80 Arrests in Guantanamo protest at Supreme Court

Police arrested eighty demonstrators at the Supreme Court yesterday in a protest calling for the shutdown of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Similar protests were held in Australia, Europe and Africa.

About 200 demonstrators dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods intended to simulate prison garb were arrested inside and outside the building in the early afternoon. "Shut it down," protesters chanted as others kneeled on the plaza in front of the court.

All demonstrations are banned from the court grounds. Those arrested inside the building were also charged under a provision that makes it a crime to give "a harangue or oration" in the Supreme Court building.

Later this year, the court is considering whether prisoners still detained at Guantanamo Bay have a right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts. Currently they are subject to military tribunals. The Pentagon has released several hundred detainees, with 275 remaining.