybody's entitled to their day in court. Give them an attorney and charge them with something.''
Mejia served nearly nine months in a Fort Sill, Okla., lockup for refusing a Florida National Guard call-up to a second tour in Iraq in 2004.
He was also busted from staff sergeant to private, and is presently appealing his conviction.
Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin led the group on a police-escorted march to the Southern Command, the Pentagon outpost that supervises the prison camps.
''We want the world to see another face of the American people,'' she said, ``one that believes in human rights and justice for all.''