Event: Rally and march to Shut Down Guantanamo Bay Prison
Date: Friday, January 11, 2008
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: Pioneer Courthouse Square, SW Broadway & SW Yamhill, downtown Portland

Contacts:
PPRC (503) 344-5078 pprc at riseup.net

Peace and Justice Works (503) 236-3065 pjw at pjw.info

Portlanders to Rally and March to Shut Down Guantanamo Bay Prison Action in Solidarity with International Efforts Friday, January 11, 2008, 5 PM, Pioneer Courthouse Square

Local peace and justice groups are joining an international call to action to shut down the U.S. prison complex at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this Friday, January 11, 2008. The local action will take place beginning at the SW corner of Pioneer Courthouse Square, SW Broadway and Yamhill, in downtown Portland, before a march begins at approximately 5:15 PM.

Over 300 people have been held at Guantanamo since 2002, most without access to legal help, and many exposed to harsh conditions that many consider torture. In February, 2006, the National Journal wrote an investigative piece that showed: “Some of … the terrorists, the trainers, the financiers, and the battlefield captures — are indeed at Guantanamo. But National Journal’s
detailed review of government files on 132 prisoners who have asked the courts for help, and a thorough reading of heavily censored transcripts from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals conducted in Guantanamo for 314 prisoners, didn’t turn up very many of them. Most of the ‘enemy combatants’ held at Guantanamo — for four years now — are simply not the worst of the worst of the terrorist world.

“Many of them are not accused of hostilities against the United States or its allies. Most, when captured, were innocent of any terrorist activity, were Taliban foot soldiers at worst, and were often far less than that. And some, perhaps many, are guilty only of being foreigners in Afghanistan or Pakistan at the wrong time. And much of the evidence — even the classified evidence —
gathered by the Defense Department against these men is flimsy, second-, third-, fourth- or 12th-hand. It’s based largely on admissions by the detainees themselves or on coerced, or worse, interrogations of their fellow inmates, some of whom have been proved to be liars.”-1

Witness Against Torture has declared January 11, the six years anniversary of the first prisoners arriving at Guantanamo, an International Day of Action to Shut Down Guantanamo. In Washington, DC, they will be holding a demonstration at the National Mall followed by a procession to the Supreme Court. Actions are currently planned in 30 cities, including New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami, London, Paris and elsewhere.

Local groups organizing the Friday rally include Peace and Justice Works (PJW), Portland Peaceful Response Coalition (PPRC) and Women in Black. PJW and PPRC echo the national call for participants to wear orange t-shirts, armbands or other orange clothing on January 11th to mark the date.

Endorsers of the national action include Center for Constitutional Rights, Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, War Resisters League and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Check here for up-to-date details on the international actions.

For local information call Peace and Justice Works at 503-236-3065 or Portland Peaceful Response Coalition at 503-344-5078.

1–“Empty Evidence” By Corine Hegland, National Journal Friday, Feb. 3, 2006

I dreamt about Benazir Bhutto this morning. National Public Radio got all mixed up in my dreams. Bhutto was with me — we were putting on make-up in the bathroom. In this dream, Steve and I were living where we always live in my dreams — some kind of huge family compound, with lots of rooms and mazes and a huge courtyard with lots of trees and plants.

(Our family friend, A, moved to Amman, Jordan a few years ago, to be with her husband’s family. My “dream home” is how I imagine her family’s home looks, I suppose. I’ve never given it much thought until now, this dream house/compound that always stars in my dreamworld.)

Benazir Bhutto was putting on her eyeliner. She was very beautiful, and very much alive, but she was preparing herself for her funeral. (I thought, You can do that? Why doesn’t everyone do that? How clever she is.)

“Why did this happen this way?” she asked me.

I told her, “I don’t know.”

“It did not have to happen this way,” she said.

I told her, “I know. I’m so sorry.”

And she walked out the door.