October 30, 2005
For more information: Don Spark, 415-717-2425
Tracie Stein, 404-550-0830
Press Conference and Speak Out
When: Monday, October 31, 5:00 PM
Where: Lafayette Park, across from the White House
Speakers include:
– Edget Betru, Center for Constitutional Rights
– Lawyer from Center for Constitutional Rights who
represents detainees in Guantanamo
– Representative from Torture Abolition Survivals
Support Coalition International
– Johannes Williams, DC lawyer
– Kit Gage, First Amendment Foundation*
– Survivors of Torture
“YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and
justifying it”
“YOUR GOVERNMENT puts people in jail on the merest
suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding
them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of
night”
from World Can’t Wait — Drive Out the Bush
Regime National Call
In response to a bill that would put limits on U.S.
torture techniques, George Bush said that he would
veto any limits on torture that would prevent them
from carrying on the war on terrorism. As the
detainees in Guantanamo continue their hunger strike
to protest being held without charges and in
conditions not fit for humans, the U.S military is
force-feeding the prisoners by sticking feeding tubes
down their noses without adequate sanitation or
anesthesia.
On October 31 at 5:00 PM, the World Can’t Wait
encampment has invited lawyers who have been to
Guantanamo and represent the detainees, U.S.
organizations who have been exposing the conditions
and treatment of detainees from Afghanistan to Abu
Ghraib to Guantanamo, human rights activists, those
exposing and opposing the U.S Patriot Act and the
depletion of the right to dissent, and individuals
who have been subject to political persecution. This
will be a powerful statement right at the steps of the
White House against these world class injustices being
perpetrated by the U.S. government right now.
DC activists will be at the speak-out dressed
symbolically as detainees and victims of torture.
On November 2, the first anniversary of Bush’s
“re-election”, demonstrations will take place in more
than 185 locations across the country, endorsed by
Cindy Sheehan, Nobel Laureate playwright Harold
Pinter, musicians Tom Morello, Rickie Lee Jones,
Anti-Flag, Steve Earle, actors Ed Begley Jr. and
Edward Asner, historian Howard Zinn, authors Jonathan
Kozol, Larry Everest, Gore Vidal, Cornel West, Michael
Eric Dyson, and Studs Terkel, former US-career
diplomat Ann Wright, SF Board of Supervisor Tom
Ammiano, NY State Sen. Tom Duane, the Hip Hop Caucus,
Not In Our Name, Act Up NYC, Campus Anti-War Network,
Code Pink, After Downing Street Coalition, Progressive
Democrats of America, Democrats.com and many more
organizations…