Text by Michael Brooks, photos by Isis

(Washington, DC) Dozens of protesters gathered in front of the White House Monday evening to speak out against what many believe to be extra-legal measures used by the Bush administration in its War on Terror.

I first spoke with Kit Gage, director of the First Amendment Foundation , who was a scheduled speaker at the rally.

“We are here today to talk about the importance of protecting dissent in the post-9/11 era,” she said. “Since the mid-1970s, these rights have slowly been whittled away.”

One of the cases most closely watched by the FAF is that of purported terrorist Jose Padilla.

“It is disturbing that the US government can detain someone not in a battle, who is a US citizen, and not charge him with a crime,” Gage said of Padilla, who has been in custody since June 9, 2002. “This man is being denied due process, is prevented from the right to an attorney, and is being denied the right to see the evidence that is used to detain him.”

Gage said that there is momentum toward protecting rights threatened by legislation such as the Patriot Act.

“Courts are beginning to look at a lot of these legal issues,” she said. “I was also pleased that the DC city council passed new legislation affirming and protecting the right to protest.”

Another speaker at the rally was Johannes Williams, a DC-area attorney, who addressed the crowd on the legailty of the administration’s actions.

“The Bush administration has blatantly violated national and international law,” he said. “The possible remedies for this egregious evasion of the law are three: impeach, indict, and evict.”

Harold Nelson, with Survivors of Torture , spoke out against the acquiescence and outright support by the US government for detainee torture.

“While the US government has quietly looked the other way toward torture in the past - such as in the Phillipines - we now have an administration that actively promotes torture,” he said, describing US policymakers as “war criminals” for embracing torture. “The administration willingly violates international law, and actively fights prosecutorial attempts to investigate torture cases.”

Nelson excoriated the current administration for its policies.

“People have had enough of this criminal regime,” he said. “This is a government that steals from workers, showers largesse on the rich, and refuses to allow debate about its policies in an open forum.”

This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2005 at 7:27 pm by Michael Brooks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.