[Antiracism] PRESS RELEASE: Local Group to Picket against Torture and Detention without Trial

[Marty Nathan]

PRESS RELEASE  *****  PRESS RELEASE  *****  PRESS RELEASE
 

For Immediate Release

Date: June 20, 2007

For more information, contact: Marty Nathan MD 413-584-1849

 

Local Group to Picket against Torture and Detention without Trial

 

The Pioneer Valley Coalition Against Secrecy and Torture (PVCAST) will sponsor a "Burma Shave" - style educational and motivational picket at the Calvin Coolidge Bridge between Northampton and Hadley on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 from 7:30 to 9 am and 4:30 to 6 pm. The picketers will be requesting that passing motorists call their Congressional representatives and ask that they sponsor and actively support bills now in both houses of Congress that will restore habeas corpus, stop torture, shut down the Guantanamo Prison and protect other fundamental freedoms.

PVCAST is part of a nationwide effort sponsored by a coalition of civil liberties and civil rights organizations to reverse the violation of international and constitutional rights authorized by the  Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Bush Administration's operation of the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Leadership Committee for Civil Rights, and many others will be working together to lobby Congress to pass bills that will effectively repeal the most egregious excesses of the Military Commissions Act.

 

That law denies detainees in the "War on Terror" in Guantanamo and elsewhere the fundamental right to challenge their detention in court (habeas corpus), narrows the definition of torture to exclude cruel actions like water-boarding known to be used by the CIA and the military in interrogation, protects U.S. officials from prosecution as war criminals, and re-institutes the infamous military commissions, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in June 2006. .  

 

Three sets of bills addressing the issue currently await passage in the Congress, and PVCAST and the civil liberties coalition hope to garner public support for them: Restoring the Constitution Act (H.R.1415 and S. 576); the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act (H.R. 1416 and S. 185); and Guantanamo Bay Closure Act (H.R. 2212 and S. 1249).

 

Congressman John Olver is a signatory to H.R. 1415 and 1416, while Congressman Neal has signed on to H.R. 1415. Senators Kennedy and Kerry have both signed onto S. 185, and Senator Kennedy is a signatory to S. 576. PVCAST applauds their actions and will be encouraging them to actively support and move to a vote all of this important legislation.

 

Recent events have highlighted the Bush Administration's role in indefinite detention and torture.. On June 11 a military commission judge dismissed the cases of two detainees as improper. This week Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersch revealed that top Defense Department leaders knew about and covered up the torture at the Abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

                                                                         

The Coalition will be visiting regional Congressional and Senatorial offices to present petitions to repeal the Military Commissions Act in the two weeks following the pickets.
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