US peace activist to speak in Limerick

limerick | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Thursday May 22, 2008 01:11 by John Lannon

American anti-torture and peace activist Chuck Fager is visiting Limerick next week as part of his European tour to promote international cooperation against torture. He will give a talk at the Quaker Meeting House in Limerick on Tuesday 27th May. The talk starts at 8pm and is open to the public.

Chuck Fager is Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina. This is located beside Fort Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the US and a major hub in their machinery of torture. Most of the US flights associated with torture kidnappings take off from nearby airfields, with many landing at Shannon for refueling or other scheduled stops. Reports from the European Parliament, the Irish Human Rights Commission and others have expressed concerns over Ireland’s facilitation of these flights.

In March of this year Amnesty International reported that the plane used to transfer Khaled al Maqtari, a 31 year old Yemeni man, from Baghdad to a CIA black site in Afghanistan passed through Shannon the previous day. Earlier this month Murat Kurnaz, a German resident who spent five years suffering torture and starvation in Guantanamo Bay detention centre, reminded local activists at Shannon that the flight that took him from Kandahar might have landed at the Co. Clare airport. The plane landed once he said, but as he lay in darkness he had no way of knowing where.

Chuck Fager’s visit to Limerick next week will promote better networking and cooperation among peace and anti-torture activists. He has helped organize protests against rendition flights in North Carolina, and will share experiences with activists who are doing the same at Shannon. Fager has a long history of civic activism in the US. In the 1960’s he worked on the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. Martin Luther King. Since then he has written several books including Eating Dr. King's Dinner: A Memoir of the Movement, 1963-1966.

As well as the public talk in the Quaker Meeting House, Chuck Fager will talk at the University of Limerick and hold a number of other meetings during his time in the area.