Video: Chicago WCW Demands Don’t Leave Detainees Out In the Cold

On Sunday January 10th the Chicago Chapter of World Can’t Wait in solidarity with actions happening between January 11th and 22nd held an action in down town Chicago to bring attention the ongoing crimes of indefinite detention and torture by the U.S. We went to the front of the Art Institute to ask the people of this country to never forget what crimes are being committed in our name and to join in the just demand to “Shut Down Guantanamo: No More Guantanamos Anywhere!” Despite the 5 degree temperature and a brutal wind chill the activists performed a moving street theater. The street theater demonstrated how people have literally been ripped from their lives and loved ones and diappeared into the black hole known as Guantanamo. Powerful poetry written by some of the detainees themselves were read aloud during this performance.

See:
www.youtube.com/watch

Monday January 11th marked 8 years since the U.S. government in it’s “war on terror” ,really a war of terror on the people of the world, open the doors to Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. Over 700 men from all over the globe were kidnapped and rendered there. These men were held there without the right of habeas corpus. Family and friends of these men had no idea what had happened to them. these men literally had their lives stolen from them. A majority of them suffered abuse and torture i.e. sleep deprivation, prolonged stress positions, forced feeding, sensory deprivation and water boarding. Many have been released and were never charged with the crime of terrorism. Over 200 detainees remain. Will these men remaining there see true justice and freedom. No. Instead, Obama has broken his promise to shut down Guantanamo by January 22nd and instead he and his administration are moving forward onplans to create a more than super max prison in a section of the Thomson Correctional Facility in Thomson, IL. And in Afghanistan Bagram detention center has been expanded and Obama has said those detained there have no right of habeas corpus.

After the performance the dozen activists marched down state street with some still wearing their orange jump suits and hoods. We stopped at each intersection where the guard ordered the detainees to kneel and we agitated to the shoppers and passerby about these crimes and the responsibility of the people of conscience in this country to demand the closure of Guantanamo and the abolishment of indefinite detention and torture by the U.S. anywhere.