From the Chicago Chapter of World Can’t Wait
Saturday, December 10, was a big day for people in Chicago’s human rights community. It’s not every day that a royal visit caps off a day of protest and activism!
December 10 was International Human Rights Day, and the day started with a 1 p.m. program in Federal Plaza (Adams & Dearborn) to detail kidnapping, torture, indefinite detention, and other U.S. outrages against human rights in Guantanamo, Bagram, other Afghanistan detention sites, plus black sites around the world, and also Abu Ghraib. Members of Chicago World Can’t Wait were joined by supporters from Voices for Creative Non-Violence, Midwest Antiwar Mobilization, and other organizations.
In addition to offshore detention, speakers also addressed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, the scandalous history of Chicago police torture, torture-by-solitary-confinement at Tamms (Illinois Supermax facility) and Pelican Bay (California), and the abuse of Bradley Manning. Referring to the upcoming trial of Bradley Manning, one speaker said, "Would there have been an Arab Spring w/o Bradley? Would there have been an Occupy movement? We should be giving him the Congressional Medal of Honor! We should give HIM the Nobel Peace Prize!"
The protesters proceeded to the Occupy Chicago location at LaSalle & Jackson, where they met a second group of protesters from Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. The Pilsen group, affiliated with Human Thread, had just completed a three mile march to protest violations of human rights by a power generation company operating in the Pilsen neighborhood.
The two groups of protesters combined and marched the short distance to the power generation company headquarters, where a statement was read demanding protection of the environment in the Pilsen community.
The combined group then began a long march up State Street — the main shopping district — where they startled the shoppers packing the sidewalks with their chants of "Human Rights Today! Human Rights Every Day!"
In addition to being International Human Rights Day, December 10 was the second anniversary of the day on which the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was presented to Barack Obama in Oslo, Norway. The culmination of the day’s protest was a ceremony in front of Obama Campaign 2012 HQ on East Randolph Street, featuring an appearance by King Harald V of Norway. King Harald recalled the high hopes with which the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize had been bestowed on Barack Obama two years previous, and then — "with the deepest regret" — recited the U.S. president’s actions:
> failure to close Guantanamo
> expansion of indefinite detention at Bagram and other detention centers throughout Afghanistan
> assassinations, including assassinations of U.S. citizens, among other violations of due process
> virtually unlimited use of drone technology & drone warfare to remove the last vestiges of democratic involvement in the implementation of foreign affairs and conduct of war
> widening of the war of terror into Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia
> arrogation of war power to himself in the NATO attack on Libya
> threats of war against Iran
King Harald performed an official ceremony of revocation of Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, concluding, "Let this unprecedented action, taken only with the most profound regret, stand as an example to ALL who abandon the values and attitudes of PEACEMAKING under the allure of POWER and VIOLENCE."
Photos by FJJ