While many don’t live to see their 83rd year, an 83-year-old woman and a man were arrested in a suburb outside of Washington D.C. on Saturday after protesting outside the home of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The two anti-war protesters were part of a “torturers tour” who, along with 20 other activists associated with the the anti-war groups Code Pink and Witness Against Torture, had fanned out to different locations to demonstrate Saturday morning, reports CNN .
The 83-year-old woman is reportedly named Eve Tetaz, who was taken into custody by police along with Tighe Barry, 57, according to Code Pink and Fairfax County police spokesman Roger Henriquez. The two anti-Dick Cheney war protesters were booked, processed, and released within an hour. Their court dates are pending.
The anti-Dick Cheney demonstrators were protesting inside the fence of Cheney’s property in McLean, Virginia, when police arrived. The homeowners had called police, protesting themselves that the protesters “were not allowed to be there.” Whether or not Dick Cheney was at the home while people were outside protesting him is unknown.
“Police asked them (the Dick Cheney protesters) to leave or face trespassing charges,” said Henriquez. “Two refused to leave the premises.”
The co-founder of Code Pink, Medea Benjamin, heartily denied the police version of their Dick Cheney protest.
“The police asked us to move to the street, so we did. And they arbitrarily arrested two of us,” said Benjamin.
Code Pink’s national coordinator, Ali McCracken, explained the “torturers tour”, which sounds almost like a progressive dinner party except people were protesting instead of eating at the different locations they visited.
First the protesters went to the home of CIA Director John Brennan, also in McLean, said McCracken. No one was arrested there, so off to the nearby CIA headquarters went the Code Pink protesters. After protesting there for awhile, they descended on Dick Cheney’s house.
What is the goal of the anti-Dick Cheney, John Brennan, and CIA group? According to McCracken, they are calling for the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba to be shut down. McCracken feels the arrests during her group’s anti-Dick Cheney protest illustrate how upside down the world is.
“It’s ironic and ridiculous that while the men responsible for torture are out running free and profiting from years of failed wars – Dick Cheney has profited grossly off the Iraq War – police were out arresting peaceful protesters who are calling for a new foreign policy based on diplomacy and compassion.”
A report released last month by the U.S. Senate was critical of the CIA, saying the government organization misled both the White House and the public about how it “tortured” detainees following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, reports Reuters .
Dick Cheney has called the report “deeply flawed,” and defended the harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects used by CIA following 9/11, when more than 3,000 people were murdered in New York and Washington.
Dick Cheney has also called the report a “terrible piece of work” and “full of crap.”
[Image via Yahoo New s]
