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Close Guantanamo Protest Vigil at Grand Central Station February 1, 2018

297 views · Published 2 February 2018 · 22:28 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: Joe Friendly · 2018 · News & Politics

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Human rights activists from Witness Against Torture, the Justice for Muslims Collective, World Can’t Wait, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other groups gathered at noon on Thursday, February 1 at the Main Terminal in Grand Central Station condemning Trump’s recent Executive Order on Guantanamo announced in his State of the Union speech the day before that will  keep open the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Trump was reversing an administration directive Obama signed his second day in office in 2009 calling for Guantánamo Bay to be closed, but was never able carry out to its conclusion. Obama argued that maintenance of an detention facility beyond the reach of US law undermined American global leadership on human rights. In his speech on Tuesday night, however, Trump said that the move to close Guantánamo reflected softness in the fight against terrorism.

“Trump’s Executive Order brings us back to the darkest days of the Bush administration, when lawlessness and cruelty ruled,” says Jeremy Varon, an organizer with Witness Against Torture from Brooklyn. “President Trump is an anti-Muslim bigot, pro-torture, and favors keeping a torture prison open forever,” says Maha Hilal of the Justice for Muslims Collective. “With the Guantanamo policy, New Yorkers and the peoples of the world now have another reason to loathe this terrible leader.”

Guantanamo remains a blight on the US Constitution, the rule of law and basic democratic values.  Trump’s policy, as challenged in a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, is based on his well-documented racism and Islamophobia.  

The camp at Guantanamo has been a place of torture and other gross human rights abuses.  It continues to imprison 41 men — including 26 held without charge or trial and 5 whom the US government had already cleared for release.  Trump’s policy also freezes any releases from the prison and orders that new captives can be brought there. 

The event was lawful and peaceful. There were no arrests.

video by Joe Friendly

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