Torture Protest at Boalt Hall Graduation May 13

From the SF Bay Area Chapter of World Can’t Wait

The world knows torture is a war crime, and silence is complicity – and judging by the 500 orange ribbons worn during commencement at UC Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall) last week, a lot of the Class of 2011 and their community know this too!

John Yoo was a key legal architect of the torture system built by the Bush Regime and continuing now under Obama. A tenured UC law professor, Yoo took two years’ sabbatical to join the Bush/Cheney Torture Team. Their ghastly program (think Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo) was maded possible by the legal work of Yoo and other attorneys.

After Yoo’s return to Boalt, he’s been a focus of protest ever since with frequent, sometimes intense demonstrations on campus and off demanding : FIRE, DISBAR AND PROSECUTE JOHN YOO. Last fall’s Berkeley Says “No To Torture” Week was endorsed by the city council, and brought outspoken anti-torture experts from many fields together for protests, forums, panels and performances.

Since 2008, lively protests have greeted every Boalt graduation. This time World Can’t Wait was joined by Code Pink, Vets for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America and others. About 30 people gave out flyers (see http://www.worldcantwait.net) and orange ribbons, until over 500 grads and guests had the orange ribbons on.

This definitely surpasses the reception to our message from any previous year. At times we had to just hold out handfuls of ribbons because we couldn’t pass them out singly fast enough. Families took ribbons together. Grads and families were posing near our silent jumpsuit/hooded “prisoner” to have their photos taken. Over and over, especially from parents, grandparents, all nationalities, we heard “THANK you for being here!” And compared to other years, we met very little hostility or anger – of course, some people did not like our presence, but mostly they’d just look away. (We got some “John Yoo ROCKS!” jeers from graduates, but Boalt does have a Federalist Society chapter, so no surprise.)

Once again, Boalt’s dean (and Obama’s former law professor) Christopher Edley refused to accept an orange ribbon. As Edley led the processional past, people called out to him: “Dean Edley, did you forget your orange ribbon AGAIN? Aren’t you against torture? How will people know you oppose torture if you don’t wear the orange ribbon? And why is your student Obama carrying out torture? Aren’t you ashamed of him?” But still the dean refused to take his ribbon. (Some other faculty members wore them, however.)

There is still far too deep a silence at Boalt and at UC itself, when a war criminal like John Yoo is still harbored on the campus. But the larger-than-ever number of people welcoming and wearing the orange ribbons this year at graduation signifies something’s changing, over time. People are far more aware of the ugly facts about Yoo and his UC protectors than ever before; the persistent protesters may take some credit for that. Then too, John Yoo has been hot in the news of late, pronouncing torture legitimate “because it worked (in leading to the death of bin Laden)” so perhaps people who have been following the story and abhorring torture although in relative silence, were just glad to have this chance to “speak.”

World Can’t Wait shares the determination with all the other protesters that we won’t stop. We will keep working to see John Yoo and all the other torture lawyers and war criminals brought to justice. They have to be fired, disbarred, impeached if they’re judges – and prosecuted for war crimes, just as their historical counterparts, the lawyers and judges of Hitler’s Third Reich, were after World War II. We will not forget the victims of the illegal rendition and torture, we will not be silenced, and we will bring more and more people to break the silence and take this stand with us.