A.N.S.W.E.R. FILES FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST FOR THE RELEASE OF THE WITHHELD EVIDENCE OF ABUSE OF PRISONERS
PRESS RELEASE
May 10, 2004
A.N.S.W.E.R. FILES FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE CIA FOR THE RELEASE OF THE WITHHELD EVIDENCE OF ABUSE OF PRISONERS HELD IN IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN AND GUANTANAMO
The antiwar coalition A.N.S.W.E.R. today filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency seeking the release of photographs, video and other information pertaining to conditions of detention and interrogation by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. The request was filed by attorneys Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo, of the Partnership for Civil Justice.
"We filed this request on behalf of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition because the government has a legal obligation not to conceal or cover-up criminal action that it has undertaken. The people of the United States have the right to learn the truth about U.S. military operations and the barbaric and criminal treatment of detainees in Iraq and elsewhere," stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard. "The full release of the information will, we believe, reveal that torture and humiliation of prisoners is not aberrational but rather is an institutionalized mechanism of occupation and conquest."
A.N.S.W.E.R. steering committee member Elias Rashmawi of Free Palestine Alliance, stated, "For many people in the United States the recent disclosures of the murder and torture of Arab and Muslim prisoners held in U.S. detention constitutes a shocking and startling revelation. For the Arab people, however, we recognize in these horrible photos the same horrendous tactics that are routinely employed by the Israeli Defense Forces against Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. These tactics are the tools of occupation, now being exported to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.
"These acts are an indication of the sadistic and collective intent to fully dehumanize a people. These were not acts of an interrogation of an occupying army for the purpose of obtaining forced confessions, itself a horrifying crime; these are a pervasive assault against a people in their entirety, their values and their being, in the most offensive and brutal manner. This is what occupation looks like. We are certain that as these practices are exposed to the people in the U.S. they will reject the U.S. government's attempts to carry out this brutality in their names."
The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) is preparing to mobilize thousands of people to march from the White House to the Pentagon on June 5, 2004. There will be coordinated demonstrations on June 5 in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities.
"We have filed a FOIA request today because it is obvious that the Bush Administration, the Pentagon and the CIA have conducted a massive cover-up over many months to prevent the people of the world from learning the truth about their operations," according to Brian Becker of A.N.S.W.E.R. "This criminal war and occupation must end. As during the Vietnam War, the people are continuing to build the anti-war movement until all foreign troops are removed from Iraq. We are standing in opposition to all colonial occupation and intervention from Haiti to Palestine to Korea, the Philippines, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and elsewhere. In each and every instance the occupiers have resorted to murder and torture in their pursuit of conquest and empire."
TO SEE A COPY OF THE FOIA REQUEST, go to:
http://www.internationalanswer.org/pdf/Iraq_FOIA_DoD.pdf
and
http://www.internationalanswer.org/pdf/Iraq_FOIA_CIA.pdf
May 10, 2004
A.N.S.W.E.R. FILES FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE CIA FOR THE RELEASE OF THE WITHHELD EVIDENCE OF ABUSE OF PRISONERS HELD IN IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN AND GUANTANAMO
The antiwar coalition A.N.S.W.E.R. today filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency seeking the release of photographs, video and other information pertaining to conditions of detention and interrogation by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. The request was filed by attorneys Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo, of the Partnership for Civil Justice.
"We filed this request on behalf of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition because the government has a legal obligation not to conceal or cover-up criminal action that it has undertaken. The people of the United States have the right to learn the truth about U.S. military operations and the barbaric and criminal treatment of detainees in Iraq and elsewhere," stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard. "The full release of the information will, we believe, reveal that torture and humiliation of prisoners is not aberrational but rather is an institutionalized mechanism of occupation and conquest."
A.N.S.W.E.R. steering committee member Elias Rashmawi of Free Palestine Alliance, stated, "For many people in the United States the recent disclosures of the murder and torture of Arab and Muslim prisoners held in U.S. detention constitutes a shocking and startling revelation. For the Arab people, however, we recognize in these horrible photos the same horrendous tactics that are routinely employed by the Israeli Defense Forces against Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. These tactics are the tools of occupation, now being exported to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.
"These acts are an indication of the sadistic and collective intent to fully dehumanize a people. These were not acts of an interrogation of an occupying army for the purpose of obtaining forced confessions, itself a horrifying crime; these are a pervasive assault against a people in their entirety, their values and their being, in the most offensive and brutal manner. This is what occupation looks like. We are certain that as these practices are exposed to the people in the U.S. they will reject the U.S. government's attempts to carry out this brutality in their names."
The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) is preparing to mobilize thousands of people to march from the White House to the Pentagon on June 5, 2004. There will be coordinated demonstrations on June 5 in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities.
"We have filed a FOIA request today because it is obvious that the Bush Administration, the Pentagon and the CIA have conducted a massive cover-up over many months to prevent the people of the world from learning the truth about their operations," according to Brian Becker of A.N.S.W.E.R. "This criminal war and occupation must end. As during the Vietnam War, the people are continuing to build the anti-war movement until all foreign troops are removed from Iraq. We are standing in opposition to all colonial occupation and intervention from Haiti to Palestine to Korea, the Philippines, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and elsewhere. In each and every instance the occupiers have resorted to murder and torture in their pursuit of conquest and empire."
TO SEE A COPY OF THE FOIA REQUEST, go to:
http://www.internationalanswer.org/pdf/Iraq_FOIA_DoD.pdf
and
http://www.internationalanswer.org/pdf/Iraq_FOIA_CIA.pdf
Starmail - 12. Mai, 17:39
