June, 14 2010, 11:27am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
"What's Wrong With This Picture?": Prosecuting Torture Protesters -- Not Perpetrators
WASHINGTON
The group Witness Against Torture states that beginning Monday, 27 individuals "will face trial stemming from arrests at the U.S. Capitol on January 21, 2010 -- the date by which President Obama had promised the closure of the Guantanamo detention camp."
BILL QUIGLEY
Available for a limited number of interviews, Quigley is legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights; he will be attending the trial. He said today: aEURoeThe architects of the torture policy -- the Bush Cheney Yoo team -- are not held accountable for their crimes. But people who peacefully and prayerfully protest these international human rights crimes are prosecuted. What is wrong with this picture?aEUR
JEREMY VARON
HELEN SCHIETINGER
Varon is with Witness Against Torture. Matthew W. Daloisio, also with the group, said today: aEURoeThe continued operation of the prison camp at Guantanamo is unacceptable. If Guantanamo was a foreign policy liability and stain on the rule of law on day one of the Obama presidency, it surely is 17 months later.aEUR
aEURoeThe deaths at Guantanamo show how barbaric U.S. policies have been,aEUR says Helen Schietinger, a defendant in the trial. aEURoeWe are still waiting for accountability for those who designed and carried out torture policies under President Bush. Obama canaEUR(tm)t restore the rule of law if he doesnaEUR(tm)t enforce the law.aEUR
The human rights activists plan to mount a aEURoenecessity defenseaEUR before Judge Russell Canan. aEURoeWe will be arguing that we broke the law only after exhausting all legal means of opposing a much larger crime -- the indefinite detention, mistreatment, and torture of men at Guantanamo and other U.S. prisons,aEUR says Jerica Arents of Chicago, Illinois, another the defendants.
Background: The Center for Constitutional Rights resource, "Investigate the Entire Torture Team"
Witness Against Torture formed in December 2005 when 25 activists walked to Guantanamo to visit the prisoners and condemn torture policies.
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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The peace coalition No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of a "flagrant act of retaliation" late Wednesday night as the Silicon Valley giant announced it had fired 28 workers over protests against its cloud services contract with the Israeli government.
The firings came after Google organizers held two 10-hour sit-ins at the company's offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City, demanding the termination of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract under which Google and Amazon provide cloud infrastructure and data services for Israel—without any oversight regarding whether the Israel Defense Forces uses the services in its occupation of Palestinian territories and bombardment of Gaza.
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Google accused the workers of "bullying," "harassment," defacing property, and physically impeding other employees—allegations No Tech for Apartheid rejected as it noted organizers "have yet to hear from a single executive about" their concerns over Google's collaboration with Israel.
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Kate J. Sim, a child safety policy adviser at Google who said she was among those fired this week, said the terminations show "how terrified [executives] are of worker power."
Google employees have a history of harnessing worker power to change policies at the company. In 2018, Google terminated a deal with the U.S. Defense Department to develop drone and artificial intelligence (AI) technology through a contract called Project Maven. The decision followed the resignations of several employees and the condemnation of thousands of workers.
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The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
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