Tortured by the U.S. Government: from Abu Graib to San Quentin

A public forum at the Rochester Institute of
Technology will discuss the links between the U.S.
government’s mistreatment of prisoners seized abroad and the situation of prisoners caught up in the domestic criminal justice system. Featured speakers are Shujaa Graham, a former inmate on California’s death row, exonerated and released in 1981; and Anthony Arnove, editor of Iraq Under Siege (Haymarket/Pluto) and co-editor with Howard Zinn of Voices of a People’s History of the United States (Seven Stories Press).

Event:  Tortured by the U.S. Government:  from Abu
Ghraib to San Quentin
Date:   Thursday, January 13, 2005
Time:   7:00 pm
Place:  Webb Auditorium, RIT campus, Gannett Building
(Bldg 7)

A public forum at the Rochester Institute of
Technology will discuss the links between the U.S.
government’s mistreatment of prisoners seized abroad
and the situation of prisoners caught up in the
domestic criminal justice system.  Featured speakers
are Shujaa Graham, a former inmate on California’s
death row, exonerated and released in 1981; and
Anthony Arnove, editor of Iraq Under Siege
(Haymarket/Pluto) and co-editor with Howard Zinn of
Voices of a People’s History of the United States
(Seven Stories Press).

  The Bush Administration has stirred controversy in
claiming the power to lock up without charge both
citizens and non-citizens, captured within and outside
the borders of the U.S.  The incidents of torture and
abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Bagram Air Base in
Afghanistan, and the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba have been well-documented.
  The Administration has also spearheaded an
unprecedented rounding-up and detention  of
immigrants—especially Arabs and Muslims, along with
concerted attacks on civil liberties through measures
like the USA Patriot Act.  And all this comes at a
time when the U.S. locks up a higher proportion of its
own citizens than any other country in the world: more
than two million in prison.
  The January 13th forum on “Tortured by the U.S.
Government: from Abu Ghraib to San Quentin” will look
the common threads running through all these abuses of
government power, both actual and potential, and what
can be done to address them.  The event is free and
open to the public.

Sponsored  by the International Socialist
Organization.    For further information call
442-2216.