By Nour Abdelhady, Mohammad Awadallah and Anna Brown

Two students and one faculty member from Saint Peter’s College joined with members of Witness Against Torture (WAT) and stood vigil in front of the White House for two hours every day during spring break. We remained standing, rain or shine, dressed in bright orange jumpsuits with black hoods covering our faces. In unison, we marched silently with clenched fists held behind our backs, like those in Guantanamo. While our eyes adjusted to the darkness, our hearts remained heavy.
When we (Nour and Mohammad) originally signed up for the trip, we knew our Spring Break would be unlike those of our friends. We were not going to the Bahamas or Cancun to party; our destination was Washington D.C, where we would join WAT’s fight to end torture and shut down Guantanamo.  We would stand to bear witness for those who have been tortured and detained for seven years without charge or trial. We would stand, also, to rehabilitate our own hearts. As we pulled the hoods over our faces, however, we realized how unprepared we were for the experience of oppression.
We could hardly see, feeling vulnerable and exposed to the outside world. But we knew these feelings were nothing compared to the experiences of the actual Guantanamo detainees’. Before the start of each vigil, we would gather in a circle and read various accounts written by former Guantanamo detainees or the lawyers of those men still being held. These accounts were reinforced by lectures given by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Both men spoke of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ report on torture in U.S. “Black Sites.”
Our hearts broke when they explained the meaning of “beatings by use of a collar,” when military personnel would repeatedly hurl detainees into walls with metal chains attached to collars around the prisoners’ necks. Then they broke again when, while watching Witness Against Torture: The Campaign to Shut Down Guantanamo, Candace Gorman, a lawyer representing detainees in Guantanamo, gives an account of the  force feeding of (former) detainee Sami al-Haj: “the pain of putting  the tube up his nose is considerable; the tube diameter is twelve millimeters (three times the clinically recommended width of a  nasogastric tube), and he gags when it passes through his throat.  Three times they have inserted the tube the wrong way, so it went in his lungs. When they think this happened they check it by putting water in the tube, which makes him choke.”
These are the stories that haunted us as we stood before the White House.  “These are the same stories,” we told ourselves, “that the tourists who walk by have yet to learn.”  How else could we explain their posing for pictures in front of us, crouched down and flashing a thumbs-up to the camera?  Some of us were shocked by the gesture’s eerily similarity to Sabrina Harmon’s pictures in Abu-Ghraib. Others dismissed it, thinking it was just a joke.  Either way, the tourists did nothing to acknowledge the suffering of the men in Guantanamo.
A child asked her parent if we were real.  Government employees and office workers asked why we were protesting when President Obama was closing Guantanamo.  But Guantanamo is not closed yet, not until the last man has been released. It is not closed until we account for and prosecute the people guilty of ordering, legislating and inflicting torture. Guantanamo will not be closed, merely relocated, if the same practices are repeated at the U.S. Base in Bagram, Afghanistan.  Yes, there has been some “Change”:  the prison President Obama maintains in Bagram is far worse than Guantanamo ever was.
There were those who expressed outrage at our message: “Here’s how we can shut down Guantanamo – let’s just shoot everyone in there.” Or,  “What do you want to do? Release the terrorists in the United States?” Are they thinking of Omar Deghayes? Deghayes, a Libyan citizen, was held for five years, far from his wife and child. He was routinely subjected to electric shocks, sexual abuse, and death threats and was permanently blinded when a guard stuck a finger in his eye.  Should he, and all the other innocents like him, be shot?  As Socrates asked over 2,000 years  ago: “Is it ever right to inflict harm on another human being?”
If  there are those in Guantanamo who have committed a crime – and even US government officials now admit they are a mere two dozen –why don’t we provide the evidence, charge them and bring them to justice in US federal courts?
But the vigil was not held in vain.  We remember one woman in particular who touched  each of us on the arm and  said, “Thank you.” This simple gesture and brief word of gratitude meant a lot after standing for over an hour in a steady rain. We can also remember a gentleman sitting on a park bench who, as we walked by, said rather heartily: “Thank you for your work. Thank you for giving a voice to the voiceless.”
On our last day in Washington, D.C., we knew we had spent our spring break the right way. Our work was to humanize those who had been dehumanized. Having returned to Saint Peter’s, the task before us is clear: Continue until the last man is set free.