JULY 4 SHUT DOWN GUANTANAMO PROTEST A SUCCESS

AP New York Steinem among celebrity protesters demanding shutdown of Guantanamo By KAREN MATTHEWS Associated Press Writer July 4, 2005, 2:52 PM EDT NEW YORK -- Holding prisoners indefinitely without charging them violates the values this country was founded on, Gloria Steinem said at a demonstration Monday to demand the closing of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The feminist author compared Guantanamo to the kind of autocratic rule the colonists were escaping when they founded the United States on July 4,1776. "They came to escape the very things _ detention without due process, bias, a religious government ... that we protest today," said Steinem, one of about 200 protesters at a rally in front of Macy's flagship department store in Herald Square. Citizens of about 40 different countries have been held at the camp in Cuba, some for more than three years, without being charged with any crime. Activists opposed to the U.S.-led war in Iraq say the detainees are being held improperly, but the U.S. government contends the prisoners are enemy combatants and are not entitled to constitutional protections. Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has filed lawsuits in federal court challenging the detention of the terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, was among other celebrities who addressed the rally. Since Sept. 11, said Meeropol _ the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed as Soviet spies in 1953 _ President Bush's administration "has claimed the power to kidnap men anywhere in the world and hold them, interrogate them, detain them without any process of law." Playwright Eve Ensler, author of "The Vagina Monologues," said that "Even if the prisoners were confined to a room in the Hilton at Guantanamo, prolonged indefinite detention is psychological torture. The prisoners are completely isolated from the outside world and have not seen their wives, parents or children for over three years, and they have no idea if they will ever see them again." Demonstrators read from the play "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," a docudrama based on detainees' stories. "Time is dragging on so slowly, and things don't change here at all," said actress Rosario Dawson, reading from a prisoner's letter home. "The most difficult thing in my life is being away from you and the kids, and being patient." We got coverage in the Washington Post, 1010 Wins, Al Jazeera, Prensa Latina, to see the latest look at this news search and for the obligatory racist one click here.