Arrests at the Supreme Court.
Guantanamo or Gitmo has held many hundreds of men accused of terrorism against the U.S. in connection with the 9/11 2001 attacks – most were innocent of any crime – several dozen remain at the prison on the Cuban island. They have been imprisoned for 17 years in limbo -- beyond judicial recognition.
“Is this who we are?” is a podcast series reflecting the actions, arguments, and emotions of the WAT protesters who gathered for a week in 2019 in Washington. D.C. My name is Alan Winson. 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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