My name is Thomas Christopher Brandt; I go by Chris Brandt. I am 64 years of age, a carpenter, poet, translator, and a professor of literature at Fordham University. I try to teach my students that studying or making any kind of art without reference to the realities of the world, and without action, is meaningless.

I am here, as I was at the Supreme Court on January 11th of this year, for one purpose – to represent Amir Saïd Jan (whose name I misstated at the arraignment on January 12th as Saïd Ali Jan – I apologize and wish to correct the record, since this is the first time his name has been spoken in a U.S. court of law) and the other men detained at the Guantánamo Bay concentration camp, and to petition for redress on behalf of Mr. Jan and the others, who have been denied habeas corpus rights and subjected to conditions in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and even to torture.

On January 11th I joined with 82 others to do what I felt was the only thing I could do – to exercise my rights of free speech and assembly on behalf of those whom our government has denied those rights. I doing so, aware of the risks to my own person and freedom, I followed in the footsteps of Henry Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, César Chavez, and countless others who have advocated speaking truth, non-violently, to power. I have done so with many of their words in mind, but also with the words of Frederick Douglass, who in 1847 was a keynote speaker at the first women's convention in Seneca Falls, New York. He was asked by a reporter what was the greatest threat facing the natio0n. The reporter expected him to say “slavery” or perhaps in deference to his hosts “the woman question.” Instead he answered, “The death penalty,” since the moment we give government the power of life and death over one person, we have given it all it will ever need to become a tyranny. The same applies if we stand aside today and allow our current government to decide who does and who does not merit the right to habeas corpus. This I – we – cannot and will not do.

May I say that this entire experience has been a privilege. Along with my co-defendants, I have had the privilege of protest, the privilege of due process, and the privilege of appearing before you in this court, your Honor. These are all privileges which Amir Saïd Jan and the other Guantánamo prisoners have never had, and though I am grievously disappointed that you, Judge Gardner, and you Ms. Acevedo, have chosen to stick to the letter of the laws rather than to seek, with us, their spirit, I thank you both. I would only have the privileges accorded us extended to all.