Students crowded around Bracken Library Wednesday to witness Matthew Smith, a senior political science and history major, waterboard Caleb Hoagland, senior political science major, as part of a silent protest to close Guantanamo Bay.
Students For Creative Social Action and Amnesty International gathered signatures at the protest in hopes of convincing Senator Joe Donnelly? to sign The National Defense Authorization Act of 2014.
Parts of this legislation could allow for easier transfers from Guantanamo for either fair trials for prisoners or shipment to other countries.
The bay has received negative attention for their treatment of prisoners, including using a method of torture known as waterboarding.
“The human rights abuse is horrible,” said Hoagland, vice president of SCSA. “You have people killing themselves and not eating. Any time you have people taking such severe action, you have to really take a look at the situation we’re putting these people in.”
During the protest, students wore orange jumpsuits and black head attire to impersonate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Smith and another student wore army attire and led the “prisoners” to the library. The group remained mostly silent and immobile, with their hands tied behind their backs, during the entire hour protest.
“We wanted to do a silent protest because we really wanted to represent the voicelessness of the people who are detained down in Guantanamo,” Smith said.
While people signed the petition during the hour-long event, most signatures came from witnesses to the waterboarding at the end of the event.
Smith laid down Hoagland, placed a cloth over his face and poured a jug of water on the cloth. He repeated this multiple times with brief intermissions of Hoagland coughing and spitting in between.
“I kept telling myself it’s not fatal,” Hoagland said. “I trust Matt Smith, but there was a point where some primal part of my brain said, ‘You’re going to die.’ I kept breathing and water was going in. It really tricks your brain into thinking you’re drowning.”
Freshman Kenzie Wilkey said the protest influenced her decision to sign the petition.
“It was actually really scary to watch,” Wilkey said. “It seemed really real. It grabbed everyone’s attention. Everyone was focused, serious and shocked.”
Planning for the event began in May. The idea to demonstrate waterboarding came from other protests regarding Guantanamo Bay.
To Smith and others in the organization, the protest was a success.
“I’ve talked to legislators before that said as soon as they hear from three people that are involved or are interested in a piece of legislation, it’s automatically on their radar,” Smith said. “Three people is all it takes and we got a lot more than three signatures. I think this will definitely be on Joe Donnelly’s radar, and he will feel this pressure from us.”
