On Friday 23 May, the London Guantánamo Campaign
[1] will hold a “Not Another Day in Guantánamo!” demonstration outside the
National Gallery in Trafalgar Square at 12-2pm. Activists in London will wear
orange jumpsuits, black hoods, holding up placards calling for the closure of
Guantánamo Bay and the safe release of the remaining 154 prisoners.
This is part of a Global Day of Action to Close
Guantánamo, with protests planned in over 40 cities worldwide, across three
continents [2]. The day of action marks the anniversary of President Obama’s
last major pledge [3], on 23 May 2013, to close Guantánamo, which has yielded
little progress.
Aisha Maniar, a spokesperson for the London
Guantánamo Campaign, says, "In over five years as US president, Barack
Obama has failed to deliver a change we can believe in on Guantánamo Bay.
Twelve years of indefinite detention almost wholly without charge or trial for
154 prisoners has made the world an infinitely more insecure, dangerous, and
lawless place. Closing Guantánamo has long been a question of when as opposed
to how.
"A
prisoner hunger strike ongoing more than 15 months later, in addition to his
failure to transfer any Yemeni prisoners - who make up the largest nationality and
the majority of those cleared for release, following the lifting of a
moratorium - signal that Obama’s words remain purely rhetorical. There is
little intention to close Guantánamo Bay and the legal black hole it has
created.”
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The London Guantánamo Campaign was set up in
2006 and campaigns for justice for all prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, for the
closure of this and other secret prisons, and an end to the practice of
extraordinary rendition. http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.com
Further details of the London demonstration are
available at: http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/demonstration-not-another-day-in.html
3. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university
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