British police have arrested hundreds of anti-genocide protestors supporting Palestine Action, classifying the group a terrorist organization. UN experts have called on the UK government to ensure timely emergency care for strikers determined to force members of parliament to take responsibility for abolishing terror laws used to criminalise dissent.
"I do this because I know Guantanamo did not end, it spread," says writer, artist, activist, and former Guantánamo prisoner Mansoor Adayfi.
"I know this road. I have its map etched into my bones. I carry scars that won't heal without justice, without accountability."
As Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush administration, professor John Yoo authorized a series of enhanced interrogation techniques depicted in his infamous Torture Memos. The site for detaining foreign 'enemy combatants' outside the reach of US law (Guantanamo) has "metastasized into a symbol of indefinite detention, torture, and the erosion of constitutional protections," descibed historian Michael A. Smith--even for American citizens.
"The time has come to close Guantánamo--not just the physical facility, but the legal and moral architecture it represents."
Torture remains an American export. More than an 'American mistake', Guantanamo remains a laboratory. Its experiments are being exported, charges Adayfi. Absorbed. Normalised. And reportedly applied against thousands of Palestinian prisoners struggling for freedom from Israel's continued occupation of their land.
