Joy's report on the accountability action at the Dept. of Justice...
On May 11 the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) (www.iraqpledge.org) mailed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to meet with us to discuss appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration. Since we did not hear back from him, we decided we should go in person to the Department of Justice and ask for a meeting. The crimes of the Bush Administration were so heinous, causing suffering and death for hundreds of thousands of innocent people and they must be held accountable. We must restore the rule of law through prosecution of the war crimes.
Thursday was Torture Accountability Action Day, with people coming together all over the country, remembering that we must hold members of the Bush administration accountable for their crimes. In Washington, DC there was a vigil at a park a few blocks from the Department of Justice with many inspirational speakers. See videos below for excerpts.
After the rally we began our procession to the Department of Justice for an action organized by NCNR. Almost 200 people marched down Pennsylvania Ave. holding banners calling for the prosecution of members of the Bush Administration for war crimes. When we arrived at the Department of Justice we were stopped at the door by the guards and they told us someone would be out to talk to us. The same low-level public relations official that we talked to when we went to the DoJ last November came to speak to us. All he would say is that he would take our letter. We told him that we were there in November. In November he told us he would take the letter and someone would get back to us, but we never heard from anyone. When it became clear that we were not going to be heard, about 15 individuals were moved by conscience to engage in an act of nonviolent civil resistance and lay down on the sidewalk, covered with a poster depicting a victim of war or torture. The pictures were very graphic and moving. They clearly showed the crimes of the past administration. We lay there for an hour and were not arrested. After an hour we got up to continue our work for peace and justice.