Singing at Code Pink House. Yelling at the White House.

INTRODUCTION to the series. The U.S. Guantanamo Prison on the Cuban island was opened in 2002 and has held many hundreds of Muslim men accused of terrorism following the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Most were innocent of any crime and hundreds were released. Forty remain in a limbo -- beyond judicial recognition.

This four-part series follows the week-long activities of the civil disobedience organization "Witness Against Torture" - a collection of unique individuals who put their bodies in danger to raise awareness about the horrific conditions of the 40 men who remain at "Gitmo."

BCR's “Is this who we are?” podcast series reflects on the actions, arguments, and emotions of the WAT protesters who gathered for a week in 2019 in Washington. D.C.  I lived with the WAT members in the First Lutheran Trinity Church Hostel on E and 4th Streets – and followed their actions and talked with them. For me - it was a formative experience.

In the end – WAT members held little hope that Guantanamo Prison would close in the near future. They accepted that neither the news media nor those on the DC’s streets where they demonstrated and got arrested knew what they were doing – and yet they persisted in marching and fasting through those cold, windy, wet days. To a great extent this series is about that hopeless struggle, and what buoyed them and what makes them important citizens of this flawed democracy.

“Is this Who We Are?” podcast series culminated in Bar Crawl Radio podcast #29 – recorded at the Iron Horse Tap Room on E and 7th Streets. We talked with several of the Witness Against Torture protesters who reflected on their experiences of the week.

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Witness Against Torture or WAT was formed in 2005 when 25 Americans attempted to visit the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In the years following, WAT has demonstrated to shut down Guantánamo. Each year since then – These dogged civil protestors have carried out dozens of nonviolent actions to build awareness about the mental and physical torture of these men and to establish human ties with the prisoners at Guantánamo.

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