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November 24, 2014

Hundreds Rally at Georgia Detention Center, Ft. Benning 
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Hundreds of people rallied outside Fort Benning in Georgia over the
weekend for the annual protest calling for the closure of a
controversial military training base. Formerly known as the School of
the Americas, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
has been used to train Latin American soldiers in combat,
counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics. Protesters included Courtney
Collins, a youth activist from New Jersey.

Courtney Collins: "I definitely had to tell all my teachers before we
left that I wasn't going to be in school for the next two days. And when
they asked why I was going down to Georgia, I said I was going on a
protest for SOA. I explained it as a school where they take in people
from Third World countries and train them in democracy but they're
really teaching them how to torture people. They send them back down and
they're major contributors in genocide and awful situations."

On Saturday, protesters also rallied miles away at the privately-owned
Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, one of the nation's largest prisons
for undocumented immigrants. At least five people were arrested.

 

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