Land of the Free-? Home of the Brave-Yep!

One of the biggest risks of nonviolent protest is that those whom you are protesting might respond with violence. Ask Mohandas Gandhi and those who struggled for India's independence. Ask Martin Luther King, Jr., and other African-Americans who joined in the civil rights movement. Such was the case most recently in Bahrain on the morning of February 17th. Yet in 2011 in the United States of America, if you were to engage in a silent and nonviolent protest in front of a major national leader, say merely turning your back on her while she was giving a speech on, say, the importance of free speech, would you expect to be brutally beaten and jailed by her security detail? Until receiving an email message from Ray McGovern, we would have answered that question with a resounding no.

Ray's message went out to friends and supporters to let them know that he was bloodied but OK, and to report his concern that the state of American freedom had also been bloodied, and might not be OK. We agree.

On February 15th, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was speaking at George Washington University about the situation in Egypt, McGovern, a 71 year-old Army veteran and retired CIA analyst, silently stood and turned his back on her. Within moments he was dragged off, beaten, and left bleeding in a jail cell. Most troubling of all, Secretary Clinton didn't miss a beat during her speech. She saw him, saw how he was treated, and continued without pausing as McGovern was dragged away.

McGovern is not your average activist, and certainly someone the Secretary would recognize by name and reputation. During his CIA career, McGovern chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford and Reagan. He was one of the senior analysts conducting daily briefings with the Vice President, Secretaries of State and Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. McGovern is also a person of faith, holds a Theological Studies Certificate from Georgetown, and works for the ecumenical Church of the Saviour, writing and teaching for its "Speaking Truth to Power" program. Finally, Ray is a local friend who has spoken many times for faith-based justice concerns in the bay area.

McGovern's anti-war activism ramped up during the lead up to the second Iraq war, because he and other retired intelligence professionals believed the case for war was being fabricated. His was one of the clearest voices saying there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He was right. He is also right when he questions the state of America's freedom of speech.

Without going into all the ways the just renewed portions of the PATRIOT Act violate our freedom of speech, or bemoaning the inhumane treatment of an Army PFC for supposedly providing classified documents to WiKiLeaks, dragging a 71 year-old man from a public place for silently turning his back on someone is clearly a violation of our most precious rights. Beating him and leaving him bleeding in jail is a crime. This incident should be investigated and those responsible prosecuted. The Declaration of Independence states that the role of government is to secure the rights of the people, not stand by and continue a speech while they are being desecrated. We therefore respectfully call upon Secretary Clinton to apologize to McGovern and the American people, and upon President Obama to assure us all that he will protect our freedoms as zealously here as he promotes freedom abroad.

The United States is not Egypt or Bahrain. But history shows that, no matter where you are, when you commit violence against nonviolent protesters their numbers often grow. As leaders of a multifaith organization working for peace and justice at home and abroad, we call on our neighbors to raise their voices for freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, while we still have the right to do so.

The Rev. Dr. Diana C. Gibson and Craig Wiesner
Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice
www.multifaithpeace.org