The Philadelphia chapter of World Can’t Wait stood outside of the Philadelphia Inquirer office, new home to monthly columnist John Yoo, and re-enacted a waterboarding demonstration. 25 people came out to the event with a number of different media outlets. We began with a speak out: discussing the national day, exposing that torture, like rape, is a war crime, and calling for the release of the 2000 torture photos and the prosecution of war criminals like John Yoo. The onlookers were really upset and disturbed by the waterboarding demonstration.

The “interrogators” and the “detainee” gave a realistic run down of the Justice Dept. approved CIA method of interrogation. Cameras were flashing while people watched with their mouths open in disbelief that the US government would condoned such a method. While the demo was going on, we were on the mic explaining that waterboarding was indeed torture and that the information gathered from torture was used to justify the invasion in Iraq. We explained that the detainee is being smothered and drowned at the same time.

Although there were not as many people as we had hoped, we were really proud that we (the local WCW chapter) persevered and organized the first waterboarding demo outside of the Inquirer office. Also, a local blog site showed up, and shared with us a video that they made to promote the 28th – the National Day of Resistance. Check it out.