Close Gitmo, DC demonstrators say

Demonstrators demanding the closure of the Guantanamo prison have marked the 100th day of a hunger strike at the detention center by submitting a petition to the White House containing some 370,000 signatures, and several of the protesters were arrested.

On Friday, a group of activists wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods, like those used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay, gathered outside the White House to call for the immediate closure of the controversial facility.

“Immoral, illegal, ineffective,” a banner read.

“Years of detention without charge or trial have created a sense of desperation and hopelessness among the men at Guantanamo, which has led over 100 of them to join a hunger strike,” said Richard Killmer, the executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

Colonel Morris Davis, a former military prosecutor at Guantanamo, handed over the petition to the White House.

Activists also brandished an effigy of President Barack Obama.

Out of 166 inmates at Guantanamo, 102 are on hunger strike, with 30 being fed through tubes. One inmate is still hospitalized but prison officials say his life is not in danger.

Obama never kept his campaign promise to close the controversial detention facility, and last month he signed a law that placed heavy restrictions on the transfer of any detainees out of the facility.