National Day of Action Against Guantánamo

DALLAS – In observance of the 10th year anniversary of the first detainees at Guantánamo, Dallas peace and justice activists will be riding the DART trains and walking to several locations in Dallas while dressed as prisoners. The purpose of the demonstration is to call on the Obama administration to finally put an end to unlawful detentions at Guantánamo, to call for the arrest of Bush Administration officials for war crimes including torture, and to remind the public that people are still in prison without a trial.

The group will board the DART train at Mockingbird Station at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 11, ride to the Akard stop and disembark. Then they will process down Akard Street to Commerce, turn west and walk past the Earl Cabell Federal Building. At 4:00 p.m., Dallas human rights leaders will make statements to the public. Then the group will proceed up Griffin St. and west on Pacific to the Rosa Parks Plaza. They will pause there to pay tribute Parks' and Martin Luther King's call for justice, and will then board the DART train at the West End stop and return to Mockingbird Station. From there, joined by others at 5:00 p.m., the group will march to the Mockingbird bridge over Central Expressway and demonstrate there until sundown.

This event is just one of thousands that will be carried out throughout the United States including a rally in front of the White House where activists will make a human chain to the Capitol, representing detainees at Guantánamo.

The U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay is a symbol of how the United States failed to respect human rights in its response to 9/11, and how it is still failing a decade later. Unlawful detentions at Guantánamo Bay were in part one outcome of this global approach to counter-terrorism, and have become possibly the best-known and enduring symbol of the assault on human rights principles that the United States unleashed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

"The existence of the prison at Guantanamo is a very visible blot on the United States' human rights record," said Trish Major, a volunteer at the Dallas Peace Center. "The illegality and inhumanity of these detentions is a burden that rests on the shoulders of both the Bush and Obama administrations. The American public must not forget that there are still people there, far from home, who have not had a trial simply because of political expediency."

This demonstration is endorsed by the Dallas Peace Center, Code Pink Greater Dallas, Amnesty International Group 205, Bill of Rights Defense Committee – Dallas, Pax Christi – Dallas, and North Texas Veterans for Peace.

What: National Day of Action Against Guantanamo

When & Where: Wednesday, January 11, 2012

            3:00 p.m. – Leave Mockingbird Station

            4:00 p.m. – Rally at Commerce @ Griffin

            5:00 p.m. – March and Rally at Mockingbird bridge @ Central Expy.