FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 25, 2013

Contacts: Alli McCracken, CODEPINK Coordinator, 860.575.5692, Alli@codepink.org

              Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK co-founder, 415.235.6517, medea@codepink.org

Starving for Justice: CODEPINK, US Hunger Strikers, and Human Rights Activists Rally at White House to Demand Closure of Guantanamo Prison Camp

Washington, D.C. – On June 26, 2013 at noon in front of the White House, CODEPINK, Witness Against Torture, and many other human rights organizations and activists — including three Americans on open-ended fasts in solidarity with hunger striking Guantanamo detainees — will stage a dramatic protest calling on the President to immediately close Guantanamo and repatriate the men cleared for release. It has been over a month since Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, spoke out during President Obama's foreign policy speech at the National Defense University, urging him to fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo prison, but he is yet to take any meaningful action.  

“As far back as 2008, President Obama pledged that he would close Guantanamo Bay Prison,” remarks CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin. “Yet here we are in 2013 and he is still talking the talk, but failing to walk to the walk.” Benjamin and other CODEPINK members recently returned from a delegation to Yemen, where they met with families whose loved ones are in Guantanamo. “We saw how the wives, mothers and children of these men are suffering,” says retired Colonel Ann Wright, who was on the delegation. “The situation is critical. It's time for our President to stop blaming Congress and immediately transfer the Guantanamo prisoners who have already been cleared for release, and provide a fair trial to the rest of the men still being held. The hypocrisy of this blatant violation of American values is hurting our reputation throughout the world.”

Members of CODEPINK, Witness Against Torture and other groups will wear 86 black cloths, each with the name of a Guantanamo prisoner cleared for transfer, to dramatize the demand that the President begin transferring men from the prison facility. The American hunger strikers —Diane Wilson (cofounder of CODEPINK), Elliot Adams, and Tarak Kauff, all US military veterans — are prepared to risk arrest to make their demands heard. 

Diane Wilson, a former Army medic and fourth-generation shrimp boat captain in Texas, says, “I have been on a water-only hunger strike since May 1 in solidarity with the Guantanamo prisoners. I'm appalled at how the prisoners are being force fed. Instead of shoving metal-tipped tubes down their throats, President Obama should be giving them justice."

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