A-Infos (en) Report on anti-war activities in san francisco

["Lyn Gerry" <redlyn@loop.com>]

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------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Sun, 22 Feb 1998 10:44:07 -0800 (PST)
From:          Laura Quilter <lquilter@igc.apc.org>
Subject:       anti-war activities in san francisco

Apologies for any redundancy - I hadn't seen a report on San Francisco's 
actions of yesterday.

Rally at Federal building began at 1:00 Saturday 2/21/98.  Lots of 
speakers; about 300 people (at a guess) in very rainy cold weather.  
Maybe 2:00, a small group of anarchists and others started banging drums 
and calling "whose streets?  OUR streets!  whose streets?  OUR streets?"  
the rally took to the streets, and took van ness for several blocks.  at 
one point the cops barricaded van ness; had their clubs out and were in 
fact pushing people and hitting them with clubs.  one young man was 
knocked down by cops and arrested; the crowd around repeatedly called 
"shame! shame!" and "let him go! let him go!" but to no avail.  
eventually the crowd went around the barricade to another street, and 
then towards the mission.  cops kept trying to get in front of the crowd, 
and to keep us on the sidewalks.  finally we were headed towards mission 
& 16th.  cops blocked us in on a street with no alleys to get away; 
separated the crowd into a big crowd on  one side of the sidewalk and a 
smaller crowd on the other; also pinched off smaller groups.  at least 
one other arrest was made; an older woman, who was held roughly and then 
literally tossed into the cop van.  the cops would not let people leave 
the larger group at this time, and held them for at least 45 minutes.  
the plan was to go and get citation papers to give to everyone, then to 
let them disperse in small groups (5 or 6); if the demonstrators got 
together again they would be arrested.  the march did not have a permit 
and this was the cops' rationale for their actions.

people on the bus afterwards were asking me about it, and saying they'd 
heard on the radio that there had been no arrests.  there were at least 
two people taken from the march in handcuffs.

wednesday night clinton is going to be in town (i believe at the fairmont)
and demonstrations are planned for 5:30.  he will be going to stanford for
"parents' day" thursday or friday and demos are planned there as well. 
saturday the 28th at noon there will be a large demonstration beginning at
dolores park. 

for peace - 

Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org

          ** No More War **        
    ** No More Civilian Deaths **  
       ** Don't Bomb Iraq! **      


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