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Shut Down the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia
- Category: Press Coverage
Press release from shut down the army experience center
TIME: 2:00 pm
DATE: Saturday, September 12th
Franklin Mills Mall, Philadelphia, PA - This is the shopping center where the U.S. Army is teaching 13 year-olds to kill using simulated M-16 automatic rifles and M-240B light machine guns. It's enough to cause several hundred activists in the Philadelphia area to take matters into their own hands.
Speak Out Against Torture: Fire John Yoo!
- Category: Press Coverage
When: 12:30 PM until mid-afternoon [NOTE NEW TIME], WEDNESDAY, SEP. 9
Anti-torture protesters holding frequent demonstrations at the UC Berkeley campus will appear there again Wednesday, September 9.
Activists, UC Berkeley Alumni Protest Yoo on First Day of Classes
- Category: Press Coverage
By Riya Bhattacharjee, Berkeley Daily Planet 
Four generations of UC Berkeley law school alumni joined activists, community members and lawyers on the Boalt Hall steps to protest former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo’s return to campus Monday.
The group called for Yoo to be prosecuted and fired from his position as professor of law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law for writing memorandums which were used to justify extensive policies on detention and interrogation, even torture.
The group called for Yoo to be prosecuted and fired from his position as professor of law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law for writing memorandums which were used to justify extensive policies on detention and interrogation, even torture.
Berkeley Protesters Demand: Fire John Yoo!
- Category: Press Coverage
By Terence Chea (AP)
BERKELEY, Calif. — Anti-war activists protested on the University of California, Berkeley campus Monday to call for the firing of a law professor who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists.
Campus police arrested at least four people who refused to leave the university's law school building.
The demonstrators said John Yoo should be dismissed, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes for his work as a Bush administration attorney from 2001 to 2003, when he helped craft legal theories for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.
Shouting "war criminal," the protesters confronted Yoo as he entered a lecture hall on the first day of class at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where the tenured professor is teaching a civil law course this semester.
Tortured Past
- Category: Press Coverage
Protesters hound federal judge who crafted torture memos for Bush
By André Coleman , Megan Sebestyen 07/09/2009 Pasadena Weekly
US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee had just finished hearing oral arguments in the case of Sprint v. Palos Verdes on Monday when Susan Harmon stood up and asked a question.
“We’re here to ask you when you’re going to resign,” said Harmon, a Bay Area member of the group Progressive Democrats of America, as she stared defiantly at the judge. Bybee did not respond while guards dressed in blue blazers removed Harmon and two other women from the courthouse.
“We will follow you,” Harmon vowed before being escorted out of the stately West Pasadena courtroom and rejoining a dozen protesters standing in front of the building.
Joining Harmon Monday were members of her organization and the anti-war groups Code Pink and the World Can’t Wait, all of which have been calling for Bybee’s resignation or impeachment since April, when President Obama declassified documents showing Bybee was an architect of former President George W. Bush’s torture policies.
Anti-war Protesters at NAACP Convention
- Category: Press Coverage
By Saeed Shabazz
The World Can't Wait anti-war coalition based in New York City says that while respect is due to the NAACP for their 100-year tradition of “standing up to White lynch mobs and sheriffs' dogs,” there is no excuse for continuing the relationship they have with military recruiters.
The anti-war community is demanding that the NAACP “dis-invite recruiters from its functions” starting with the 100th anniversary celebration in New York City from July 11 to July 16. There are demonstrations took place July 14 and July 16.
“It's a matter of principle and we cannot stand by as the NAACP and the U.S. Army pull more youth into the unjust wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” argues Debra Sweet, national director of the anti-war coalition.
“Does the NAACP not understand how dangerous Afghanistan is becoming for our soldiers; why July 6 was one of the bloodiest days with seven of our troops losing their lives,” she told the Am- News. “Is the NAACP saying these unjust wars are okay, and didn't the NAACP executive board pass an anti-war in Iraq resolution?” she asked.
Protests This Week Throughout U.S. Demand Release of Torture Photos by Obama Administration, Prosecution of Bush Era War Crimes
- Category: Press Coverage
Media Alert: May 26, 2009
Media Contact: Linda Rigas
Office 866-973-4463/Cell 714-235-8213
Protests This Week Throughout U.S. Demand Release of Torture Photos by Obama Administration, Prosecution of Bush Era War Crimes
What: Highly Visual, Dramatic Protest Demonstrations/Photo Ops
When: May 26-27-28
Where: 15 cities: New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Boston; Seattle; Atlanta; Houston; Cleveland; Philadelphia; Honolulu; Fresno; Greensboro, NC; Portland, OR; Benton Harbor, MI
(New York City, NY) In the face of the Obama administration’s refusal to release a reported 2,000 additional photographs of detainee abuse, in spite of being ordered by a federal court to do so, torture opponents will hold visible protests to demand that the government make the photos public. In 15 cities, they will also call for prosecution of those who ordered, legally justified and carried out torture in US detention and secret prisons during the Bush years.
These protests, called by the national World Can’t Wait organization and others, will respond to the growing body of evidence of the construction of a torture apparatus and policies led from the top of the Bush administration as part of the global “war on terror” after 9-11. Torture opponents are also critical of Barack Obama’s plan for preventive “prolonged” detention of people who the US government thinks may commit crimes as announced in his May 21 speech on national security.
“The Bush regime floated the idea of preventive detention, but never tried it. This has never been done by the US in its history. What does it mean that Obama stated flatly that habeas corpus – the right to know charges against you and be able to defend yourself - will be indefinitely denied to a class of people?” said Debra Sweet, Director of World Can’t Wait. Sweet called on “people who care about humanity to takea stand against US torture, indefinite and preventive detention.”
Highlights of the planned protests:
Los Angeles Outside President Obama’s appearance at the Beverly Hilton, 3:30 pm Wednesday May 27, Los Angeles, displaying enlarged photos believed to be among the 2000 not yet released.
New York City Inside Grand Central Station, 5:00 pm Thursday May 28, a dramatic tableau will protest the US torture regime, followed by a march to the Union League Club where John Negroponte, former Director of National Intelligence presents an award to General David Petraeus, CENT COMM Commander, responsible for US military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Michigan One of the first protests of George W. Bush in the United States since he left office, 5:00 pm at Lake Michigan College, Benton Harbor, MI.
Three co-ordinated protests at court houses within the Ninth US District, where Judge Jay Bybee, author of recently released “torture memos” sits on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. San Francisco, Portland, and Fresno will see dramatic protests demanding Bybee’s prosecution for war crimes. In San Francisco, the protest will feature an installation of “The Bybee/Bush Museum of Torture.”
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"No Torture" Banner at West Hollywood City Hall
- Category: Press Coverage
City of West Hollywood and World Can't Wait Hold Joint Press Conference
May 21—The large orange banner hung down from near the ceiling in the lobby of West Hollywood, California, City Hall read: "No Torture." The City of West Hollywood, a community between Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, had taken a stand. And in that lobby, an important press conference was held: "A Call to President Barack Obama urging him to release torture-related photos and prosecute war criminals, ex-top officials of the Bush Administration." The press conference was called by the City of West Hollywood and The World Can't Wait.
City Council Member and long-time defender of human rights, John J. Duran said, "President Obama must do what is right for our country's future and shed light on the last eight years of the Bush administration's half-truths, abuse of power and human rights both abroad and here at home. We will never be able to put this behind us if the truth is not fully revealed and if we don't atone for the way our country behaved." He was joined by: Debra Sweet, National Director of The World Can't Wait, the MC for the event; Mark Rapkin, a Los Angeles attorney who represented a prisoner unjustly locked up at Guantánamo and has continued to speak out against the continuing torture and imprisonment at that prison; actor John Heard; director and writer Paul Haggis, whose films include Crash and In the Valley of Elah; and actor and director Mark Ruffalo.
John Yoo Defends Torture in California Debate: Protesters Disagree
- Category: Press Coverage
By MARTIN WISCKOL The Orange County Register
Orange California – John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer whose memos justified coercive interrogation tactics including waterboarding, said at a debate today that the controversial tactics were appropriate in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. 
"Three thousand of our fellow citizens had been killed in a deliberate attack by a foreign enemy," he told an audience of several hundred at Chapman University. "That forced us in the government to have to consider measures to gain information using presidential constitutional provisions to protect the country from further attack."
Yoo worked in the White House's Office of Legal Counsel and was among those who wrote the legal memos that provide the CIA with guidelines for interrogation.
World Can’t Wait – MEDIA ALERT
- Category: Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 17, 2009
Press contact: Doreen Marshall (949.887.0297)
Bush's Department of Justice legalized torture. Now Obama's Department of Justice won't prosecute and will even provide free legal representation to torturers. Your government refuses to bring war criminals and torturers to account. Will you remain silent or get informed, take a stand and build a movement to stop torture and demand accountability for war crimes?
WHAT: Forum on National Security, Rule of Law & Torture: The Torture Memos of John Yoo
WHEN: Saturday, April 18th, 2009 10 AM - 2 PM
WHERE: Chapman University Law School, Kennedy Hall, Rms. 237 A&B, 370 N. Glassell (at Sycamore), Orange, CA 92866
WHY: John Yoo, while working for the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel, drafted legal memos which, some say, influenced the U.S.’s decision to legalize torture. John Yoo is currently a visiting professor at Chapman University School of Law, where the controversy continues.
“John Yoo’s complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act”. Cited from testimony provided to U.S. Congress on May 6, 2008 by Marjorie Cohn, National Lawyers Guild President.
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World Can't Wait mobilizes people living in the United States to stand up and stop war on the world, repression and torture carried out by the US government. We take action, regardless of which political party holds power, to expose the crimes of our government, from war crimes to systematic mass incarceration, and to put humanity and the planet first.