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Fifth Column
Hollywood stars join campaign to close prison
2006-03-15
The campaign to close Guantánamo Bay has secured high-profile support, with Nobel laureates and film stars signing a letter in today's Guardian demanding an end to torture.

We, the undersigned writers and artists, demand that the US immediately cease using the Guantánamo Bay base as an illegal detention centre and to close all of its arbitrary detention centres where the systematic abuse of human rights and dignity are still taking place. As we write, the 62nd session of the UN commission of human rights in Geneva is about to begin and new images of the US military torturing prisoners in Iraq are being published. Yet the US and its allies in the EU have thus far prevented the UN commission from condemning the massive and systematic violations of human rights that have taken place in the name of the so-called war on terror. EU countries have ignored the testimonies of even their own citizens who have been victims of torture in Guantanamo. Several have allowed the overflights of CIA aircraft carrying prisoners to detention centres and elsewhere. The UN commission on human rights (or the council proposed to replace it) must end this hypocrisy and demand the closure of Guantánamo Bay and all the detention centres created by the US, as well as the cessation of torture and the deliberate violations of human dignity.

Signed by the usual suspects:

José Saramago
Nadine Gordimer
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Rigoberta Menchú
Wole Soyinka
Harold Pinter
Dario Fo
Danielle Mitterrand
Harry Belafonte
Danny Glover
Gerard Depardieu
Alice Walker
Manu Chao
Eduardo Galeano
And 407 other writers and artists
Guess the real stars were washing their hair.
Posted by:Steve

#29  Barbara, you didn't like TA:WP?
Posted by: Eric Jablow   2006-03-15 21:25  

#28  Why don't we just dig a big trench around Hollywood and put the Gitmo prisioners there?
Posted by: FeralCat   2006-03-15 21:15  

#27  Rigoberta Menchu? Oh yes. "My brother was tortured by the paramilitiaries (not - he's died of old age and in the ruling class), I was an uneducated peasant (not - went to Catholic schools), etc." The original gran mamasita of the 'fake but accurate' meme so beloved of the left these days.
Posted by: DeadRobertPreston   2006-03-15 21:11  

#26  BTW - Menchu's been exposed as a complete fraud, liar, and leftist troll....makes sense, huh?
Posted by: Frank G   2006-03-15 20:20  

#25  not like he/she/it's gainfully employed, so, why not?
Posted by: Frank G   2006-03-15 20:19  

#24  --So typical, a group of rightwing extremist trolls, who have no life, involved in a petty
group jackoff and hissy-fit against people they
disagree with politically.---

Yet Bystander takes the time to read comments and respond....
Posted by: anonymous2u   2006-03-15 19:32  

#23  So typical, a group of rightwing extremist trolls, who have no life, involved in a petty
group jackoff and hissy-fit against people they
disagree with politically.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

'Bout as much content as a sackful of wet leather.

[/FH]
Posted by: Zenster   2006-03-15 19:13  

#22  I remember reading LAST WEEK that Gitmo was to be closed and all prisioners sent to other facilities.

This is typical screwball behaviour, to announce they want it closed after the public announcement that it was closing.

Now watch for claims that "Public Outcry" forced the government to cave.

I recall the old Circus Parades down main street in my younger days, there would always be a couple of young boys who would run out and jump in front of the parade, "Leading" the patade through town, and whenever the parade turned down some other street, those same boys would scramble to run around the sidewalk and jump in front of the parade again.

I thought with the end of Circus Parades I'd never see that childishness again, I was wrong.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2006-03-15 19:05  

#21  I know only 3 of the signatorie: Danielle Mitterrand (François's widow), Gérard Dupardieu (Obélix)and Harry Belafonte (Banana). The others are illustrious aliens to me.
Posted by: Swiss Tex   2006-03-15 18:59  

#20  It's great that these people are finally interested in a Cuban prison. Now if we could just get them to focus on another Cuban prison (any other Cuban prison) we'd be getting somewhere.
Posted by: Steve White   2006-03-15 18:27  

#19  #5 Seafarious: "I *used* to enjoy going to the movies. Alas, no more. "

Movies? I think I remember seeing some of those in the past. Are they still making them?

Who knew?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2006-03-15 18:21  

#18  thx for the rx doc, good medicine!
Posted by: RD   2006-03-15 17:56  

#17  
Posted by: doc   2006-03-15 17:50  

#16  Feel better Bistander? Sometimes it just helps to vent.
Posted by: 6   2006-03-15 17:33  

#15  I agree with the hollywood guys, line them all up and shoot them in the head. After being found guilty by a quick military tribunal of course. Then there would be no need for Gitmo.

Just for argument's sake, where do they suggest we send them? Or do they want them all to be set free?
Posted by: Gleter Whaigum8216   2006-03-15 17:26  

#14  Sea, what's going on? Methinks, you have been looking at IP addresses.
Posted by: phil_b   2006-03-15 17:19  

#13  Feeling a little bipolar today, JC?
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-03-15 17:10  

#12  Are you referring to the commenters or the the group in the original article?
Posted by: Trex   2006-03-15 17:07  

#11  So typical, a group of rightwing extremist trolls, who have no life, involved in a petty
group jackoff and hissy-fit against people they
disagree with politically.
Posted by: Bystander   2006-03-15 17:03  

#10  The tragedy is that a character like Soyinka, who has attacked the Islamists in his own country of Nigeria, is toadying to the filthpigs here because of his misplaced delusions of U.N. legitimacy.
Posted by: Ernest Brown   2006-03-15 16:46  

#9  ...timeless stories of the little people, as told by rich Hollywood stars!
-- Firesign Theatre
Posted by: mojo   2006-03-15 16:32  

#8  We, the undersigned writers and artists, demand that the US immediately cease using the Guantánamo Bay base as an illegal detention centre...

OK. Since there's nothing illegal about it, there wish is granted.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2006-03-15 16:09  

#7  Danielle "the witch" Mitterrand, Gérard "my nose is a pair of buttcheeks" Depardieu... yeah, two real moral clarity examples, given their past achievements, yaaasss...

On Depardieu, in addition to being a fool, he's also an avid businessman alwais ready to lick *ss of dictators (Castro) or arab "middlemen" for the algerian junta, that gives him real credibility for human rights; as for "Tatie Danielle", she's an überleftist, she was an embarassemnt even for her late french socialist president François "corruption, decadence and genocide" Mitterrand, and she's an useful idiot to boot (she was played like a violin by the PKK kurds).

Manu chao, well, he's an antiglobo third worldist fool, but I really liked (and still like, actually, though I'm not a dumb teen anymore) his music, plus he striked me as being a "non marxist" leftist, I think, saying his music was non-political.

OT : if you want to check him, see (he sings in spanish and basic english, mostly, btw)
http://www.dailymotion.com/search/manu%20chao/video/54063

http://www.dailymotion.com/search/mano%20negra/video/49397

http://www.dailymotion.com/search/mano%20negra/video/50814

http://www.dailymotion.com/search/mano%20negra/video/48895
Posted by: anonymous5089   2006-03-15 15:41  

#6  The funniest part is that these drooling fools fell for it. Gitmo is a Potempkin village, a lightning rod designed to attract criticism by those who would criticize anything and everything. It is also ground zero for the legal sharks. That is why it is the only place that had concrete-hardened decisions supporting its use made *before* it was used.

Let them throw their liberal legions into the trenches to fight Gitmo. Let them shoot the hell out of the decoy. That is what it is there for.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-03-15 15:33  

#5  I *used* to enjoy going to the movies. Alas, no more.
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-03-15 15:26  

#4  Fine, close Gitmo and sequester all of its current occupants under house arrest at the residences of the signatories. After the first decapitation they'll be squealing like Ned Beatty in "Deliverance."
Posted by: Zenster   2006-03-15 15:21  

#3  Harry Belafonte
Danny Glover

Of course good bud Fidel's guest quarters for political dissidents isn't worthy of their attention.
Posted by: Gloluns Hupeagum6020   2006-03-15 15:19  

#2  I say we ship all these asshats to North Korea to visit their Gulags for first hand experience....
Posted by: CrazyFool   2006-03-15 15:07  

#1  Great graphic! SAG says it all.
Posted by: Glert Thetch2165   2006-03-15 15:05  

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