CODEPINK Medea Benjamin Update: 'Help! They Broke My Arm!' Detained, Tortured. US Embassy Forsaken

Update: CODEPINK Medea Benjamin 

‘Help! They broke my arm!’ CODEPINK Co-founder Medea Benjamin Detained, Tortured 

Medea Benjamin sent a Tweet out this morning, urgently calling for help.

‘Help! They broke my arm. Egypt police,’ Benjamin tweeted Tuesday morning.

Last night Benjamin had tweeted that she’d been detained in Cairo. She’d sent a photo of her “jail cell.” (See below)

Medea Benjamin, a United States national human rights leader, is co-founder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange.  She has authored eight books. Her latest book is  Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, and she has been campaigning to stop the use of killer drones.

Benjamin’s direct questioning of President Obama during his 2013 foreign policy address, and her recent trips to Pakistan and Yemen, helped shine a light on the innocent people killed by US drone strikes.

Brutalized, in pain

Benjamin was detained Monday at Cairo’s airport by Egyptian police without explanation. She says she was questioned, held overnight in an airport prison cell, and then – Tuesday, she said she was violently handcuffed by Egyptian officials, who dislocated her shoulder and broke her arm.

Finally put on a plane and deported to Turkey, Benjamin’s in the process of seeking medical treatment there now.

Democracy Now! spoke with Benjamin by telephone from the airport medical facility. Benjamin was aiming to join an international delegation to travel to Gaza for a women’s conference.

“Well, I’m in a lot of pain,” Benjamin told Amy Goodman. “I’ve gotten two shots of painkiller, but it’s not enough. They fractured my arm, dislocated my shoulder, tore the ligaments. They jumped on top of me. And this was all never telling me what was the problem. And so, it was a very brutal attack, and I’m in a lot of pain.

Goodman asked Benjamin to explain what happened. 

I arrived at the airport. When I gave in my passport, I was taken aside, brought into a separate room, where I was held for seven hours without anybody ever telling me what was wrong. Then I was put into a jail cell in the airport, held overnight. And in the morning, five very scary-looking men came in and wanted to take me away.

And I said, ‘The embassy is coming. The embassy is coming.’

They were supposed to have arrived. Instead, they dragged me out, tackled me to the ground, jumped on me, handcuffed my wrists so tight that they started bleeding, and then dislocated my shoulder, and then kept me like that, grabbing my arm. The whole way, I was shouting through the airport, screaming in pain. Then the—I demanded to get medical attention.

Egyptian doctors came and said, ‘This woman cannot travel. She’s in too much pain. She needs to go to the hospital.’ 

“The Egyptian security refused to take me to a hospital and threw me on the plane,” benjamin said. “Thank God there was an orthopedic surgeon on the plane who gave me another shot and put the arm back in its shoulder. But they were so brutal, and, as I said, Amy, never saying why.”

“Did the U.S. embassy representative ever come to see you at the airport?” asked Goodman.

“No. Some of the delegates, including Ann Wright, who had already arrived for the Gaza delegation, had been calling the embassy non-stop,” Benjamin replied.. “The CodePink people in D.C. were calling the embassy non-stop.

“They were always saying, ‘They’re supposed to show up. They’re supposed to show up.’

Benjamin said, “They never showed up. I was on the tarmac. The Turkish airline was forced to take me, but we delayed an hour while they were debating what to do.

“There were about 20 men there. And the embassy never showed up the entire time.”

Sources: Twitter, Democracy Now!

CODEPINK Co-founder Medea Benjamin Detained, ‘This is my cell in Cairo’ (Photo)

March 3, 2014

CODEPINK’s fearless co-founder Medea Benjamin has been detained in Cairo – again. 

Benjamin sent the above photo at 5:26 this afternoon.

“This is my cell in Cairo airport,” Benjamin tweeted.

Last month, when in Cairo as a witness to protests, she was detained there.

Medea Benjamin is a co-founder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange.  Benjamin is the author of eight books. Her latest book is  Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, and she has been campaigning to stop the use of killer drones.

Her direct questioning of President Obama during his 2013 foreign policy address, and her recent trips to Pakistan and Yemen, helped shine a light on the innocent people killed by US drone strikes.

Benjamin has been an advocate for social justice for more than 30 years. Described as “one of America’s most committed — and most effective — fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday, and “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” by the Los Angeles Times, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide.

In 2010 she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the 2012 Peace Prize by the US Peace Memorial.

She is a former economist and nutritionist with the United Nations and World Health Organization.  She was instrumental in building US. support for the movement to overthrow General Suharto in Indonesia and has been fighting for the right of self-determination for the people of East Timor.

Benjamin has been involved in supporting the Peace Process between the Zapatista rebels and the Mexican government, has fought to lift the embargoes against Cuba and Iraq, and was active in cutting US military aid to repressive regimes in Central America.

In 2000, Benjamin ran for the United States Senate on the Green Party ticket from California, basing her campaign on such issues as a living wage, education, and universal healthcare; she garnered 3 percent of the vote. Since then she has remained active in the Green Party and also supported efforts by Progressive Democrats of America.