Holy Week Anti-War Resistance

international | anti-war / imperialism | press release

Sunday April 12, 2009 08:41

by Solidarity

A number of faith based acts of nonviolent resistance to U.S. wars occured over the Holy Week season at the Pentagon, White House and Dept. of Energy in Washington D.C. and elsewhere. Here are some press release, images and reports......

Paul Magno arrested today at White House over "indefinite detention of
prisoners at places such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Bagram Air Base,
Afghanistan."

Photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_benedetti/3429245481/

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZyapuOUCVM&feature=play...edded

More:
http://100dayscampaign.org/node/451

Local activist, Paul Magno, to mark Good Friday with a dramatic
nonviolent direct action at the White House

WASHINGTON -- On a day holy to all Christians, a local peace and
justice activist will risk arrest during a dramatic protest against
the indefinite detention of prisoners at places such as Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba and Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. The planned action will
attempt to nonviolently recreate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at
the White House.

The action will happen at about 12 noon at the White House during
Witness Against Torture's daily vigil
(http://www.100dayscampaign.org/) calling for the immediate closure of
Guantanamo and the end of all torture. The group has also begun
calling for the closure of Bagram, despite U.S. military plans to
double the size of the military prison.

"I want to call on the president to do the morally correct and just
thing, and release all the prisoners who have never been charged with
anything, and to shine an even brighter light on these unlawful places
of injustice," said Paul Magno, a Washington activist.

Magno explained that his Good Friday protest is important, because it
highlights that Jesus of Nazareth was a victim of torture and a
prisoner of an empire.

According to local peace and justice activists, the action will be
purely nonviolent and done in a manner of respect, with the aim of
calling on President Obama to end the use of abusive tactics which
amount to torture and to immediately close "legal black holes" such as
Bagram and Guantanamo.

"It is not acceptable to simply close Guantanamo while leaving Bagram
open, a place with even less oversight," the Washington activist
added.

Magno has been associated with the Catholic Worker movement for nearly
three decades, and spent 20 months in federal prison for nonviolent
resistance to the nuclear arms race following a Plowshares action in
Florida in 1984. By comitting the action Friday, he will also be
violating an unsupervised probation ordered 10 months ago by Judge
Wendell P. Gardner of DC Superior Court, stemming from an earlier
protest calling for the closure of the controversial prison at
Guantanamo Bay.

Magno has been actively involved in the Washington Peace Center since
2004 as a former coordinator and currently a board member. He is
currently on staff of Witness for Peace, an organization of people of
faith and conscience engaged in supporting peace, justice and
sustainable economies in the Americas.