Close Guantánamo: Join our January 2007 Days of Action

AI Luxembourg stand at the Migration Festival. The key message of the action was "CLOSE GUANTANAMO!", they collected 1370 signatures in support of this on a petition. © AI

The U.S. government has been detaining people at Guantánamo for five years – since January 11, 2002. This January – especially around January 11 and the week of January 22-28 – Amnesty International activists are organizing special public actions to press the U.S. and Canadian governments to respect human rights and close Guantánamo.

Each of us speaking out together can help close Guantánamo: individuals, school and community groups, families, workplaces and faith communities.

What you can do

• Organize your own “Close Guantánamo” activity. Or help plan or support one of Amnesty’s public actions in your community or school. Find activity ideas for groups and individuals below. Visit our resources page to find out how to get posters, postcards, t-shirts and other useful materials.
  
  
• Speak out as an individual:
  • Put up “Close Guantánamo” posters and circulate our petition in your school, workplace, faith community, and local libraries, shops and resource centres. Find out how to order petitions/posters below.
  • Distribute “Close Guantánamo” appeal postcards in your school or community. Find out how to order postcards below.
  • Email your friends and encourage them to speak out on this site: www.noexceptions.ca
    
    
• Send an on-line appeal to the U.S. and Canadian governments here.
  
  
• Sign up here to receive “Speak Out” – our campaign e-newsletter.

Tips on planning public activities: props, locations, planning checklist

Use colours and props associated with Guantánamo

Buy, rent and wear inexpensive versions of orange jumpsuits.  Wear Amnesty’s colourful “Close Guantánamo” t-shirts. Wear black hoods worn over heads – see the “Event ideas” section down this page. “Hooding” is associated with the torture and ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo and related centres. Create your own “fencing” with mesh wire or bamboo. To avoid injuries, please do not use real barbed wire!

Use Amnesty’s “Close Guantánamo” posters. Create large orange or yellow fabric banners with painted images, slogans and messages.

Amnesty International event planning checklist

√ If needed, obtain a permit for your demonstration.

√ Focus only on Amnesty’s core message.

√  Communicate our message dramatically, clearly, creatively and peacefully. Amnesty members do not engage in civil disobedience.

√  In planning your event, visualize what will happen and its public impact. Will it get the audience attention you want? Will it communicate the right message through the media? Are you on message? Does it protect Amnesty’s reputation? Will it be fun to do?

√ Ensure at least one participant rehearses our core message for media interviews and public statements at your event.

√  Distribute and ask people to sign our appeal postcards – and make a donation to mail the U.S. card.

√  From the start, involve key participants in planning your event. Decide what your event will look like, how best to communicate your message, how best to attract media coverage, where and when your event will take place, and what needs to be done to make your event happen.

Event locations

Near a U.S. consulate if one exists in your city. Near civic buildings such as court houses or city halls. Our key message is about respecting the law – in this case, international human rights law. School cafeterias, school grounds, classrooms, meeting areas are also great event locations. Obtain permission first.

Activity ideas

Adapt these “Close Guantánamo” activities to community or school settings:

Choose an activity that takes advantage of your resources and location, that participants are excited about doing, and that will communicate our message most effectively to your audience and to the media.

Wire mesh prisons and cells.  Detainees in orange jumpsuits inside wire mesh enclosures is the dominant public image of Guantánamo. Create symbolic prisons, walls or cells from wire mesh or lashed pieces of bamboo. “Detainees” in jumpsuits can be inside, wearing “Close Guantánamo” signs, or the names of detainee. Place “guards” in camouflage outside, possibly wearing or holding signs saying “I torture” or “No fair trials.”  
 
Street theatre with detainees, guards, signs. One detainee in orange jumpsuit and black hood over his head and shoulders, with wrists and ankles “cuffed” together. Two guards in camouflage walk/drag the detainee around your event area.  Other participants can hold signs saying “Stop torture,” “Fair trials or freedom,” “Close Guantánamo.” 

Silent vigils and happenings.  Combinations of visual drama and silence can create a powerful impression.  Imagine 10 people in orange jumpsuits and black hoods, silently walking round and round in a circle, with signs on their backs saying “Stop torture,” “Fair trials or freedom,” “Close Guantánamo.” Or a group of “detainees” (wrists and ankles cuffed) kneeling in a group, with “guards” standing overhead.  

A group of students wearing “Close Guantánamo” t-shirts, standing for a minute of silence during class, creates an opportunity to talk about our message.

Large cloth banners.  Paint messages onto large pieces of orange or yellow fabric. Walk the banners along school hallways and through school cafeterias, or around U.S. Consulates or local civic buildings. Write our core appeal messages on your banner, then ask people to sign the banner itself. Use this “sign-on” banner at a series of events during January – then mail it to the appropriate authorities.

Turn a banner into a four-sided “prison,” with several small openings. Have “detainees” stand inside (hidden, unseen) then appear randomly at an opening to talk briefly about the need to stop torture, and ensure fair trials or freedom to detainees.

4 December 2006