Guantanamo, Cuba – Cindy Sheehan and other anti-war activists marched Thursday with the mothers of a Guantanamo prisoner and a New York firefighter killed on 9/11 to demand the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay be closed, five years after the first terrorism suspects arrived.
The protest in Cuba came as demonstrators in Washington and London, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, called for the prison’s closure.
“What I’ve read happens in this prison makes me sick to my stomach,” the 49-year-old Sheehan said outside the post where Cuban officials stopped the dozen protesters from entering Cuban military territory to reach the U.S. base’s main gate. “I’m calling for the cycle of violence to stop now, to close this prison.”
Sheehan became a war protester after her son Casey, 24, died in Iraq in April 2004. She was joined by Zohra Zewawi, the mother of British detainee Omar Deghayes, and Adele Welty, whose firefighter son, Timothy, was killed in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack.
The protesters also included Asif Iqbal, a British Muslim who spent 2½ years at the prison. He expressed support for those still inside. “Every day, every minute, they are in our thoughts,” the 25-year-old said.
The U.S. military is holding about 395 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban, including about 85 who have been cleared to be released or transferred to other countries. The military says it wants to charge 60 to 80 detainees and bring them to trial.
Other protests took place in Germany, Greece, Hungary and Italy.
