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For Immediate Release
September, 25 2023, 02:58pm EDT
Contact:
Melissa Garriga: melissa@codepink.org
CODEPINK Condemns Terrorist Attack on Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Last night, the Cuban Embassy in Washington D.C. was attacked with two molotov cocktails thrown at the building. This is the second time in the past three years that there have been violent attacks against the Cuban Embassy. CODEPINK calls on the U.S. government to immediately investigate this attack as an act of terrorism. We also call on the U.S. government to take Cuba off its state sponsors of terror list. We must put an end to the aggression towards Cuba and work towards normalizing relations with our island neighbor.
“Could it be more ironic? A country being accused of terrorism by the U.S. once again suffers a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. It’s time to stop the senseless aggression against this small island nation of 11 million and normalize relations,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin.
The United States continues to falsely label Cuba a state sponsor of terror, despite the fact that Cuba does not engage in any terrorist activity. This act of violence against the embassy comes on the heels of a series of impactful meetings by Cuban President Diaz Canel at the United Nations, as well as successful meetings with Cuban Americans, businesspeople, and U.S. artists and activists.
Tonight, CODEPINK, along with other allies, will be out in front of the Cuban Embassy to show love and solidarity to the people of Cuba in the face of this act of hate and aggression, and to demand justice for this attack and to call for an end to the blockade on Cuba.
“The attacks against the Embassy of Cuba last night are the product of intolerance and hatred rooted in false accusations of terrorism suffered by the Cuban people. It’s time to get Cuba off the list and promote peace and understanding among our peoples.” said Michelle Ellner, CODEPINK’s Latin America Team organizer.
The event will take place at 5:00pm at the Cuban Embassy, located at 2630 16th Street NW, Washington D.C. We urge all those who stand for peace and justice to join us in solidarity with the Cuban people.
For more information regarding the event, please contact Medea Benjanmin at medea@codepink.org
CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.
(818) 275-7232LATEST NEWS
'Pete Hegseth Needs to Be Fired—Immediately' After Slaughter of 150 Iranian School Children
Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Elizabeth Warren make the case for the urgent ouster of President Donald Trump's Defense Secretary.
Mar 13, 2026
"Pete Hegseth needs to be fired—immediately," argues US Sen. Chris Van Hollen in a video statement posted Thursday night alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who also backs the demand. Their joint call arrived as global outrage mounts over the bombing of a Iranian school on Feb. 28 that killed upwards of 175 civilians, mostly young children.
Warren cited preliminary findings of a Pentagon report out this week that determined the US was the highly likely culprit behind the school massacre in the southeastern city of Minab, she noted, "killing mostly little girls between the ages of seven and 14."
Human rights groups have condemned the bombing of the school—which had happened on the very first day of Trump's unprovoked attack on Iran—as a possible "war crime" that demands independent investigation. Trump, for his part, has repeatedly lied about the bombing, claiming it was Iran who bombed the school, despite having access to internal intelligence assessments that appear to say otherwise.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Wednesday said there was more than enough evidence to conclude that the US was behind the attack, with reports bubbling up from inside the Pentagon only helping to confirm what outside analysts had determined. "Trump should be impeached. Hegseth should be fired," Tlaib said. "And the administration must be held accountable in international courts for their heinous war crimes."
For Van Hollen and Warren, the massacre in Minab is only the latest and most gruesome example of the US military's bloodthirsty and careless conduct under Hegseth, whose time at the Pentagon has been marked by controversy and accusations of human rights abuses, national security blunders, and violations of international law as a matter of policy.
Pete Hegseth needs to be fired.
New reporting seems to confirm our worst fears: it was a US missile that struck the girls school in Iran.
That strike comes at a time when Secretary Hegseth has systematically weakened US protections against civilian harm by our military.… pic.twitter.com/A34bcLQI3w
— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) March 12, 2026
"We had 'Signalgate,' where he put out troops at risk," says Van Hollen in the video, a reference to Hegseth using a public encryption communication tool to share national security details of a military operation that had yet to be carried out.
"We had him blowing up ships in the Caribbean," he continues, attacks that have killed over 160 people and been called nothing short of murder by human rights experts. "We had them targeting defenseless swimmers" who survived some of those attacks, said Van Hollen.
"That's right," Warren interjects in the video, "with no accountability" for any of that behavior. On top of all that, Van Hollen adds, Hegseth has "no idea what he's doing in this war in Iran. And now an American missile hit an Iranian school, killing about 150 innocent school kids."
Hegseth has aggressively denounced restrictive "rules of engagement" for the military—calling such guardrails "stupid" and disparaging what he has termed "woke" warfare. As The New York Times details Friday, Hegseth's entire career has been colored by his criticism of what he views as the restrictive nature of rules designed to curb atrocities. Now serving as Secretary of Defense, he has been empowered to put his theories into action:
[Hegseth] has tried to reshape Pentagon culture, reveling in lethality with “no apologies, no hesitation.” He has portrayed this approach as a “warrior ethos,” one that is tough and manly.
He came up as an Army infantry officer and, as he wrote in his 2024 memoir “The War on Warriors,” loathed strict rules of engagement imposed to minimize risk to civilians, seeing heightened standards for when his platoon could open fire as putting soldiers at greater risk on the battlefield. He blamed judge advocate general lawyers, or JAGs, for such rules — even though it is commanders, not lawyers, who issue them.
Mr. Hegseth later continued that line of thinking as a Fox News contributor and host and as an advocate for U.S. service members charged with war crimes. In his 2024 book, he questioned the need to obey the Geneva Conventions and derisively referred to military lawyers as “jagoffs.”
In the video with Van Hollen, Warren says the key reason behind the call for his immediate ouster has to do with Hegseth's hostility toward mechanisms designed to mitigate "civilian harm" during war time or other military operations.
As legislators, Van Hollen and Warren describe how they helped put in place stronger rules to prevent civilian harm. "Whenever the military is thinking about an attack," says Warren, "where there are civilians in the area and innocent people could get harmed, it's how to think through 'What are the risks? Are there ways to minimize the risks? Have we checked and double checked?'"
"But what did Pete Hegseth do?" asks Warren. To which Van Hollen answers: "Hegseth came in and he dismantled the whole system. He said they were 'stupid rules of engagement.' But we know rules of engagement are intended to prevent civilian harm, they're intended to prevent war crimes."
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Unlike Security Council, UN Experts Condemn US and Israel for Waging ‘Illegal War’ on Iran
“The US and Israel should stop waging and expanding wars, and considering themselves as above international legality.”
Mar 13, 2026
A dozen United Nations experts on Thursday denounced the United States and Israel for waging wars of aggression against Iran and Lebanon, a statement that contrasted sharply with a UN Security Council resolution adopted hours earlier condemning Iranian retaliation without mentioning the US-Israeli bombing campaign.
“The US and Israel should stop waging and expanding wars, and considering themselves as above international legality,” said the group of experts. The statement's signatories include Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territory and a target of US sanctions; Balakrishnan Rajagopal, special rapporteur on adequate housing; and Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food.
The experts decried US President Donald Trump's push for the Iranian government's "unconditional surrender" and regime change, warning that such demands could "lead to prolonged war and enormous human suffering."
“No violations of human rights in Iran or elsewhere provide any legal or moral justification for an unwarranted interference with the sovereignty of a UN member state and an illegal attack,” the experts said. "Any loss of life in an illegal war is a violation of the right to life."
UN experts denounce aggression on Iran & Lebanon, warn of devastating regional escalation: "U.S. and Israel should stop waging and expanding wars, and considering themselves as above international legality”.https://t.co/yYhNfFUMvN pic.twitter.com/8Qv4OSeVEr
— UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts) March 12, 2026
The statement came as evidence of US-Israeli war crimes in Iran and Lebanon continued to mount and the humanitarian crisis sparked by the regional war intensified, with millions already displaced and around 2,000 killed—including many children.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council adopted by a vote of 13-0 a resolution condemning "in the strongest terms the egregious attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the territories of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan," countries that host US military installations. Russia and China abstained from voting on the resolution, which did not condemn or mention the ongoing US-Israeli bombing.
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday that "yesterday was a shameful day for the Security Council."
"Those members, especially Western, who constantly assert their commitment to protecting civilians, especially children, proved that these claims are little more than empty rhetoric," said Iravani. "They were unwilling even to condemn—or express concern over—the heinous crimes committed by the United States and Israel against innocent people in Iran, including the massacre of 170 girl students at a school in Minab."
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Rights Groups to Dems: Don't Give Stephen Miller What He Wants on Mass Surveillance
“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States."
Mar 12, 2026
More than 90 civil society groups on Thursday urged congressional Democrats to "stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers" by renewing "without new safeguards" a highly controversial surveillance authorization historically abused by federal agencies.
Free Press Action and Demand Progress are leading the call to senior Democratic lawmakers to not reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—a controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—without first enacting privacy reforms.
“Section 702 has been used to conduct millions of warrantless ‘backdoor’ searches for the phone calls, text messages, and emails of people in the United States,” the groups said in a letter to six senior Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York.
Free Press Action & 90 civil-society groups call on Democratic leaders to stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) without new safeguards.Our statement: www.freepress.net/news/massive...
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 11:32 AM
The groups—which include the ACLU, Center for Biological Diversity, Color of Change, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Indivisible, National Immigrant Justice Center, Public Citizen, and UltraViolet Action—cited recent reporting from Politico stating that Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's xenophobic deputy chief of staff, supports extending the program that empowers federal agencies to surveil and collect the data of noncitizens abroad without a warrant.
As Free Press Action explained Thursday:
Congress has until April 20 to reauthorize Section 702. Stephen Miller is a leading advocate for extending Section 702 without any reforms, and President Trump is now openly supporting this approach. The groups urge Democratic members of Congress to refuse to reauthorize these powers without key reforms, including reforms to the government’s warrantless querying of communications of people in the United States without prior court approval. Such surveillance allows government officials to conduct sweeping backdoor searches, accessing the private communications of millions of people.
“Supporting Stephen Miller’s warrantless surveillance agenda would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States,” the letter adds. "These surveillance authorities have long jeopardized privacy, and efforts by Miller to continue them without meaningful reforms and sufficient oversight are deeply troubling.”
The groups emphasize the imperative to close the so-called backdoor search loophole—via which domestic law enforcement agencies can access Americans’ communications without a warrant—and the data broker loophole, which lets the government to buy its way around Fourth Amendment proscriptions on warrantless search and seizure by purchasing sensitive information from private vendors.
I've long been sounding the alarm on Section 702 of FISA, and secret, legal loopholes the government uses to spy on Americans. The program is up for reauthorization in April and I'll be fighting like hell to make sure the current program doesn’t get rubber stamped.
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— Senator Ron Wyden (@wyden.senate.gov) March 11, 2026 at 10:41 AM
Earlier this month, more than 70 congressional Democrats demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans’ location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act, which would protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance by requiring authorities to obtain a FISA Title I order or a warrant before accessing Americans’ communications.
The civil society groups that signed the letter are also urging lawmakers to fix the "overbroad" expansion of electronic communication service providers and remove barrier to the FISA legal process.
"There are terrifying risks to reauthorizing government surveillance powers that have been abused to spy on protesters, immigrants, journalists, and even political candidates under any presidential administration," said Jenna Ruddock, advocacy director at Free Press Action. "People across the country and on both sides of the aisle agree, and overwhelmingly support urgently needed reforms to FISA."
“This White House in particular has relentlessly labelled perceived political opponents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ justifying in their minds the relentless surveillance and persecution of those who oppose the administration’s agenda," Ruddock added. "Congress must insist on these common-sense reforms and put the civil and constitutional rights of Americans above the authoritarian desires of Miller and others in the Trump administration.”
Demand Progress senior policy adviser Hajar Hammado said that “Democrats do not want this or any administration to have the power to trawl through Americans’ private emails and texts without warrants. Democratic leaders need to listen to the people and not just rubber-stamp the spy powers that Miller is asking for."
"This extends beyond partisan politics," Hammado continued. "No president should have the powers to hoover up Americans’ private communications, force janitors and security guards to spy on other Americans for them, or circumvent court orders by purchasing sensitive information about people in the United States from data brokers."
"As the government’s plans to supercharge surveillance with AI come into view," she added, "Congress must enact real reforms to curb invasive government spying.”
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