MV Rachel Corrie waiting in Mediterranean: Reports

Ma'an News Agency, June 3, 2010

Bethlehem - The Irish Times reported Thursday that the MV Rachel Corrie assumed a holding position in the eastern Mediterranean one day earlier, apparently waiting for two other boats to sail as a second flotilla to Gaza by the week's end.

Free Gaza organizer Greta Berlin told the Times that a small ship, Challenger II, was being fixed so it was fit for the voyage.

In addition to Berlin, aboard the ships will be Nobel Prize laureate Mairead Maguire and former UN assistant secretary general Denis Halliday.

A statement from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said the Rachel Corrie was carrying 1,000 tons of educational and rebuilding supplies.

Israeli media reports, however, said the ship may have already agreed to dock in Ashdod. The daily newspaper Haaretz cited European diplomats and senior Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem, as saying a "diplomatic" solution had been found to impending second challenge to Israel's siege on Gaza.

Speaking from the boat, Irishman Derek Graham told PSC that "if this aid is not delivered, then Monday's deaths will have been in vain".

He said the passengers had discussed the possability of being boarded by commandos like the first ships, and told PSC that all 15 passengers would sit with their arms in the air so that they would not be attacked.

Thousands Rally in DC Against Iraq War

Protest was expected to draw smaller crowds
By ASHA BEH, NBC Washington, March 20, 2010

click here for video

On the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, demonstrators carried flag-draped cardboard coffins as they marched from Lafayette Park across from the White House through downtown DC Saturday.

President Barack Obama's decision to send more troops into Afghanistan helped build momentum for the anti-war protest, which was expected to draw smaller crowds, according to military veterans and activists Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan, who helped organize the protest.

The protesters picked on another president as well, carrying signs reading "Indict Bush Now."

Saturday’s large-scale protest signaled the revival of the anti-war movement, that has been largely silent since January 2008, according to The Hindu.

In a statement obtained by the newspaper, the ANSWER Coalition said that although “the enthusiasm and desire for change after eight years of the Bush regime was the dominant cause that led to the election of a big Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress and the election of Barack Obama to the White House… [it was now] obvious to all that waiting for politicians to bring real change… is simply a prescription for passivity by progressives and an invitation to the array of corporate interests from military contractors to the banks, to big oil, to the health insurance giants that dominate the political life of the country.”

Stops on the route included military contractor Halliburton, the Mortgage Bankers Association, The Washington Post offices and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. On the website for the March 20th protest, the ANSWER Coalition claims "Halliburton has become synonymous with war profiteering" and the Washington Post "has been a staunch supporter of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and continues to operate as an apologist for U.S. aggression."

Anti-war protest in Idaho Falls

By Jennifer McGraw, KIDK.com, March 17, 2010

click here for link to video

IDAHO FALLS - Protestors rallied in Idaho Falls today against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dozens gathered on the Broadway Bridge with signs that read support our troops and lets end this war.

The Snake River Freedom Collision was started by Tina Moore of Idaho Falls the same time the collision with the stop signs against the war started.

The hope to raise awareness here in Eastern Idaho about the war overseas and gain more public support.

The will also be holding a vigil Saturday night at 7pm at the War Memorial in Idaho Falls.

History-making aid for Palestine reaches Gaza

By John Parker, Workers World, July 15, 2009

* Viva Palestina delegation faces hurdles
* Photos: We are in Gaza!

Gaza, Palestine — The largest humanitarian aid convoy in history to travel from the U.S. to Palestine succeeded in crossing the Rafah border into Gaza late today. After days of delay, the 218-person contingent of activists, buoyed by telegrams, emails and protests from many parts of the world, was finally allowed to pass into the besieged Palestinian enclave with more than $1 million in wheelchairs, walkers and medical supplies for the people of Gaza.

A genocidal attack on Gaza in December and January, on top of a two-year Israeli siege and blockade of the area, prompted British Member of Parliament George Galloway to organize the Viva Palestina caravans as a way to provide essential aid to a people under occupation who have been denied the most basic necessities of life.

The fact that this caravan hails from the U.S. gives it added resonance, as Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. government aid in the world. And Israel uses U.S. weapons and missiles against the Palestinian people on a daily basis.

The delegation received a heroes’ welcome from the people of Gaza. Its members include Galloway, New York City Council Member Charles Barron and former U.S. Congressperson Cynthia McKinney, who was imprisoned just a few weeks earlier by Israeli forces for attempting to bring aid into Gaza by sea with the Free Gaza Movement. Also participating are representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Cuba Coalition, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), International Action Center, the Answer Coalition, International Socialist Organization and Workers World Party.

— John Parker, of the International Action Center, is in Gaza with the Viva Palestina Aid Convoy.

Urge your Representative to take a stand for democracy!

SOA Watch, July 9, 2009

On Friday, July 10, Representatives Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and James McGovern (D-MA) introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives, H. Res. 630, that is calling for the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya as president of Honduras.

Call your Representative and ask her or him to sign on as a co-sponsor of the resolution! The Capitol Switchboard number is: 1-800-473-6711. Here is some suggested language for your call:

"Please tell Representative _________________ that I urge him to be a co-sponsor of the Delahunt/McGovern resolution H. Res. 630 to oppose the military coup by graduates of the School of the Americas in Honduras. The resolution calls for the reinstatement of democracy in that country. Please contact Cliff Stammerman or Ben Dailey in Delahunt's office."

**********************
Rep. Grijalva Urges Greater U.S. Pressure on the Coup Regime in Honduras
Rep. Raul Grijalva is circulating a letter to President Obama, calling on him to freeze U.S. assets and suspend U.S. visas of coup leaders. Signers of the letter include Reps. McGovern, Conyers, Serrano, Fattah, Honda, Barbara Lee, Jesse Jackson, Oberstar, and Kucinich. Urge your Representative to sign the Grijalva letter calling for more U.S. pressure on the coup regime.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/grijalva-letter

Photos from Protests in Honduras Against Military Coup

click here for more photos

Military Commits Coup in Honduras - Protesters Need Our Support

SOA Watch, June 28, 2009

A military coup has taken place in Honduras this morning (Sunday, June 28), led by School of the Americas (SOA) graduate Romeo Vasquez. In the early hours of the day, members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.

The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. The people of Honduras are going into the streets. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.

Click here to read an article by Eva Golinger

Click here to send a message to President Barack Obama.









Photos by Miguel Yuste, El Pais.

The people of Honduras show great bravery by taking to the streets to defend their democracy and rule of law. General Romeo Vasquez, the head of the armed forces who led the military coup against the democratically elected president Zelaya, is a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas (SOA).

"The U.S. Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."
- Congressman Joseph Kennedy (In total, the School has produced at least eleven Latin American dictators.)

Honduras - like the rest of Latin America - has first hand experience with bloody work of School of the Americas graduates and with SOA trained military dictators:

In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by, yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates).

"[I took] a course in intelligence at the school of the Americas [in which I saw] a lot of videos which showed the type of interrogation and torture they used in Vietnam. Although many people refuse to accept it, all this is organized by the U.S. government."
- José Valle, graduate of the SOA, admitted torturer, member of Battalion 316, Inside the School of Assassins, video

Click here to watch the full-length documentary about Father Roy Bourgeois, the School of the Americas and the U.S. military's involvement in teaching torture techniques

"Torturing was "a job, something I did to give food to my kids"
- Valle, Baltimore Sun, 6/11/95

"The intelligence unit, known as Battalion 316, used shock and suffocation as devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves. Newly declassified documents and other sources show that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy knew of numerous crimes, including murder and torture, yet continued to support Battalion 316 and collaborate with its leaders."
- Baltimore Sun, 6/11/95

Battalion 316 is founded in the early eighties by General Luis Alonso Discua graduated from the SOA three times, in 1967, 1972, and 1982 while the nation is under the repressive dictatorship of SOA graduate General Policarpo Paz García, inducted into the SOA "Hall of Fame" in 1988. Also inducted in 1988 is General Humberto Regalado Hernández a four-time graduate in the late sixties and seventies who, as chief of Honduran armed forces, refuses to take action against soldiers involved in Battalion 316 death squad activity, and indeed appears to cover-up at least some of that activity.
- Americas Watch reports on Honduras, 1987 and 1994

Fresh from their own "Dirty War", Argentine SOA graduates such as Colonel Mario Davico move to Honduras in the early 1980s to teach Batalion 316 techniques such as arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial executions, and methods of disposing of the bodies of the victims.
- Americas Watch, 1994

The return

One year after he enters the SOA Hall of Fame, fellow officers accuse Regalado Hernández of misappropriating millions of dollars in U.S. military aid. Officers contend that equipment provided through U.S. military assistance was regularly sold to unit commanders by Regalado, who then deposited the money in a "special account". Military assistance supplies sold by Regalado ranged from batteries to tires to gasoline. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration in 1988, the year Regalado is inducted into the SOA Hall of Fame suspects Regalado of providing protection to Colombian drug traffickers living in Honduras. Regalado's half-brother (SOA graduate Rigoberto Regalado Lara, convicted and imprisoned in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges) tells authorities that his supplier was a close friend of General Regalado Hernández.
- New York Times, 10/15/89

In 1983, several key members of Battalion 316 somehow find time in their busy schedules of organizing death squad activity for renewed training at the SOA, including Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alonso Villatoro Villeda (trained in "Administration", then commander of Battalion 316 from 1986-1988), Second Lieutenant Ramón Mejia (in charge of transporting kidnap victims from various parts of Honduras to Tegucigalpa, one of the two officers most involved in torture, interrogation and murder) and General Walter López Reyes.
- Americas Watch, 1987 and 1994

Colonel Juan López Grijalva, another three-time graduate of the SOA in Battalion 316, returns to the SOA as a guest lecturer in both 1991 and 1992.

In April 2002, the democratically elected Chavez government of Venezuela was briefly overthrown and the School of the Americas trained militaries Efrain Vasquez Velasco, ex-army commander, and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were key players in the coup attempt.

Over its 58 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques, sniper skills, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Colombia, with over 10,000 troops trained at the school, is the SOA's largest customer. Colombia currently has the worst human rights record in Latin America.

War is Unsuitable for Children: Another YouTube outrage

by Cindy Sheehan, Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox, May 26, 2009

Last week, after being bombarded with pseudo-patriotic images of graveyards, gravestones and flags, I decided to begin posting images of maimed and killed Iraqis, but especially children and transform the mega-pseudo-patriotic Memorial Day to Remembrance of Victims of US Empire Day.

I got a great response to this and my friend and videographer, Clifford Roddy put together a short film called: finaledit, with the images I posted and with images that he took at a national cemetery in Santa Fe, NM where we were together for my Myth America book tour. I have a Cindy Sheehan You Tube page so we posted it there.

The video was just yanked off of You Tube because it “violates the terms of service” but even before it was yanked, it had a warning: “This video is unsuitable for children.”

The pictures of the dead and maimed Iraqi children were gruesome. War is gruesome. War is never pretty but the Iraqi war has been “Sanitized for your protection.” It’s not enough that adult males have been tortured but thousands of women and children have also been imprisoned and cruelly treated.

I think it’s pretty gruesome that the US Military has held up to 6000 juveniles in its torture prisons in the Middle East and there has been rape and torture reported to individuals as young as 10 years old! How can any human being torture another human being, much less a child? These kinds of stories remind me of the most horrendous slasher movies that I can think of, but they are not the pretend product of twisted fantasy, but factual and mind-blowingly real.

Former US Soldier, Steven Green, was recently given life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2007 rape, mutilation and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Not only was Green the ringleader in the rape and murder; the squad also killed her family.

Unfortunately, even though Green was a “bad apple,” the situation we find ourselves in is an entire salad of rotten fruit and incidences like this one are not uncommon, but rarely reported.

Once when I was in Amman, Jordan speaking with prominent Iraqis, a Sheikh told me that US soldiers burst into his home, severely beating him and raping his wife, all in the presence of his 14-year-old son. The Sheikh told me that it was his son’s fondest dream to kill US Soldiers. Can you imagine this happening to your family? What if something like this happened in your home? You’re sitting around watching American Idol, or some crap like that, and Iraqis break into your home and terrorize and brutalize your family? I am sure you would all just chalk it up to “freedom and democracy” and be happy to go about your miserable lives comforted by the fact that your country was being occupied and destroyed for your own good.

During the US-UN-Clinton led sanctions against Iraq, the UN estimates that over 500,000 children died from starvation, disease, or violence. 500,000 Iraqi children would be like 5,000,000 US children dying. Former UN Ambassador under Clinton called that sacrifice for US Empire by the children of Iraq “worth it.” Over one million people have died in Iraq since Bush's invasion in 2003 and most of that figure counts women and children.

I have spoken to men who were still in their teens who were sodomized with broom handles in Guantanamo. I have seen the horrific photos of the US’s inhumanity to man and cannot forgive my country for the terror it has unleashed on the world. I can’t stand the fact that our government operates with such craven cowardice and has harmed so many people while Americans revel in blissful ignorance.

Young people who never get a chance to live their lives have their lives snuffed out so corporations can profit and politicians can earn their John Wayne, muy macho credentials and I wish that we could get a movement going that would be as large and as angry about weddings parties being blown up in Iraq-Af-Pak as they are about inequality in marriage rights here in the US. Please don’t email me with hostility because I wrote about marriage equality: I am 100% for marriage equality, but I am also 100% for people living to be able to be married whether they are gay or straight. Lives are in the balance and our inaction is tipping the scale in the wrong direction.

I am sorry (sarcasm) that our video “violated” You Tube’s terms of service, but the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan not only violate my terms of service, but international law.

For Displaced Iraqis, 'No Life'

Camp Residents in Kurdish No Man's Land Are Left Without Aid
By Nada Bakri, Washington Post, May 24, 2009

click here for more photos

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq -- Mohammad Jaffar cast his eyes toward a barren patch of land he calls home.

"There is no life here," Jaffar said. "No life."

Jaffar and 400 other Iraqi Arabs have lived here in a squalid camp, along a road that seems to lead nowhere, since they were driven from their homes in the sectarian bloodshed that plunged the country into chaos in 2006 and 2007.

The camp illustrates some of the problems Iraq faces as it attempts to build the institutions of a modern state: Although there is a semblance of peace, the country remains riddled with fault lines of sect and ethnicity, and saddled with competing authorities. Jaffar and his neighbors live at the intersection of those realities. They cannot return home, and they cannot rebuild their lives, a situation that threatens to make a temporary solution permanent.

Iraq has witnessed many tragedies, with tens of thousands dead in what amounted to a civil war. But added to the hardship of these displaced Iraqis is a feeling of helplessness. In a no man's land in the suburbs of this city in the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, the families deem themselves the victims of Kurdish officials who have no interest in helping them and a distant government in Baghdad whose authority falls too short to provide assistance here. Humanitarian agencies complain that they encountered difficulties when they tried to help.

"This is what the war did to us," said Intissar Saadou, whose tent is next to Jaffar's.

An unbearable stench hung over the brown, blue and yellow tents, aggravated by an occasional wind. But perhaps because of their past, none of the refugees seemed bothered by it. In September 2006, soon after the onset of some of the worst sectarian killing, they boarded minivans and buses that took them through perilous territory. By their own account, they arrived breathless.

Jaffar was one of the first to come.

A few weeks earlier, masked gunmen had knocked on his family's door in the Zayouna neighborhood of Baghdad. They threatened to kill the family members and burn the house down if they did not leave in two days, Jaffar said. The family stayed put. Three days later, gunmen killed his father as he headed to a nearby mosque for the dawn prayer. They found his corpse at noon, thrown on the side of a street, with three bullets in his head.

His mother was next. Days after her husband's death and caught in crossfire between militiamen and government security forces, she was killed as she hurried from one room of the house to another. Shortly afterward, Jaffar and his brother left, each buying a $10 bus ticket to Sulaymaniyah.

Although they are registered with the government in Baghdad, residents say that unlike others displaced by the fighting, most of them have received no financial assistance. In Sulaymaniyah, employment is almost impossible without a local sponsor. Some find work as day laborers; others beg on the city streets or go door to door asking for food and clothes.

There is no electricity. Water is trucked in, and garbage is strewn across the camp. Attempts by aid agencies to install latrines were blocked by local officials.

"Local authorities were not welcoming them," said Charles Lynch, head of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees office in Irbil, capital of the Kurdish region. "They did not want them there."

Kurdish officials seemed to agree. "It is political," said Hiwa Jaff, a spokesman for the Kurdish government in Sulaymaniyah. "The central government does not want to help them. I think they should take care of them."

That sense of abandonment, heightened by the sometimes arbitrary realities of geography and politics, courses through the camp.

"We get nothing from the government of Kurdistan and nothing from the government of Baghdad," said Nashwan Hassan, 20, who lost eight relatives during the sectarian killing, which he calls "al-ahdath," the events.

Saadou, Jaffar's neighbor, sat cross-legged on the shabby beige mattress on the floor of her tent. With her husband's lighter, she started a rickety burner on a kerosene tank and placed a frying pan on top. She waited a few minutes to hear the oil crackle, then added fresh fish caught from a nearby river.

"It is much better here," she said. "I am happy to endure this hard life than go back and get killed."

Her husband, Yass Khodayr, a former policeman, said that in 2007, gunmen in a village in Diyala province asked him for $15,000. They said they would kill his family, he recalled, if he failed to pay. He asked for two days to gather the money. The next morning, he fled to the camp with Saadou and their daughter, Hoda, then 2 years old. Their other child, Mohammed, was born in the tent. Khodayr now works in construction, earning $15 a day, half of which he spends on food and cigarettes.

Although a fragile normalcy has returned to Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, memories shape Khodayr's perspective. He remains scared.

"If I know it is safe, if the government was strong, I would go back this minute," he said. "For now, we will remain stranded here. There is nowhere to go and no one to help us."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/23/AR2009052301786.html?wprss=rss_nation/science

Iraq vets rally against Stop-Loss at Ft. Lewis

Seth Manzel and Andrew VanDenBergh, GI Voice, Courage To Resist, May 13, 2009
Iraq veterans led a rally directly outside Fort Lewis in Washington State on Saturday to oppose the Stop-Loss policy of recalling soldiers for repeated overseas deployments. Fort Lewis, the largest Army base on the West Coast, will deploy three infantry brigades to Iraq and Afghanistan over the next four months. Of the 10,000 soldiers previously deployed, some have been involuntarily stop-lossed.

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Congo troops bar UN and aid staff

BBC News, Jan. 21, 2009

Congolese soldiers have been accused of barring UN troops and aid staff from an area where an operation with Rwandan troops is ongoing on a Hutu militia.

A UN spokesman in the Democratic Republic of Congo told the BBC it was "deplorable", when so many displaced people were in desperate need of help.

At least 3,000 Rwandan troops have crossed the border for the joint push on Rwandan FDLR fighters since Tuesday.

The rebel group's leaders have been linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

DR Congo and Rwanda agreed last month to take joint action against the Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which is estimated to be more than 6,000-strong.

The BBC's Thomas Fessy in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, says hundreds more Rwandan troops entered North Kivu province on Wednesday, according to UN sources, following the 2,000 who crossed over the day before.

Our correspondent says there has been no fighting reported so far as both armies appear to be still making preparations.

Some troops are heading towards Rutshuru, 70km (45 miles) north of Goma, and others have been deployed near the strategic town of Sake, 30km (12 miles) west of the provincial capital.

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monuc) said its peacekeepers and aid workers had been blocked by Congolese troops at checkpoints north of Goma.

Monuc military spokesman Lt Col Jean Paul Dietrich told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme they had protested to the Congolese authorities.

"We've just tried to negotiate since yesterday that our force should have the [access] guarantee," he said.

"Not only for us, the Monuc force, but as well all humanitarian [agencies] desperately need to get to those IDPs [internally displaced persons] in those areas.

"And so far it seems that the blockade cannot be lifted and we deplore that and we cannot accept that. We will continue to keep up pressure."

AFP news agency reported that a convoy of Indian UN peacekeepers and a Red Cross vehicle had been turned away.

The Congolese authorities have said the operation to flush out the FLDR would last between 10 and 15 days, but Lt Col Dietrich said this would be a "very challenging task" in such a short timeframe.

'Simply grave'

Congolese President Joseph Kabila has reportedly come under fire for not informing parliament about the invitation to Rwandan troops.

"If what I'm told is true, it's quite simply grave. It raises lots of questions," parliamentary speaker Vital Kamerhe told the UN-run Radio Okapi.

The UN and aid agencies have raised concerns about the threat posed to civilians on the ground.

Rwanda twice invaded its much larger neighbour during the 1990s, saying it was pursuing the FDLR.

But analysts say much of the fighting is also linked to eastern DR Congo's rich mineral resources, which all sides have been accused of plundering.

Action against the Hutu fighters has been a key demand of the Congolese Tutsi rebel CNDP (National Congress for the Defence of the People), which declared a ceasefire last week.

The CNDP, which seized swathes of territory last year, has offered to join Congolese government troops in fighting the FDLR.

Our correspondent says the CNDP may well be part of the operation, but no details have been given about how they could be integrated to the Congolese army.

On-and-off fighting involving the CNDP, FDLR, the army and pro-government militias has forced more than one million people in North Kivu to flee their homes since late 2006.

Before last month's deal was signed, the UN accused Rwanda and DR Congo of fighting a proxy war in the region - with Rwanda backing Gen Nkunda and DR Congo of working with the FDLR.

Also see:

Rwanda: 'The Israel of Africa'

Friends Of The Congo

Photos of Israeli War Crimes in Gaza Palestine

Find more photos like this on Charlotte Free Palestine Movement

Jan. 11 Free Palestine Protesters Shut Down Pro-U.S./Israeli War Rally

David Dixon, Charlotte Free Gaza Movement, Jan. 11, 2009


Charlotte NC - On Jan. 11, over 100 people, mostly Muslim & Palestinian, including many students & children, marched through uptown Charlotte to a Pro-Israel Rally & held a loud protest across the street.

Chants included "Shame, Shame Israel," "Stop The Killing, Stop The Crime," "Free Free Palestine," "Baby Killers You Will See, Palestine Will Be Free," "Olmert, Olmert You Should Know, Back To Palestine We Will Go," "Gaza Gaza Don't You Cry, Palestine Will Never Die," "Occupation Is A Crime, Free, Free Palestine," "Stop Killing Children," "Stop Supporting Israel," "From The River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free," "Long Live Palestine," and others.

The Pro-Israel supporters got riled up and yelled curses and insults at the protesters. A couple of the Pro-U.S./Israeli War people gave their middle finger to women & children, showing their true colors (the Pro-Israel people supposedly held a peace rally according to local media).

The Free Palestine protesters stood firm and drowned out the Pro Israel Rally with the truth. It wasn't long before the Pro-Israel Rally began to break up with some of the participants dropping their signs & little plastic Israeli flags on the ground.

Free Palestine protesters began taunting them with loud chants of "Baby Killers Came To Town, We Came & Shut Them Down!" After the Pro-Israel Rally abruptly dispersed, protesters chanted, "The People United Will Never Be Defeated."

They then marched through uptown, chanting loudly, & held a spirited rally at Bobcat Arena where some type of an evangelical christian rival was going on.

There was a lot of support for the Free Palestine protest from people walking and driving by.

Participants then made plans to hold the next Charlotte demonstration for Gaza, Palestine on Jan. 13 at Cotswold Mall starting at 6pm. For info call 704-492-5226 or email charlotteaction@gmail.com.

The event was sponsored by The Charlotte Free Gaza Movement; Al-Awda, Palestine Right To Return Coalition; Muslim American Society-Freedom, Charlotte; Islamic Political Party Of America; Action Center For Justice; Students For A Democratic Society-UNCC; Jibril Hough, Spokesperson, Islamic Center Of Charlotte; & others.

Hundreds In Charlotte Protest Prop 8 & Rally For LGBT Rights

David Dixon, Action Center For Justice, Nov. 20, 2008

Photo by Carol Marley.

Click here for more photos.

This past Saturday, Nov. 15, some 300 people rallied outside the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center in downtown Charlotte. The action was part of a national day of protest against California’s Prop 8 ban on the right of LGBT people to marry and be able to receive the over 1,000 benefits marriage entails.

There were a large number of energetic youth in the crowd. People driving by in cars honked & raised their fists in support as chants of “Out Of The Closet, Into The Streets” filled the air.

Some of the signs read “Yes We Can”, “You Can’t Outlaw Love”, “Ban H8”, “Marriage Is A Human Right”, and “Gay Rights Are Human Rights”. Many of the signs were noticeably homemade, creative & rainbow colored.

Laura Benjamin reports on University of North Carolina – Charlotte’s Niner Online: “To open up the program, two choral groups, Gay Men’s Chorus of Charlotte and One Voice serenaded the crowd. Following their selections, Reverend Catherine Houchins of the Metropolitan Community Church spoke and offered a blessing for those couples, gay and straight, who were in serious and committed relationships. After Rev. Houchins, Mandy Plante, Providence High School president of the Gay/Straight Alliance, gave a captivating speech that promoted equality.” (nineronline.com, Nov.18, 2008)

Protest were held in hundreds of cities throughout the U.S. and are expected to continue until marriage equality and equal rights for LGBT people are attained.

It’s no wonder since The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force reports that: “The 1,138 federal benefits and protections of marriage are only available to couples that are allowed to legally marry. These include Social Security survivor and spousal benefits, the ability to file a joint tax return, immigration rights, and coverage under the Family and Medical Leave Act. To date, civil unions are not ‘portable,’ meaning that when a couple moves to another state, none of the benefits, rights or responsibilities coming from civil unions move with them.” (Workers World, Nov. 20, 2008)

The anti-war movement & all progressives should join the movement for marriage equality and equal rights for the LGBT community.

The Charlotte protest was organized by UNC-Charlotte’s PRIDE. To get involved contact Braxton Midyette at 704-687-4150 or pride@uncc.edu.

Food & water in northeastern Baghdad in short supply

AP, July 26, 2007

Iraqi women clamor for food distributed by Iraqi Red Crescent Society workers in the Husseiniyah area of northeastern Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, July 26, 2007. Food and water are in short supply in the Shiite stronghold after U.S. troops cordoned off the area during military operations there.(AP photo/Wisam Sami)

Photos of July 23, 2007, Impeachment March and Sit-In

Gallery of photos by Jeff Brewer


Gallery of photos by Linda Swanson

Cindy Sheehan & Journey For Humanity in Charlotte July 17, 2007

Find more photos like this on ImpeachSpace