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Listen to the October 25, 2005 Uprising interview with James Yee.

Actions around the world, including in the US and UK, are marking today as a Day of Shame for the on-going operation of the Guantánamo prison in Cuba. Witness Against Torture, whose member Frida Berrigan we interviewed yesterday, continue their focused actions in Washington DC against the Obama Administration over Guantánamo. Today they will form a human chain from the White House to the Capitol Building following a rally at Lafayette Park. There are still 171 prisoners being held at the US Naval Base. President Obama has essentially reversed his position on closing down Guantánamo, signing the National Defense Authorization Act recently which enshrines indefinite detention into US law. A lawyer representing 7 inmates who continue to be imprisoned, has revealed that Gitmo prisoners are launching their own protest with banners and sit-ins and refusing to eat. The Christian Science Monitor profiled one detainee, Suleiman al-Nahdi to mark the anniversary. Al-Nahdi was cleared for release five years ago and still awaits freedom. “I wonder if the U.S. government wants to keep us here forever,” he wrote in a letter to his lawyers.

On October 25, 2005, Uprising host Sonali Kolhatkar interviewed former US army chaplain James Yee, about his book For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire. Yee served at Camp Delta in Guantánamo and was himself arrested by the government in 2003 on US soil. He was charged with espionage and threatened with the death penalty, and imprisoned for 76 days. Eventually all charges were dropped. IN his book, For God and Country, he details not only his own experience, but what he witnessed in the treatment of detainees.

GUEST: James Yee, former US Army Muslim Chaplain at Guantánamo Bay Prison, author of For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire, currently the Executive Director of the New Jersey Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)