Guantanamo stirs protests

Hooded protesters in orange jumpsuits demonstrated outside U.S. embassies throughout Europe, and rights activists marked the date with demands for the release or trial of the remaining 395 men at the prison in southern Cuba.

Activist Cindy Sheehan led a dozen protesters on a march from the city of Guantanamo to the locked back gates of the naval base, where they chanted for an end to the detention of so-called enemy combatants.

"Gitmo prison is a source of shame; no more torture in our name!" shouted Sheehan and the others allowed into Cuba for a rarely permitted visit to the remote base.

Among those who made their way to the little-used northeast gate was Taher Deghayes, who held a photograph of his detainee-brother, Omar Deghayes.

Deghayes' mother, Zohra Zewawi, accompanied Sheehan's group to Cuba and told news agencies that her son had been tortured and blinded in one eye since being imprisoned in September 2002.

Also with the protesters was 25-year-old British citizen Asif Iqbal, whose three years in U.S. custody and subsequent release without charges was the subject of the 2006 documentary film "The Road to Guantanamo."

Base authorities said they had no contact with protesters.

"Today is a typical workday here at GTMO. We have no purview or interaction with protesters. Wherever they are protesting in Cuba, it's not near us," said Army Col. Lora Tucker, spokeswoman for the Joint Task Force operating the prisons.

In Washington, more than 100 protesters were arrested after they entered a federal courthouse wearing T-shirts with slogans such as "Stop Torture" and "Shut Down Guantanamo." Their permit authorized an outdoor protest.

Dozens of demonstrators dressed like Guantanamo prisoners also turned out at U.S. embassies in Greece, Denmark, Britain, Hungary, Germany, Turkey and Italy.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and the Center for Constitutional Rights all appealed for restoration of the prisoners' right to habeas corpus -- the ability to challenge their detention in U.S. courts that was stripped from them by the Military Commissions Act passed by Congress in September.