WarCriminalsWatch Events

Join World Can't Wait and others on campus this Monday, August 16 to protest University accommodation for war crimes. John Yoo's name has been deleted from the course listing for Constitutional Law 220.1S [http://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/courses/coursePage.php?cID=7404], so we will proceed with plans to either celebrate a small victory for his dismissal or demonstrate our resolve for accomplishing the same.

A noon press conference will feature prominent speakers including UC alumni representing several generations of UC Law graduates. A public Procession Against Torture and UC Complicity will immediately follow.

Despite all that is now known about the horrors of the torture system Yoo and other lawyers rigged up for Bush and Cheney – no one at the top layers of the UC power structure has yet taken any responsibility for challenging Yoo's status as a tenured professor. Protest now, to add your voice to the demand that this war criminal has to be gotten out of that classroom! Does UC hope somehow John Yoo would become old news, that protests and criticism would go away? New factual evidence, and legal arguments too, only continue showing more about Yoo's role in enabling and enacting torture. In recent congressional testimony , Yoo's former boss Jay Bybee fingered Yoo for the legal work Yoo gave Bush and Cheney as requested, to "legalize" and support the torture. Several current major legal cases have Yoo in jeopardy of lawsuits and prosecution. But still Yoo continues profiting from his UC faculty status, gaining celebrity on a lucrative book tour while he teaches (and acts as role model for) the new generation of lawyers and judges.

A lawyer whose work product and advice enabled the White House, the CIA and the U.S. military to commit torture and other war crimes is not protected by "freedom of speech." A university which lets a war criminal teach constitutional law and ethics to its students is not protecting "academic freedom" - it is protecting war crimes.

An Obama administration that refuses to fully repudiate - and prosecute - war crimes is not the "change" anyone hoped for. World Can't Wait is determined to move forward building the kind of resistance movement needed, rather than rely on or place our hopes in the hands of leaders who counsel us to "seek common ground" with fascists and torturers.

WHERE IS JOHN YOO? At this time, Yoo's class location is literally a secret. This "hide the war criminal" policy was invented last semester: only students registered for Yoo's classes were given the secret room number. Members of the UC community and the general public who find this practice of holding secret classes at a public university offensive, unethical or just plain ridiculous may inform Dean Christopher Edley or Chancellor Robert Birgineau of their opinions.  

Meet on the UC Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall) steps

Press Conference 12 Noon

Procession Against Torture and Complicity begins 12:30

Join World Can't Wait, Fire John Yoo.org, Progressive Democrats of America, the National Lawyers Guild's Committee Against Torture, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, the National Accountability Network, Code Pink and other human rights and legal community speakers at the noon press conference. A public nonviolent protest procession will follow.

We'll have signs and other visual aids, bring your own too. 

Wear the orange jumpsuit and black hood of a detainee.        

Speak the names of the nameless prisoners.        

Tell the stories of torture and its victims.        

Give information to students who need to decide what it means to study under a law professor who has played a leading role in the shredding of international and U.S. law both of which forbid torture, no exceptions allowed).