LONDON - Catholic Workers join solidarity with Guantanamo hunger strike - tip of the iceberg in U.S. "dirty wars"

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Thursday May 23, 2013 08:46

by Ciaron - Giuseppe Conlon House

Last week, we made our way to the book launch of Dirty Wars - the world is a battlefield" by former New York Catholic Worker now celebrated investigatory journalist Jeremy Scahill http://dirtywars.org/jeremy-scahill

Jeremy gave an excellent speech naming Guantanamo as the most visible point of a massive iceberg of a U.S. policy of torture and assassination. So if Obama closes Guantanamo and escalates his assassination program while maintaining other black site torture chambers http://tinyurl.com/ap9ayy7 we will know our work is far from over.

So I bought the book, joined the queue, got my snap http://tinyurl.com/adnjeuz and have started churning through this well documented tome. I highly recommend getting your hands on this one if you want to be brought up to speed on the nature of how the empire is waging wars these daze. A documentary accompanies the book and it just won an award at the Sundance Festival. Check out the trailer here http://dirtywars.org/the-film

On Friday, some folks from the London Catholic Worker and Veterans for Peace joined hundreds internationally on the day long solidarity fast marking the 100th. day of the ongoing hunger strike by Guantanamo prisoners. One of the driving U.S. campaign groups "Witness Against Torture" http://witnesstorture.org/ was set up from the Catholic Worker pilgrimage walking through Cuba to Guanatanamo Bay several years ago. This grouping has done much to keep Guantanamo on the radar, in the courts with civil disobedience and visible on the streets of the U.S.A.

The solidarity demonstration at the U.S. embassy in London coincided with the annual European Catholic Worker gathering, so 20 Catholic Workers drove up to London from our base in Kent. We included Catholic Workers from Australia, England, Germany Scotland, Sweden and The Netherlands.

PHOTOS of solidarity demonstration outside U.S. embassy in London
http://tinyurl.com/lj7cgvm

VID OF SPEECHES

Ben Griffin Veterans for Peace, British special forces veteran Iraq & Afghanistan
*Ben's speech starts 2 mins 50 secs into this clip
http://tinyurl.com/llcrfma

Catholic Worker, former prisoner of U.S. Ciaron O'Reilly
*Ciaron's speech starts 3. mins 30 secs into this clip
http://tinyurl.com/lj7cgvm

Further speeches could be found on London Guantanamo Campaign Facebook
http://tinyurl.com/kd4wwj8

****GITME OUT OF GITMO (5 mins)
Melbourne activists occupy U.S. consulate
*an Australian "gallows humour" helpful in viewing this clip
http://tinyurl.com/krjxpv6