CUBA: U.S. activists arrive in Cuba to protest against abuses at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan defied a U.S. ban on travel to communist Cuba and flew to Havana on Saturday (January 6) to protest against abuses at the Guantanamo prison camp for terrorism suspects. Sheehan and four other American peace activists arrived in Havana and will join 10 others on a march to the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba where about 395 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are still being held. "I'm worried about the people in Iraq who are dying everyday because of my country... and I think it's about time for people to step out and try to stop these crimes," said Sheehan at a press conference shortly after arriving in Havana. The march in eastern Cuba is part of planned international protests against the prison camp on Thursday (January 11), five years after it opened with the first detainees flown in from the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. Americans who travel to Cuba without special licenses from the U.S. government can be punished with fines of thousands of dollars. Cuba's government -- which has long condemned the prison as a concentration camp run by its political enemy the United States -- has allowed the protesters to march to the Cuban security perimeter surrounding the U.S. enclave. Washington has faced steady criticism over the Guantanamo prison from rights groups and foreign governments because most of the prisoners have not been charged and due to reports of abuse of prisoners. The United States has said it does not use torture, and that the camp was necessary to deal with the particular circumstances of its war on terrorism. The group of 12 marchers will include former detainee Asif Iqbal, a British citizen who was released after two years with no charges, and the mother of current prisoner Omar Deghayes, a British resident. Sheehan, whose son was killed in the Iraq war, became a central figure in the U.S. anti-war movement last year after she camped outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch and has been arrested at least three times at protests. "We see that there are still close to four hundred people still in that prison and they don't have access to due process by the law and we know of all the abuses that have taken place there. We are part of an international group which is asking that the prison be closed," said fellow peace activist Medea Benjamin.

ITN Source | January 7, 2007

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