John Pope My name is john pope I’’m a 48 yr old construction worker from palm beach county Florida. I’m working with a coalition of organizations trying to get Guantanamo bay detention center closed, and justice brought to the prisoners held within. As most people should know there are over 100 hunger strikers in Guantanamo who are fighting back in the only avenue left to them., to free themselves via starvation. Sadly however, our government wants to hide our collective shame by force feeding them twice a day which has extended their hunger strike now for 128 days. The coalition that I speak of is also trying to clean up and rectify the injustices and torture that are occurring in our prisons here state side and we are doing that through many different means including letter writing campaigns, marches and rallies, petitions and call ins. The way we are bringing this coalition together is through the use of a solidarity hunger strike which was started by Diane Wilson of code pink, who is now on day 45 and has lost 38 lbs. The solidarity strike and its peripheral actions is also supported by hunger striker Elliot Adams of veterans for peace, who is on day 28 and has lost 27 lbs so far. There are also nine long term fasters with various styles and lengths of fast. I am on an open ended fast on day 15, taking 300 calories or less per day and have lost a total of 15 lbs so far. We are not hoping to soften the hearts of our government… they drop bombs on women and children, that would be useless. We are hoping to motivate the activists and people of conscience around the world and focus their collective might into a spear point that can bring an end to this from of injustice. This is just a first step in the never ending war for peace. Let’s git ‘er done!
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:51:15 +0000