Monday, March 24 -- Demonstrators met at 7 am to start the new business week with continued resistance to the invasion of Iraq that began six days ago. Hundreds gathered downtown, splitting into two groups. One marched to the Carlyle Group, which stands to gain a lot of business from u$ involvement in Iraq. The other headed to the Federal building where the FBI is housed, among other federal agencies. Both demonstrations temporarily closed entrance to the buildings, resulting in dozens of arrests at each site. Some people have reported over one hundred arrests for the morning.
In their continued efforts to ban anti-war demos in the city, SFPD declared that it was illegal to be standing on the sidewalk of the 500 block of Turk Street. This was announced after riot pigs had surrounded the protesters linking arms in front of the federal building and isolated them from those not willing to risk arrest. As the crowd rallied support for those being arrested, one older man went through the crowd warning them of vans of cops around the corner that will arrest people on the sidewalk. He had been involved in the Friday night ambush (see our March 21 report), and had two of his ribs broken by police for being a part of the peaceful demonstration.
After arrests were complete, police cleared out, followed by the remaining protesters. Many headed south to San Francisco State University where a large march had been planned for noon.
At the 11 am rally University President Corrigan took the mic to state that the university supported a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Iraq. As students approached for questions he rushed off with police. Not being satisfied, the crowd followed to the administration building where riot police were waiting in the stairways to prevent them from accessing the President's office.
At this point hundreds occupied the lobby of the building as organizers with megaphones rallied the crowd inside as well as the rest of the university walking by. Students linked arms around the front doors to prevent the police from separating those sitting in from those rallying outside.
The demands being made by the students were: 1) to allow the General Union of Palestinian Students to be reinstated and allowed to organize on campus in response to events last spring when members of the group were targeted and disciplined for organizing against Israeli apartheid 2) to put some money behind the anti-war organizing going on on campus and 3) not to allow the FBI or CIA to be involved in any activities on campus including surveillance and investigating foreign students.
After many preparations for arrests, it appeared that police were going to let the protesters remain in the building until the 10 pm closing.
At 5pm another rally gathered in downtown SF attended by about two hundred people. Around 4:30 a group of young children with a few adults marched by carrying peace signs and chanting. They appeared to be a daycare or school, and this is the kind of educational activity that is lacking for youth in Amerika. Many of the signs looked like they were made by the kids, and they were enthusiastic chanters, making a strong statement for peace.
At the rally everyone we approached was eager to sign MIM's petition against the Patriot II Act. They had a clear example of increased police repression over the past few days in San Francisco and opposed expanding state authority to further repress the people.
As this rally headed down the sidewalk of Market street it was flanked by long lines of cops in riot gear on each side, with cops on motorcycles and in cars following along as well as a few busses that were clearly on hand to carry away anyone arrested. Ironically, marchers were chanted "This is what democracy looks like" surrounded by cops in riot gear on all sides. A MIM activist commented to a group of people "This is what a police state looks like." People were quick to agree. One person attending the rally had made stickers with a picture of cops in riot gear stopping a march with the words "war against dissent" on it.
Bikes Not Bombs held another critical mass ride at 5pm through the streets of the city in protest of the war. They are gathering for a ride starting at Justin Herman Plaza, every day at this time. A MIM reporter spotted them with a crowd of about 20 cyclists around 7:00pm riding slowly in the street followed by cops on motorcycle with traffic stuck moving slowly behind. Cyclists were chanting and holding anti-war signs.
One anarchist approached MIM to ask for a flyer and comment that he likes the communists at times like these because communists are not pacifists. He said he had made a statement at the 5pm rally that we should be glad that an Amerikan helicopter was downed in the war and he was booed by the crowd. We didn't hear this firsthand, but we would agree with this anarchist the defeats for the Amerikan military are progressive. At the same time we unite with pacifists in their opposition to this war and to the annihilation of the humyn race. The chant "support our troops, bring them home" has the correct anti-imperialist message for pacifists: Amerikan troops have no business anywhere in the world.
Today more news came out about police brutality and false police claims about protestor violence. At the evening march MIM encountered a young woman wearing a cast that read "courtesy of the SFPD": she had been injured by the police during a non-violent protest. This is just one of the many people brutalized by the riot cops over the past six days.
At the same time, the cops have been claiming several police were injured by protesters, as evidence that they needed to step up their repression. The worst injury to a cop during the protests was a broken leg which happened after the cop crashed his motorcycle. He claimed the accident was caused by bicycling demonstrators throwing bolts (which he was avoiding when he crashed). A San Francisco resident, who was watching out of his window at the time of the accident, witnessed and photographed the event and today posted his proof of the false claims by the police. As he wrote: "The action at the intersection of McAllister and Franklin started with a group of about 100 Critical Mass bicyclists taking over the intersection briefly, and then four motorcycle cops came up McAllister Street from Van Ness and stayed there near the crosswalk at Franklin. A few seconds later a fifth motorcycle cop arrived driving slowly and had to swerve at the last second in order not to hit one of the four cops who had already stopped. Which means he fell to the left and went boom.... the Critical Mass protestors were way ahead of the policeman who went down, and the larger group were still behind on Van Ness. In other words, there WERE no protestors anywhere near the motorcycle cop who could have thrown any so-called bolt."(1)
That the cops would have to come up with a story to blame protestors for their own motorcycle accident provides further proof that there really has not been any violence by the activists. If there was, no doubt the media would be all over it and there would be no need to fabricate stories. The major lawlessness perpetrated by the anti-war protesters over the past six days has been marching in the streets without a permit, peacefully blockading buildings that aid the mass murder of peoples around the world, and writing graffiti around the city. Much of this graffiti remained on buildings, walls and statues today proclaiming anti-war messages in chalk, spray paint, and markers.